What are you noticing?

I met with my good friend Warren Williams today and one of the things we talked about was the act of noticing. As I drove home, I started to ponder…. 

I often mention awareness in the context of Amatsu – the awareness of all the subtle messages that our body is transmitting to us if we  listen, such as how a certain food makes us feel, the sensation of thirst or a nagging ache that won’t resolve, etc.  

Awareness and noticing go hand in hand, but to me there is a difference. I feel as though awareness is broad, open, a constant but relaxed listening with all of our senses. When honed, it could even be our sixth sense. 

Noticing somehow feels more active, more focused and more part of our will to engage with the world around us. When we are noticing, we spot changes in the way a person behaves that might suggest a mood shift, we realise that someone has gone to a special effort on our behalf, we see the gradual seasonal changes as they happen. In noticing, we are so much more mentally alive than when we are going through the motions so we see opportunities when they arise. 

We can become also more grateful and more appreciative. In particular, when we notice what the people around us do for us instead of taking it for granted we feel looked after and lucky. These might not even be people that are close to us – perhaps someone who sweeps our street or who lets us go ahead of them in a queue when we are running late. It’s these connections, large and small, that make our world more beautiful and joyful. 

Of course, noticing can also be a negative thing. If we find ourselves focusing on problems and finding fault we will find them everywhere! Try to draw yourself back from internal criticism and judgments and let your noticing be more uplifting, more curious and interested. It makes your mind a much nicer place to be!

So this week, I’m opening my ears and eyes and noticing to see what treasures come my way.

Why not try it too and let me know how you get on!

 

Boost your creativity

I distinctly remember many years ago, my oldest friend telling me that she wasn’t creative. A super- intelligent solicitor and a talented linguist perhaps, but not creative. Fast forward a few years and this wonderful friend is bringing happiness to so many people with her intricate, unusual and spectacularly detailed celebration cake designs. So, maybe she was creative after all..!

Over the years, I have started to appreciate how important creativity is – for everyone. Like my friend, we often believe that if we are not an artist, a photographer, a ceramicist or an actor this means we are not creative. We pigeon- hole ourselves as practical or business- minded, scientific or perhaps someone who appreciates the arts, but has no real talent in performing them.
I’d like to challenge you to think differently.
Why?
Because I think we need creativity to have a place in each and every one of our lives.

To me, creativity simply means having the ability to think from a different angle, to challenge convention and to make that idea, however small, into a reality. That may sound daunting, but the belief that we need to do something big and impressive to be creative is what stops most of us in our tracks before we’ve really tried. Maybe we feel if we can’t be amazing at something, we had better not embarrass ourselves with a meagre offering. There are plenty of talented people out there who could do much better, we might tell ourselves.
I want to encourage you to think less about ‘competing’ with other people, or even worrying about someone else’s opinion. The creativity I’m talking about is less about the end product – a perfectly performed piece of music or a stunning pavlova- it’s about what happens within you when you allow yourself to be playful. It’s like working a new set of muscles. It might be difficult, awkward and even slightly painful at first, but you start to grow and realise a newness in yourself that you didn’t know was there.

As with most of my invitations to change, I suggest starting small.
Buy a colouring book (my favourite at the moment is Joanna Basford’s Secret Garden) and coloured pencils from your local art shop and spend an hour colouring, trying not to be conventional with your colour choices. How about purple grass and a gold sky?
Go to a different food shop and choose 5 ingredients only and challenge yourself to make something inventive from your selection . As you are planning your menu, allow yourself to mentally ‘taste’ what might go with what. Doing this, I have found that almonds go really well with green beans and miso paste and roasted vegetables are a very good partnership!(You can see a picture of my summer invention – a vegan strawberry and cardamom cheesecake!)

Even something as simple as going to buy plants for your garden or pots based on their contrasting colours or scents can help to open your creative channels.
The reason I am so keen on creativity and why I specialise in coaching creatively, is that it can be an invaluable life tool. When we are creative, we can tackle problems or difficult decisions more easily. We are able to stand in different viewpoints and see different perspectives. We see richness and variety in simple things. Most importantly, I think we have more fun!
Boosting that inner creativity that you already have gives you more options. Over thinking tends to be circular, repetitive, frantic and anxious – not great tools for problem solving! Looking at things creatively gives fresh perspective and a lightness. I encourage my clients to visualise and use metaphor to solve their dilemmas, big and small. This ability to step back and imagine shows us possibilities that our over-analysing might have missed.
And by starting to inject creativity into our daily lives, we get better at it. We flex that new muscle and soon find it to be strong. Before we know it, we find ourselves able to adapt and be flexible to change in a way we couldn’t before. We have more and better ideas.
Sound good?
Get those coloured pencils out!

If you are interested in coaching creatively then please send me an email at lorna@lornaclansey.com or call 07841 918899.

Embracing contentment

It is a lovely day today and I have brought my ‘office’ to the local lido to work by the pool. It’s a beautiful way to spend a Wednesday. The sun is warm on my skin, the water is turquoise, the sky is blue. It is glorious!

 

These summer moments are so precious and so rare. Time slows down a little and cares lift. There is a sense of freedom and expansion. The warmth eases our bodies – muscles soften, tension melts and we feel as though everything is alright after all. But the thing is, being a grown- up means that there is always a responsibility, a task, something we need to be doing to sustain us and the people around us so it’s not always so easy to melt effortlessly into the summer days and let things drift.
The idea for this post came a few weeks ago, when I met a group of new people, one of whom was a very warm, successful, vibrant and creative businesswoman. I overheard her telling another friend ‘ I never stop working. There is still so much to do; still so much I want to achieve!’. I really liked and admired her. She was attractive, enthusiastic and obviously loved her work, but at the same time, I felt a pang of sadness. Would it ever be enough? Would there always be something elusive just around the corner? Could she ever be satisfied? And of course, she isn’t in her own in this. Maybe you know those feelings too? There is always something that we need to put our attention towards, something that needs energy, planning, work. It might be developing your career, keeping on top of the garden, a new project at home. It can feel very tiring. And how can we cultivate happiness if we are always striving?
So I started to think about embracing contentment.
Summer provides the perfect opportunity to practice contentment – and the key word here is practice. If we want to change our life – our selves, our habits, our thoughts – then we need to practice. I find that we can add a lightness to our life journey, by saying to ourselves that we are experimenting with and practicing a new way of being. It doesn’t have to be forever and if it doesn’t serve us well, then we can adapt or discard it.

Isn’t it easier to say: I’m experimenting with eating more raw food’ than saying ‘I’m becoming a vegan’?

By practicing contentment, we are not saying that we don’t want to move forward in life or that we have no dreams, ambitions or projects that we want to realise. We’re just taking the time out to say thank you to Life, to notice the good things and to give ourselves a break.
The wonderful Persian poet Hafiz wrote ‘Keep squeezing drops of  the Sun, From your prayers, your work and your music…from the sacred hands and glance of your beloved’
So for now, my drops of Sun are being squeezed from longer evenings, sun warmed berries, swimming outside, breakfast in the garden, walking in the park, cooking with my doors open, a slow weekday morning with my husband…

September, and the back-to-school feeling will come soon enough with its fresh start and its sense of new beginnings. For now, I invite you to be at peace with yourself and the things you haven’t done yet. Trust that ideas and visions for the future are bubbling within you and need time to settle, ferment and transform without your input. Look where you can squeeze your drops of sun from and embrace contentment for a while.

Happy summer to you all!

( I’m taking my own advice so my next blog will be on Wednesday 23rd July!)