NLP - Five Key Questions

These five key questions were suggested to me by Ben Shoshan, who is a mind set / executive coach working for Si Group. They are meant to be used when something negative happens, to reframe the situation, and change the usual reaction:

1. What could be good about this?
2. What's not perfect, yet?
3. Who can help?
4. How can I have some fun with this?
5. What can be learnt from the whole thing?

This approach is really powerful. It draws on the learning to be found in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). I'm reading a fascinating book about this at the moment called "NLP Solutions" by Sue Knight.

I have tried it a couple of times. Taking each question in turn, and in order, I found that they create real actions that lift me out of the tendency to become negative.

Brainwashed Podcasts

As regular readers will know I have discovered podcasts over the last few weeks. I have already mentioned some of the podcasts I have been listening to. My top three at the moment are Richard Vobes, Podcast Paul and Adam Curry's Daily Source Code.

One that I have really enjoyed listening to whilst working is a music one called Brainwashed. You can link to it here. Each episode is about an hour long, and comes out weekly. Music featured is on the fringes of music - one week they featured industrial music of the early 90s - Cabaret Voltaire, Thomas Leer etc. The latest issue features music from United Dairies - home of Nurse with Wound amongst others. If this sort of music is your thing, it's well worth a listen. Readers of The Wire magazine would really like it.

A poem to Desmond Swords

A few days ago someone posted a poem as a comment to this post . I say, someone, because I followed the link to their own blogger profile and found a host of names and aliases. I think he is Desmond Swords - but not for certain! He is also Scalljah, Sloppy Bob, and Jan Manzwotz. The writer behind these names has series of blogs here, here and here. As well as being part of a group poetry blog here.

I thought I would return the compliment and post a poem to the Desmond Sword blog as a comment. I've copied it here too:

Yes is an s


blue light
water shine
flickers on down inside
the right-sided find
when the green blade

which rasps loudly

has passed downto beyond where
all that has clasped
has grasped
and let go

yes is an s
an expression
recessed
until

the menace of a huge open space
repressed and defaced
will open and re-appear
no fear

put it down
don’t let it in
shed some light now
fight now
just for spite now

playful but bitter
couldn’t tell who hit her
or when the game is ended
erased like
the reaction hoped and

a piece of the action.

Reflection on a birthday

For my birthday, a photo reflecting on things....

44 today.

Characters in Reiki

A few months ago I took my Reiki Second Degree, and have been working with the skills since. Over the months since I did the First Degree (nearly a year ago now), I have encountered a growing number of characters during reiki treatments. Some of these will be guides and characters from the past. It's strange to come across these characters.

Sometimes they are just a feeling of presence within the room - at other times they are a vivid person who I can actually see. Often they come to me with a message or suggestion.

I enjoy receiving these intuitions, and look forward to receiving more. I am contemplating moving forwards to reiki master some point soon. We shall see.

It is part of the inner working, trying to understand the meaning beneath everything. The biggest journey we take in our lives is the journey within...

from the viewpoint

from the viewpoint

you get a view of the estuary
for a penny in the slot of this telescope

light draws pencils in the landscape
and pokes the sun in the eye

it escapes into another moment of uncertainty
where lines of edges have scolded me

blue light reflects my eyes within a glance
a second's image focused then lost

edges cut through moist thickened air
watching coastline like a novel with no ending

it is a sense where trees in sand look like
something from another time another climate

and being part of changing elements is being
someone else's clothes turning inside out

but then land and sea never could agree
choosing erosion, not combination.

Freud's da Vinci

Stefan Beyst has been in contact with me. He has a webpage which sets out some of the shortcomings of Freud's work on Leonardo da Vinci. It is a beautiful page, with lovely illustrations, and a well-argued set of points.

Stefan is one of a large number of people who have been looking at this weblog because they were searching for information about Freud and da Vinci. I seem to have come up high in the google search ratings on this one, thanks to the earlier post which I made when I read the book.

Look at me tree

Re: Flickr magic email
Originally uploaded by Stuart Eglin.

Here is a photo I took a couple of months ago. It was taken in some wild terrain near where I live. It's a tree in mid-winter - and the bark just looks like an eye!

I'm experimenting with Flickr. If it's as easy as it seems to be, there'll be a lot more images on this weblog soon.

Sleep Wanted

Sometimes sleep deprivation just creeps up and whacks you on the back of the head. Today is one of those days. Wow!

Soundtrack for an imaginary day

Lifting, climbing, but doing so very very slowly.

From a period of pain, stasis and freezing.

Music accumulating, gathering for listening. Music for inspiration.

A choice for a working: for a certain mood or mode -

1) David Sylvian - Blemish

[a soundtrack from the beyond the realms of pain and falling apart. Still difficult to listen to after so many plays, but compulsive all the same.]

2) David Sylvian - The Good Son vs The Only Daughter

[remixes of the 'blemish' album. A heap of remixers take the basic materials and do something diverse and splendid with it. New stuff, new thoughts, new sounds and ideas.]

3) Sigur Ros - Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do

[an EP from this Icelandic band, the soundtrack to work by the choreographer Merce Cunningham. Three pieces with sounds from everywhere, even a music box. A journey of uncertainty.]

4) Terje Rypdal - Varder: Live at Molde Festival 2004

[avant jazz guitarist meets heavy metal. Rypdal makes yet another trip into classical music and comes back with something huge. Not heard this yet - looking forward to it.]

5) Robert Fripp String Quintet - Kan-non Power

[prog rock meets baroque! From soundscapes for the yearning of the soul, to the precision of Bach.]

6) John Paul Jones - Steel your thunder

[live album from former bass player with Led Zeppelin, taking in ambient and soundscape. Is the guitarist Fripp?]

7) Bjork - Medulla

[back to Iceland for new adventures in low fi and voice. Human Beatbox for the 21st century. Robert Wyatt brings sensibility and melody, Bjork finds her soul resonating. No-one anywhere near where she is.]

8) Matching Mole - Matching Mole

[early Robert Wyatt, post-Soft Machine. Out of work jazz musician does pop music. Is 'O Caroline' the most beautiful love song you ever heard?]

9) Can - Future Days

[kraut rock does funk music way ahead of its time. It took until 2005 for the world to catch up with these people...]

10) Brian Eno / Jah Wobble - Spinner

[been looking for this album for years. Deleting stuff is so infuriating. Heard a couple of tracks, love it. Wobble as the William Blake of our century. Restless traveller.]

11) Harold Budd - Avalon Sutra

[what do you mean, it's his last album? Retiring? What a way to go! The perfection of ambient, depth and beauty.]

...and we take the 11 discs (12 if you count Budd as 2xCDs) on a trip through the imaginary day, to a serene place...

Blogger Crashes!

OK, it's a defined law of computing that things go really well for a while, so you stop backing up your posts before sending them to the weblog. Then, just as you put the finishing touches to a great post, and hit the publish button, blogger decides to crash and lose your post. I have posted an entry called "Soundtrack for an imaginary day" earlier today, then it completely disappeared. I have re-written it and posted it again, but it has disappeared again. The second version is saved so I should be able to post it once Blogger recovers. Meanwhile this is a short post that will probably disappear too!

Thoreau

I regularly read the weblog of Greg Perry. Today he posted a quote from Henry David Thoreau which drew me across to his weblog where does regular posts of extracts from the journals of Thoreau. Today's quote is great - go and have a look.

This quote resonates with me, because I am just lifting out of the winter blues and trying to get the productivity levels up. Time for some ambitious goals.

Podcast Paul talks about bullying

I recently listened to Paul Nicholls' podcast from last week (I'm getting behind with these things!) He used show 27 to look at the issue of bullying. It is well worth a listen - follow the link and click on show 27 to download the mp3 file.

Paul is a solicitor, so his comments about tackling bullying are really interesting. He reveals how he was bullied at school, and talks about that, and then offers clear advice to parents to support children who are being bullied. This is a serious issue, well worth the time he spends on it. He helps with the real issue of making something happen when parents can often feel powerless to help.

Drama for the soul

Last night I went to a local drama group, to see whether I should join them. I have thought about getting involved with a drama group for a while now. It's one of those quietly written resolutions or ambitions that I never seem to get to. So, last night I went and watched the Riverside Players as they rehearsed a play for performance in a couple of weeks. The play, "The Tuna Fish Eulogy" by Lindsay Price, was a marvellous play. There were just four actors in it - it was performed to an amazing standard. This is a play that uses overlapping voices and overlayered texts to great effect.

I was incredibly impressed. Now I need to think what the next move should be. I'm not convinced that I should join the drama group just yet - I have no experience. I think I need to find a workshop or something where I can gain some skills first. I also have been thinking for a while about getting some time with a voice coach to learn how to breathe properly and project my voice.

Comments are welcome - I'm going to do something - I just need to be clear about the next step.

Meanwhile - I haven't forgotten podcasting. I've just been overwhelmed with other things. I'm still listening to Richard Vobes and Paul Nicholls regularly and gleaning ideas from a host of others too. I'm a few days away from jumping in at the deep end and having a go...

Words drip down like stains

Fresh from the keyboard - words that make the first cut of a poem:

Words drip down like stains

I

Words
drip down like stains on the side of the soul
when the meaning that you sent was clear as hearts
and all that was spent

Don’t remember everything then – that’s all at sight
and I will regret from the moment my mouth opens
best left aside, underneath and always
that’s the best I can offer

A single rose, a symbol of the shows
the every expression that I ever gave to you
or made for you, then leapt over rushes and bushes
like some kleptomaniac crunch of a shower.

II

Words
flow out like spit down the chin
the sin I’m in, the skin I’m in
remembered conversations

Everything speaks to me like the
genuflections of reflections in the glass
of my mind, your kind should stop
being sharp to mine

Then the words, the often heard
in each moment that I offered
would be as clear as the hurting
now it’s all forgotten.