| Of all the challenges I face, it’s dealing with difficult feelings that slow me down and/or knock me out of play for a bit. This course I’m taking, which I’m loving, has some great suggestions for working with strong feelings so you don’t get side-swiped by them. The tool I was working with this week is called ‘Proximity’.
I wanted to test it out it as I hadn’t heard from my partner in over a day and I was getting worried. Each time I called him, I just got his answering message. He’s not the best at keeping in touch, but I was spending too much time fussing about it, so I decided to try the ‘Proximity’ tool and change my perspective. The tool is based on a sports analogy. Let’s say I’m playing soccer and I get knocked down badly. My nose is bleeding and my body feels bruised and I’m obviously, focused on my pain and injuries. But what if I switched my perspective to that of the team coach? He/she would be concerned about me, and want to help me get off the field and get medical attention, but the coach would not lose sight of the game and the importance of keeping things moving. Or, what if I moved my perspective to the fans? Some of them might be feeling a lot of sympathy for me. Did I need that kind of support now? I didn’t think so. Or, what if I took the perspective of the team owners? As they watch from an air-conditioned box up high, they’ve seen dozens of injuries and probably aren’t fussed by mine unless its was serious enough to put me out of play for while. They’re only concern is about the next play on the field. And how about the perspective of the media helicopter filming the game? Their interests are on what’s going to happen next and not miss a moment. After thinking about the various options, I decided to use the helicopter view. I imagined the helicopter driver had seen hundreds of plays gone wrong and just accepted them as part of what happens. His/her job was to catch a quick shot of an injured player, then get right back into the action of who was going to win the game. So, since I had already experienced several occurrences of my partner not being reachable over the years, I decided to treat this an another missed play and just assume he’d either lost his phone or was out of power, From the distance of the sky, it all seemed like no big deal, which enabled me to zoom out of my concerned feeling and put my attention on the rest of my day. Of course, a few hours later, I’d heard from my partner (his battery had gone dead and he hadn’t realized it.) The details aren’t important but what was significant was that I spent almost ‘0’ energy on the situation. And that felt good. I hope you give this ‘perspective tool’ a try. It will save you a lot of energy which you can then use to put into creating an even better game. Let me know if you use it. I LOVE to hear how people respond to the tools I’m giving you. Your devoted coach, |
