Crack Your Code: Decoding Time | August 2020

Welcome to the second in my five-part series.

We're looking at new ways you can be in relationship with time.

Last month I talked about Stillness. This month, we'll focus on Complexity.

When clients first come to me, they will often describe what they are feeling as some kind of 'stuckness'.

They can't move forward, can't decide, they are anxious. In each case - they are having extreme difficulty being at ease with, and moving through that stuck place.

What I notice is this 'stuckness' is very often coming from a tremendous pressure, they are overwrought with a tsunami of thoughts, sensations and emotions.

If any of this sounds familiar to you - welcome to your humanity.

Here's the delicious secret about this particular inner landscape of time. We are all traversing this groove, and throughout our lives, we'll be back and forth many, many times, working with the complexity of our thoughts.

So, how can you crack the code and get the perspective you'll need to move through what has you stuck?

Your mind is racing, you keep jetting from one thought to another, without resolution. You begin to consider options, only to hop to another thread. Each thread has a myriad layers of connectivity and complexity, and you can sense there's a simple solution - some way all these threads connect, but you can't stay with one thing long enough to capture it.

So, you double-down, tell yourself to focus, try harder, try longer, all without moving the dial. You decide you'll hole up, disconnect, unplug, until you figure it out.

Only what happens is the more you become preoccupied with the number and complexity of your ideas, isolating from others and cycling thought patterns, the harder it is to land the plane, and resolve those ideas.

The more you try to pin down the pieces, the further out of reach the whole collage gets.

The resolve, the salve for complexity is permeability. It may feel counter-intuitive, but if you're willing to give it a try, shifting to a permeable state will set your mind free.

Einstein was famous for filling a room of chalk boards full of equations, and standing in front of them for hours, pondering. At last, he would grab his coat, and head outside, get on the first bus that came by, and go for a ride. He needed to see something, anything else.

Upon his return, he'd walk straight to the piece of the puzzle he had been fretting, and resolve the issue. What was his secret? Breaking the chain of patterns by exposing himself to what was 'other'. It was only then, that he could assemble the collage of thoughts and images, so it made sense, and hung together.

Here are a few ways to move from your spinning complexity into the spaciousness of resolve and equilibrium:

­1. Open up to the world - rather than isolating until you've got it figured out, toss the snarl of threads aside. Get out some reading you haven't touched in a while. Go outside and read some road signs. Answer your calls, respond to your inbox - and, try responses you've never considered before.

­2. Reconnect with your body - you need to reconnect with the messages your body is always giving you. When we get hyper-focused, we often block out those messages. SO, get up and head down the road. If the weather permits, sit or lay in the grass. Ground yourself in unexpected ways - try a mud bath. Take a slow-walk walk, try a new yoga pose. Have a brownie.

­3. Reconnect with friends and make new ones - allow new things to touch you about your friends. Reconnecting with people who love you can re-kindle what you love about them, and yourself. Be a sponge, share your insights, feelings, delights, sorrows. Making a new friend puts you out of the familiar context you tend to come from. Hearing your answers out loud shakes up the clutter in your mind, and makes room for options and new considerations.

I'd love to hear your experiences of how you're Cracking Your Code. You can leave comments here, or email me at: christine@kahanecoaching.com

Next month, we'll be taking a look at the other side of Complexity - Permeability

#CoachingforTransformation, #Transform, #Stillness, #CracktheCode, #Emptiness, #Complexity

[This series was inspired by the work of Dee Joy Coulter, EdD]