Minding the Gap Between Information and Interpretation: questions and stories

     A few weeks ago a friend shared a video on Facebook, Inside Amy Shumer - The Universe - Uncensored. According to Bill Nye, who narrates video, the Universe exists to pass on messages to women in their twenties. The funniest part of the video is how the women interpret the "messages". (Little heads up, there are a couple F bombs in the video)
     Silliness aside, the video brings up an  important point. Getting information and interpreting it are two very  different things.
     Although both the video and this post are focused on interpreting guidance, messages from the Universe, intuition and gut feelings, the gap between information and interpretation exists even in our daily interactions. Think about how many times you've heard a friend say something and thought you knew what she meant, only to find out a few days later she was referring to some entirely different?
     Most of us have engaged in conversation for as long as we've been able to talk. We regularly exchange words with friends, co workers, family and check out clerks. We have a lot of practice conversing. Given how easy it is to mishear, misinterpret and misunderstand what's communicated in the interactions we've engaged in for years, it's kinda silly to think we aren't missing in similar ways when we interpret guidance and our own gut nudges.
     So how do we bridge the gap between information and interpretation? Practice, practice, practice. If there's a shortcut to this one, I haven't found it. You're not going to pick up the subtleties and nuances of Portuguese two months after learning to speak it.
     The misses in interpretation seem to fall roughly into six categories:
1. Not asking questions
2. Not catching the story
3. Making assumptions about context
4. Projecting
5. Falling into the right/wrong trap
6. Language mismatch
     Not asking questions - When a friend or a boss says something confusing we ask them to clarify what they said, right? Well, some of us do. Some of us allow our fear of looking stupid or feeling vulnerable because we don't already know the answer to stop us.
     I've worked with numerous clients who've received guidance they don't understand. Sometimes that guidance is received in the course of our session. Usually the client will begin asking me questions about the information they got. My response is to inquire if they've asked their guides, the Universe or their soul those questions. Most of the time they haven't. It surprises me how often that option doesn't even occur to them.
      Whether it's a set of confusing instructions from your boss or guidance that seems to make no sense....ask questions!!!!
     What if you don't know who or what you're talking to when you ask questions? Ask anyway. When your computer does something wonky and you call tech support in India, you don't know who is giving you advice on how to fix the problem. You don't have to know who you're talking to in order to ask.
      Once you've asked, it's up to you to listen for the answer. Sometimes the answers are immediate. Often they aren't. This is a different sort of conversation than the one you have with a friend over dinner. There is usually more silence. Frequently the answers are whispered or arrive in an unexpected way.
     You may not get an answer for days, weeks or even months. The answer might arrive via a dream, an snippet of conversation you overhear in coffee shop or an unexpected opportunity.
       Not catching the story - Our brain/ego thrives definitions and explanations. The brain inherently tries to put our experience together in a way that makes logical, linear sense. Something as nebulous as a gut feeling or guidance from an intangible source is a big red flag. Things that can be defined, categorized and explained are safe. Confusing messages from an unknown source are scary and dangerous.
         So your brain jumps in to offer an explanation by telling about what happened that lets you turn the "I don't know" experience into something known. This is the same mental process that leaps in to try to make us more comfortable when we're triggered. When we get triggered, the mind and ego jump in to explain by telling us a story that usually has more to do with our wounding and our relationship to the trigger than anything that's happening in the moment.
     This storytelling is also a way for your brain/ego to make itself comfortable by discounting or pushing away information that's threatening to your internal status quo.
     Sometimes catching the story can be as simple as going back to the moment when you received the guidance or felt the gut nudge and looking at what actually happened. Distinguishing between what information you got and what you told yourself about it allows you stay with "I don't know." Simple, not easy and it takes practice.
     Simplified, catching the story is all about asking questions. While this may be a new place to ask questions, the process is no different from using self-questioning as a tool to step back from taking things personally. Next post....assumptions about context and projections.

Posted via Blogaway Pro

Walking edges

   Since January of 2014 I've been living as a nomad; house sitting, pet sitting, a short  term sublet and a few days in a motel between house sits. I have a wonderful gypsy life that doesn't include a stable place to live. In the past couple weeks two friends remarked that they didn't think they could live like that. It's definitely not for every body...but what is?
     My favorite aspect of being a nomad...walking edges as a daily practice.
     Curiousity, pushing edges and taking risks is an innate part of being human. Watch a child for an hour or two and you'll see his instinctive need to taste, touch, explore and connect to the world around him. By the time we're adults that yearning to explore our edges is socialized and civilized out of many of us. In its place we're given  the need to pursue the illusions of safety and security.
     I can't help but notice the countries where the mirage of security and safety are most prevalent are also the places were people  invent things like extreme sports and adventure  vacations. The more access we have to comfort, the more driven we are to create ways to set our senses on fire and our hearts pounding.
Snow boarding after being dropped out of a helicopter or ingesting the latest designer club drug is an odd way to engage  our edge by simultaneously taking a risk and trying to control the risk. The drug will wear off.  The amazing snow board run ends when you reach the bottom of the mountain.  Neither experience may have any larger impact on your life beyond bragging rights or being able say "I did that."
     Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes it's not. The thing about those edges that makes our hearts beat faster is our engagement with the unknown. The unknown is the primordial, unformed, anything  could happen place that  reminds us we are not really in control of squat. Most of us are both attracted to and repelled by the unknown.
     We plan. We schedule. We have goals. Those things aren't inherently detrimental, but our attachment to them often is. Unless we consciously hold them lightly, our plans, goals and schedules reinforce the illusion that  we know what is going to happen next. That process of shoring up the mirage of safety and security may be the ultimate game of make believe.
     We schedule.We plan. Our attachment to those plans lets us pretend we know how this day is going to unfold. But almost every day there are bits of  random where the unknown comes to  visit. As long as those intrusions are small and limited in scope, we can hold the unknown as a belief  or idea and not an operating principle.
     When I decided to throw where I'm sleeping this week up  in the air, I invited the unknown to become my traveling companion. Impermanence and change are no longer ideas or beliefs  that I can keep at a comfortable distance.  Impermanence sits on my pillow when I wake up in the morning. Change slips into my duffel bag beside my tee shirts each time I move to a new house sit.
     Home, as the familiar place where our stuff lives, can be both a source of comfort and identity. Part of how we define ourselves often includes where we live and how we express ourselves in that space. The solidness of home adds to our sense of stability and security.
In the first couple months of throwing "home" up in the air,  I had a powerful flash of clarity. I  could  either learn to live in trust or spend a lot of time worrying, stressing and panicking over things I cound't predict, anticipate or control.
     Simple, not easy.  Uncertainty can be both amazing and terrifying! Having the unknown as my travel buddy changed  and is changing my level of  presence moment to moment. My ego still wants to get attached to plans. Walking the edge of change and impermanence on a daily basis, it's easier to let go of that story and be here, rather than skidding off into next week.
     Clarity is easier when I'm more present. I hadn't realized how much my body being here  while my mind and emotions were in last year or next week cluttered my ability to make decisions in the moment. When I'm more here, even the pull of the past or my own wounding is just part of  the moment. No more or less important than anything else. So the choices I make are more often in line with who I am now rather than who I was.
     Living with something as basic as where I'm sleeping in a constant state of flux I can't help but see how changeable everything else is too. Choosing not to feed my egos need to predict, anticipate or know what's going to happen lets me be surprised...by myself, by other people and by how things can seem disastrous one moment and fall neatly into place the next.
     There's  tremendous freedom in traveling with the unknown. That freedoms is bigger than not being tethered by a lease, a mortgage or the need to take care of the stuff  I've accumulated. When home keeps changing, change can become home.

Posted via Blogaway Pro