It's not about the chicken, Harry. It's about the last 20 years.
My brother once told me a story that he heard from the Argentinian author and consultant, Fred Kofman. The story went something like this.
Kofman is in a restaurant having dinner. I picture a small restaurant, buzzing with conversation.
After a little while it becomes apparent that the conversation of an elderly couple nearby is getting more and more tense.
This continues until everyone else in the restaurant goes quiet in one of those moments of serendipity. Just at that moment, the woman says to the man, 'It's not about the chicken, Harry. It's about the last 20 years.'
It's not about the chicken, Harry.
I've thought about this a lot.
In a long piece of writing I shared in 2020, as part of my way of offering something to the world to help in the face of global crisis, I reflected on the improbable emotional and physical response created in me by difficulty choosing suits for the ushers to wear at my wedding.
On the surface the response - full-on threat response, a shutting down of almost all my body and mind - was completely disproportionate to the situation. Until you think about Harry.
It's not about the suits, Robbie. It's about the last 30 years.
In a session with a client last year we did some work on old stories and old experiences. We looked at them again and considered them in the cold light of day, decades on. We saw how she had carried those experiences with her.
At the end of the conversation, she said, 'It's like a time vortex has closed.'
That's what's available to us if we face with curiosity these situations that we sometimes find ourselves in. That was the title of the article where I told the story about the suits: curiosity is the antidote to contraction. (And every time I say that phrase I need to give credit to Guy Sengstock, who I first heard express something like that many years ago, as, again, I tell in that article.)
When we can see how a pattern has rolled on with us through the years to show up in the present moment, then something changes. We create a space between us and it: no longer does it run our life. It becomes something we can see.
In adult psychological development theory they call this (somewhat opaquely) the subject/object move. Instead of being subject to this pattern, it becomes an object we can see and respond to.
That's what happened to me with the suits. Instead of a moderately worry-inducing thing (a wedding is not nothing!) creating a full-on threat response in me... gradually, things shift. I know that keeping everyone happy is a deeply held pattern in me. And then, after I've seen it, when it happens:
Oh, I'm doing that thing again. Interest. Curiosity.
Sometimes, you need help.
'Robbie, you're doing that thing.'
It's one of those things that can make everything different in the space of a few minutes. An insight which can make the whole world different: when we see how it made perfect sense for us to behave like that once, to respond like that at one point in our life, to see things in this way when we first saw them. In fact, it was the most skilful thing we could do at the time.
But that's the past.
And seeing that can be a rush.
The rush is of insight.
And it's of love. When we REALLY understand where a pattern comes from, we can appreciate it. We can hold the little boy or girl, the adolescent or young person who came up with this coping mechanism. We can say 'good job. I wouldn't be here without you. Thank you.'
We can appreciate it. We can love it. And when we love it, it doesn't need to hold on so tightly any more.
I saw this demonstrated by David Treleaven: hold one hand as a fist and use the other to try and prise it open. For most people, their fist clenches. That's how we usually try and deal with these parts of ourselves. We fight hem.
Now hold one hand as a fist and spread the other hand over it, like you're covering it with paper in rock, paper, scissors. Now gently squeeze your fist with the hand covering it. For most people, the fist gently relaxes. That's saying 'Good job.' That's love.
Remember: it's not about the suits, Robbie. It's about the last 30 years.
Remember: curiosity is the antidote to contraction.
Remember: when we love the part of ourselves that does this, then finally we can relax.
Remember: understanding ourselves can be a real rush.
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
Read the archive of the 12-minute blog here.
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