Getting Unstuck

Get­ting Unstuck — There are tech­niques to increase our abil­i­ty to live from our skill set. Here are a few.

Want to learn more about this topic?

---

I do love it when you comment!

Here are two, fol­low­ing last week’s arti­cle on Sur­viv­ing Tal­ent:

Err, you seem to be assum­ing that every­one has a tal­ent, per­haps some repressed artis­tic abil­i­ty etc,. Per­son­al­ly I don‘t have any that oth­ers would val­ue, though I like writ­ing, paint­ing etc. In your exam­ple the per­son has excep­tion­al abil­i­ty that you and oth­ers can see. My prob­lem is how does that relate to us mediocre artists.

And:

I find it so amaz­ing to be with my kids in school and see­ing all the dif­fer­ent chil­dren with their sprout­ing tal­ents. It’s pret­ty easy to spot at an ear­ly age, 2nd grade and 4th grade. I so want to embrace my kids’ pas­sions and tal­ents, encour­age them, let their lit­tle lights shine. I’m look­ing for­ward to hear­ing about how to recov­er my pas­sions and tal­ents, they have been so buried. I want to let my kids see and watch my own growth not just hear my words. It’s so much more pow­er­ful to be an example.

The first comment addresses an important issue. Let me unpack.

Yes, I do believe that every­one had tal­ent—where I go off the rails is that I tend to use “art” illus­tra­tions to make my “tal­ent” point. The issue with a word like “tal­ent” is that it is most­ly applied to artists and actors. 

Much of my own skill set is in graph­ics arts like paint­ing and pho­tog­ra­phy, and, of course, I write. A lot. I was also a pret­ty good psy­chother­a­pist (giv­en my gift for gab…)

Not what I mean, though. I’m not talking about artistry, but rather about Mastery.

A great Zen sto­ry: The abbot at a Zen Monastery died. The Monastery need­ed a new abbot, so anoth­er abbot was sent to pick one. He inter­viewed all of the monks, but was not sat­is­fied.
He went to the kitchen for a bite to eat, and noticed the cook carv­ing meat. With great skill. They struck up a con­ver­sa­tion.
Abbot: Your knife-work is excel­lent.
Cook: Sharp knife, great care. I avoid the bones.
Abbot: How often do you sharp­en your knife?
Cook: Once–24 years ago, –when I became the cook.
The cook was imme­di­ate­ly installed as the abbot.

In Zen, we speak of “skill­ful means.” This is the appli­ca­tion of tal­ent to the task at hand. There­fore, one might be a skill­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tor, a skill­ful par­ent, or a skill­ful math­e­mati­cian. My dad, for exam­ple, was all of these.

Sec­ond­ly, note the clause, “…that oth­ers would val­ue…” This was a huge issue for my clients. Peo­ple get stuck on “oth­ers” because they are con­cerned with how “what­ev­er it is they’re think­ing of mak­ing, doing or being” will come across to oth­ers.

This out­ward-look­ing comes from our upbringing.

Good parents ask questions, less elegant parents provide judgements.

Ask­ing a child, “What does your (project) mean?” is open-end­ed, and takes away any critique. 

Saying,“You’ll nev­er be an artist” begs the ques­tion, “Accord­ing to whom?”

I sus­pect every­one either knows about, or can unearth (see below) their skill-set. The lucky few may have picked up on it as chil­dren and just car­ried on into an adult career. Oth­ers dis­cov­ered some­thing perk­ing dur­ing Uni­ver­si­ty, or young adulthood. 

I think imme­di­ate­ly of a young man, who is deaf, that Dar taught. He loved car­pen­try. Dar found ways for him to build stuff at school, got him into a Col­lege car­pen­try program.He works for a fur­ni­ture com­pa­ny, and in his spare time goes to 3rd world coun­tries on build­ing projects. This is tal­ent, being applied.

The second comment

Notice how this teacher can spot the “not yet repressed” tal­ents her stu­dents pos­sess. Good teach­ers and par­ents can do a ton to encour­age students/kids to fol­low their own lead, and keep pas­sion­ate tal­ent alive.

When I was in grade 11, we had a stu­dent teacher in our Eng­lish class for a whole year. Kathy was a great teacher, quite fun­ny, and adorable to look at, just what a 16-year-old wants. 

But what I remem­ber most was her focus on get­ting me to write. She did­n’t let me get away with lazy writ­ing, was hon­est with me, yet deeply encour­ag­ing. This is men­tor­ing at its best. 

Here’s a line from the above quote:

“I’m look­ing for­ward to hear­ing about how to recov­er my pas­sions and tal­ents, they have been so buried. I want to let my kids see and watch my own growth, not just hear my words. It’s so much more pow­er­ful to be an example.”

Notice the “…they have been so buried…” clause. In Wayne-speak, this would be: “I have, and con­tin­ue to, bury my talent.” 

I’m not nit-picking.

I would then sug­gest she say, 

“I notice my ten­den­cy to sti­fle my tal­ent, and here is what I will do right now, to change that.”

99% of ther­a­py is help­ing clients to moti­vate them­selves to do some­thing. Or bet­ter, to stop stop­ping them­selves, while start­ing a new behav­iour. Many, most, are addict­ed to behav­iour pat­terns that are get­ting them nowhere.

Here are Eight ways to get on with let­ting your­self be you.

---

1) Start with your senses

Pas­sion is the word we use to describe the pleas­ant, hot, tingly, ener­getic feel­ing we get when we choose to turn our­selves on. 

I was, for exam­ple, at a clas­si­cal music con­cert, and a vio­lin solo brought me to tears. I did not take from that that I should learn to play vio­lin, but that I miss going to clas­si­cal music con­certs. I have a tal­ent for immers­ing myself in music.

Ded­i­cate time to explor­ing your senses.

• Touch: Go for a mas­sage, and for body­work. Roll around in sand. Dance. As you do, just be with the feel­ing. Make phys­i­cal con­tact. Hug more.
• Sight: Go to a gallery. Go to a mall and look at peo­ple. Watch a visu­al­ly stim­u­lat­ing movie. Stare into some­one’s eyes, gen­tly, for 5 minutes.
• Sound: Go to a con­cert or two. Learn and prac­tice good com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Tell a friend a sto­ry from your life that is meaningful,
• Smell: go to a green­house, a cheese fac­to­ry, a farm, a Lush store. Pay atten­tion to the sto­ries the smells gen­er­ate for you.
• Taste: Eat, drink, be merry—try new things, exper­i­ment with the famil­iar, and share the expe­ri­ence with a friend or two.

All of this is designed to get you firm­ly in your body, hav­ing a full-bod­ied expe­ri­ence. This is how pas­sion is re-ignited.

2) Visu­al­ize

Close your eyes. Imag­ine vis­it­ing an old, inter­est­ing house. As you open the front door, rec­og­nize the house as “your secret house.” Go in, look around, see what’s there. Per­haps each room rep­re­sents a peri­od in your life. As you walk around, look for signs of what inter­est­ed you as a child, a teen, etc. Make note, men­tal­ly, of what you discover.

3) Shad­ow dancing

Same house, but head for the Shad­ow room. (You’ll find it!) It’s pret­ty dark in there, eh? 

Imag­ine dim light, and a place to sit or lie down. Imag­ine that the room is filled with things about your­self that you have for­got­ten, neglect­ed, or been scared by. 

Imag­ine that you are safe and secure, and can look at the con­tents, one at a time, sort of like being in a movie. Invite one thing to come for­ward, and ask it to explain itself.

4) Do some­thing challenging

It might be hav­ing an hon­est con­ver­sa­tion, per­form­ing at a tal­ent time, singing in the show­er, dress­ing dif­fer­ent­ly, eat­ing a food you’ve resist­ed, rid­ing a zip line, sky div­ing, or spend­ing time alone (with­out distractions.) 

Med­i­tate every day for a month. Walk every day, no iPod, just look­ing. Spend time with some­one who does what you want to do, and pick their brain.

5) Take a course

Think of some­thing you might be pas­sion­ate about. Find a course at a com­mu­ni­ty col­lege, local teach­ing cen­tre, library, wher­ev­er, enroll and see what happens.

One fiend want­ed to learn fur­ni­ture-mak­ing. She not only enrolled, she talked sev­er­al friends into it too. Her house is rapid­ly fill­ing with projects. Is she Dun­can Fife? Does it matter?

6) Up your tol­er­ance for yourself

We most­ly stop our­selves (self-sen­sor) out of the fear, “What will every­one think (of me)?” Answer: what­ev­er (if any­thing) they think. 

Spend­ing your life hid­ing accom­plish­es pre­cise­ly noth­ing. And noth­ing can give you the courage to act. All you can do is act.

Crit­ics will be crit­ics. Many are intim­i­dat­ed by suc­cess, or even by peo­ple who just do stuff. They say, “You can’t do, think, be… that.” 

What they real­ly mean is they are mak­ing them­selves uncom­fort­able, and rather than deal with their own issues, they demand that you stop doing what they are mak­ing them­selves uncom­fort­able over. 

You are who you are, and you like­ly are a lot more “inter­est­ing” than you let on, or let out. Time to let go of check­ing over your shoul­der to see if an adult is watch­ing, to become who you real­ly are, and to make real what you’ve been hiding.

7) Show others

To use the above illus­tra­tion, the teacher could pick a group of top stu­dents, and form an after school, “Make Mag­ic” club. Each per­son would state a project they want to do (a tal­ent they want to work on) and the rest of the group pro­vides feed­back and encouragement. 

The teacher could lead with a project of her own. 

And you don’t need to be a teacher to do this. Start your own “club” with peo­ple you trust, and have at it!

---