Of late I have spent a lot of my time “noticing”. It has always been something I have done and use it as a skill in my life and work. I see possibilities in places others don’t and I can make connections and grow them. I have been imbedding practices into my daily life, for me and work, but mostly I will selfishly say me. If I am not walking my talk, how can I talk my walk.
I’m choosing to notice more, to make me more, so that people around me get more.
We’ve had a big 12 months and changes a plenty. We made bold statements about the “great pause” and how we rediscovered balance, noticing the richness of family time, eating together, walking the dog, working from home, Zooming!, reducing the time stuck in over crowded traffic full of cars with one person inside them. And that illusive work life balance, being happier and healthier, well we thought we had it. But I am noticing other things.
I notice the speed in which we seem determined to fill our calendars again with back to back meetings. Squeezing every hour with something. Why? Why do we need to race back into a world of work based round abouts? The T Intersections that see us forgetting the importance of “our” time? But the elephant in the room is the ever present in the STOP sign, which we seem to be ignoring completely and to what end? Our own end? I’m noticing a need to remember ourselves and our practices and beliefs.
What if we remembered that assumptions are easily removed if we remember to ask the right questions, or just ask questions? What if we thought about the stories we do know of others journeys over the past few months and thought to check in with them? Have we so quickly forgotten the neighbourliness we reignited during the great pause? I am guilty of this and I recognise how I am holding onto my own time again, guarding it from being used for someone else’s benefit, not mine.
I have noticed our judgement return of others, I am guilty of this in my own practices as recently as last week. It made me sit back in my chair when I realised. I felt so ashamed of my behaviour. . I noticed people having to have the last word, to one up a peer. I noticed others stepping back so as not to be judged or dismissed. When we say “ we are holding a space for others and being present”, that should mean the whole. How can I judge those who’s circumstance I am not aware of? Why does everyone have to do things the same way I might? Aren’t we glad for reflection time and the ability to notice the behaviour and change. I am.
But the noticing has not ended there. I have noticed the stepping up, the mentoring that exists without asking and received with gratitude. The connections and conversations that need to happen, do, when the timing is right. Our individual and organisational growth will always happen at the speed we are able to nurture it. We can only keep the growth of the harvest in motion if we choose make time to “notice” which parts of the crop need to be tended.
I’m choosing to notice more, to make me more, so that people around me get more.
