NamasteWhat a lovely sunny bank holiday weekend to spend here by the river in Barking.I hope it was good for you.
I suspect in the middle of our very busy-chatter-deadline-social media-filled lives most of us welcome the opportunity for some down time? Some time for human being rather than human doing. A time for stillness and observation?
As someone who loves the interaction of social media I also recognise the need to switch it off. It is hugely addictive like much in modern life. The speed things happen in so many aspects of our lives is at times breathtaking. Instant gratification at every turn leads us to Pavlovian rhythms if we are not careful. And we have got used to this over time as we do to any type of human structure. Everything on demand might make things happen quickly, and in some cases that's perfect, I love it some of the time - but there is always a shadow side.
For me this is the danger of 24-hour bombardment of stimuli. Psychologists tell us that we can only process between 5-9 pieces of information consciously at the same time, and if you think how many we are receiving in any moment you begin to get a sense of how open to overload and persuasion we are. Its the manna of the advertisers and for years they have known precisely how to reach our unconscious minds subliminally to successfully install a want or desire for their product.
There's virtually no way round that in the modern world unless you take yourself off to a monastery - and even then? Stimulus is always around us. And its a hugely important source of what contributes to our experience of course, and a great well of stuff for new ideas for work. So I guess it just comes with a bit of a health warning. I know for myself the importance of shutting down the laptop and spending time being in a listening place with myself. Its in this time, much like meditation that I open my mind without judgement to make space for imagination to enter.
If I have been meeting and talking to a lot of people in the course of my daily work, the chances are I will have had a number of conversations about creative projects. I then experience overload, and much like eating too much I need to retreat to digest. I have to manage my excitement and sit with an idea for some time whilst it performs its own alchemy. I have to watch and listen without judgement as it develops. This requires patience and I struggle with this sometimes. Sleep helps. That old adage 'sleep on it' referring to an idea is a great bit of advice and never ceases to surprise. The unconscious mind needs time to process, it doesn't recognise the 24 hour clock! Unfortunately the pressures of external demands can often lead to knee jerk reactions and poor decisions. I find it essential to resist this even for a moment and to sit with patience to actively hear what might surprise me in my own response and then course of action.
We have a lot to learn about active listening from Jung and psychotherapy at large. Applying it to the way we interact with others is critical for understanding the world from some one else's perspective, but it also applies equally to listening to ourselves. That can be scary as there are often things we know deep in our cores that we might not want to make conscious. We have great and elaborate strategies for avoidance, displacement and distraction. TV has become the opium of the masses in its own way - just turn it on, zone out and receive it passively. Spending time alone, in deep contact with your own imagination, feelings and reflections is a must for any actor if they want to hone their instrument for clarity and purity of expression. Its a job in which working on yourself deeply comes with the territory!
Why don't you give yourself 20 minutes out of the busyness of your day today - and just be, with your self.
No comments:
Post a Comment