Harmonizing Your View with the 360˚

Everything we think and say influences
our non-verbal presence as well as our movements through life. 

Every unique way of moving through space influences
how we think, feel, and move through life.

Imagine or draw the Chinese symbol called the “T’ai Chi” or Grand Ultimate. 

In a circular image it represents the same idea as the sine wave pattern used to show the cycle of your heartbeat or lungs.

Both of these examples of visual (i.e., non-verbal) thinking remind us that there are some processes that are best understood as a 1 that is also 2.  In other words, what is more important, inhaling or exhaling? 

Inhale and exhale are not opposites.  They are two fundamentally linked aspects of a single process.  However, even though this is the nature of things, people often have “problems” with breathing.  This is due to the downside of our brilliant human minds.  We can decide to think in ways that go against the Way of Nature.

Yes, we can think anything we want, but the consequences will show up no matter what we think or want.  As good news, this means that Nature is an excellent advisor and mirror.  We have been very well trained to divide that which is not separate and to maintain the separation at all costs. 

Our coaching approach pays a lot of attention to the interfaces and linkages that sustain our habits of structure and function.  As an example, let’s consider Janice.  She brings to our first session the desire to be seen as powerful and decisive as she believes herself to be.  But somehow the responses of her colleagues and supervisors reveal a very different picture.

A recent 360° revealed Janice as someone who is, on one hand, too tentative and even too nice to be taken seriously, and on the other, can be too harsh and insensitive. 

How can such a gap between realities exist?  

With her words, she articulates a vision consistent with a results oriented executive. However, with her non-verbal speaking she reveals a very different style and character.

Returning to the image of the T’ai Chi symbol, Janice, like most of us, has learned to separate her verbal and non-verbal selves as well as her personal and professional selves.  At least, this is what she (we) thinks.  Remember, Nature does not care what we think when it goes against the way of things.

In the language of the Five Rings, Janice’s goal (and belief about herself) is best described as a combination of Wind and Ground.  Her carriage, however, shows a history and/or constitution of Water.

What I observed about Janice was that her face and eyes were, indeed, focused like someone who is decisive.  Her chest was more concave (i.e., bowl-like) and her lower back was rounded and perhaps a bit collapsed. 

We could say that she was decisive above and amiable below.

She noticed what was going on above.  Everyone else noticed the contradiction between above and below.  The program I designed for her had two components: 

1. Enhance Decisiveness

2. Accept her Water constitution

Like many who have a strong Water nature, the encounter with the world of business can make it seem like there is something wrong with you or that you are weak. 

Not liking this, you turn away and instead focus on what you do want.  Over time, the consequences show themselves.

To work with this, I took Janice on a tour of the Five Rings of Strategy.  In a context that held each and every response as valuable and powerful, she began to see that her resilience under pressure and her compassion were in the same family as, what she called, her weakness.

To assist her in owning her natural strength, we explored the basic Water Response.  When someone or something approaches you step back to adapt to the pressure and when they leave you step forward again.

 

To help her to build a solid foundation for decisiveness, we used the Samurai Decisiveness practice.  Click to watch.

In this movement simulation, the seamless swing of a Japanese warrior’s sword is transformed into a process of seven strategies, with their accompanying mind-sets and actions.

To assist her in working with the contradiction that she is too nice and too insensitive, we focused on the 6th step, Accept the Consequences.  This is the Water phase of decisiveness, where your sensitivity to others shapes your next actions.

Believing that Water is weak produced the side effect of insensitivity and harshness. Discovering the power of this strategy can change everything.

"It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head." 
Ralph Waldo Emerson