What are you thinking about?
Cherubs with bumble bee (after Michelangelo)
As visitors to this site and blog may know, Peter is a painter, and enjoys the rare times he finds to paint.
Painting offers an opportunity to reflect on life and to decide how we derive pleasure from the many things we see, do and experience.
The whole process of thinking opens up doors that sometimes prefer to remain shut!
There are many things said nowadays about how our thoughts influence our feelings, actions and experience of life.
From the idea that we should train our mind to see good in every situation and the idea that positive thinking creates energy, initiative and happiness, comes the opposite one – which follows from the first – that “the discontent and frustration you feel is entirely your own creation”.
This, however, is not at all fair to the person whose thoughts are sometimes a jumble of conflicting voices.
From an NLP perspective, the words we hear inside our head are not our own but often borrowed from what we have heard, seen and felt, from others.
What’s important is to clear up the ones that we have borrowed from elsewhere and have become ‘stuck’ – and those that reflect our deeper and lasting goals.
This is so important when we are coaching.
Learning a language can provide an opening to a whole new way of experiencing the world.
Things suddenly become very clear when we see them in new ways!
We cannot stop thinking – though as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu believed: Stop thinking, and end your problems!
Certainly it helps to be able to switch off one’s wandering thoughts and focus on the discipline that being with a coach, provides…. at P.I.E. above all, we focus on a relaxing and thought-provoking approach that enriches the experience the learner is having, whilst helping them to avoid the pitfalls of over-thinking, which can be confusing and counter-productive!
It’s about doing inspiring things that will always be remembered, not trying to force learning!
As another great thinker – Plutarch – said,
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
