Thoughts from a Deck Chair

In this episode the Slow Coach starts by discussing the concept of “muses” before moving onto a detailed discussion of the custom of Saint Monday.

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In this episode the Slow Coach discusses how manners are so important to the idler, how to improve them and why they are good for you. In an expirement he has also posted the transcript on www.tortoiseknowsbest.com

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In this, very belated, new podcast, the Slow Coach takes a break and talks about what do to if you find yourself speeding up when you want to be slowing down…

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One of the key tenants of the Slow Philosophy and one of the most important abilities to cultivate is mindfulness.

Mindfulness comes from Buddhist philosophy but has been picked up in the last few years by modern western psychology, mainly by someone called Jon Kabat-Zinn. Mindfulness is attracting increasing interest among western clinical psychologists and psychiatrists as a means of dealing with stress, anxiety, and depressive mood states.

But it is not limited to only helping in those conditions, by becoming mindful you will find you will have more energy, concentration, less worries and concerns (therefore more relaxed) and appear to be able to act more spontaneously and relevantly in a given situation (hence increasing your confidence).

So, what is mindfulness?! It is simply paying attention to what we are doing NOW. Very few of us actually pay conscious attention to what we doing.

Our brains are designed to ‘habituate” repeated experience. What this means is when we do something over and over again, we stop paying conscious attention to it and it becomes an automatic unconscious habit.

It is thought that we do this for survival purposes, our conscious minds have limited attention, so our habituation means we stop paying attention to what doesn’t change (we don’t need to) and only pay attention to something that changes (which can mean danger).

But where it works against us is that much our day is spent doing the same things and having the same stimuli. We stop paying attention and start sleepwalking through life. Our lives begin to appear mundane and we yearn for something new to stimulate us.

If we saw a sunrise once in our lifetime we would consider it one of the most beautiful sights we have ever seen, because we see it almost daily, we stop paying attention, we miss the beautiful richness of “every day” life.

Slowing down is about paying attention to that daily richness, to appreciate the beauty that is all around us.

Luckily we are not stuck with the results of our habituation and can reset the process so that we can live richer and fuller lives a process of ‘mindfulness’, or deliberately paying attention to every day habits.

A lot of mindfulness exercises are in the forms of meditation, where we sit and focus on something (often our breathing) for long periods of time. Although this is very, very powerful it can be quite overwhelming for a beginner and the power of mindfulness is to use it every day life, not to be able to sit for hours on end.

So I have developed a series exercises, experiments and activities to help you bring mindfulness into your every day life and start to build towards a meditative practice.

I will begin those exercises tomorrow and run a short series of them for the next few posts.

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PS, a new slowcast will be up tomorrow.

I like April Fools day, I think it is a very Slow thing to do. Although I couldn’t think of  decent prank to do here!

Obviously, there are always people who take it too far and do something stupid, cruel or mean, but we cannot judge something by the actions of the idiot few (I am not going to go any further with that, it may get a bit heavy!)

SO, why do I like April Fools Day and think it is a Slow thing to do?

Well, firstly, Slow is very much about being aware of the present moment, something I touched on in the post last Friday, and something I am going to go more into in the next few posts. A good way to be mindful of the present moment and the passing of time (rather than letting it all blur into a mess, like so much of us do) therefore slowing time down and allowing us to savour it is to celebrate all the festivals. We do some of them in a BIG way; Christmas, Easter, Halloween etc, but some of the smaller festivals are disappearing. Find all the old festivals and holidays, global and local and celebrate them all!

By getting involved in the festivals and doing something to celebrate them you will have to get other people involved. Slow is about community, it is not a solo pursuit, so find other people to help you, get your friends, family and neighbours involved!

And finally Slow is about fun, it is not a serious pursuit! However humour has some very serious benefits. It is essential, it helps us be more flexible on or behaviour, if we can laugh at a problem we are having it often ceases to be such a big problem. Smiling and laughing releases a cocktail of chemicals in our body that are very good for out physical and mental health.

So, go off and celebrate April Fools day! Do a (nice) prank on someone!

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We finally got the season premier of “The Mentalist” over here in the UK. I know it is about half way through it’s first season in the States and has been getting rave reviews. I have been looking forward to seeing it for some time, mainly, because when I very first got into NLP and coaching I got into mainly to explore human behaviour, and it was about the time Derren Brown started to make a name for himself. I caught his first ever TV show way back in 2000 and was fascinated by what he did, so I started to explore magic and mentalism (which incidentally has several meanings in the UK, not all of then good!) and got somewhat fascinated by it and started doing tricks and techniques on friends, doing cold reading (fake psychic readings) etc. I played with the idea of doing it professionally for awhile, but my coaching and training business was just taking off and developing the level of skill to be able to do that stuff would have taken too much time. But I still keep involved in the field and dabble with it now and again.

So, anyway, how can slowing down make you appear psychic? Well, one the big keys of being a good mentalist is about paying attention, or what NLP people fancyingly call “sensory acuity”, noticing little bits of detail that we usually miss, much like good old Sherlock Holmes: “By a man’s finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuff - By each of these things a man’s calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.”

“Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My first glance is always at a woman’s sleeve. In a man, it is perhaps better to take the knee of the trouser.”

By slowing down and becoming more mindful and observant you will start to notice things that other people miss, and start being able to make reasonable assertions based on those observations.

There are lots of techniques to aid building your mindfulness, observation skills and concentration.

One way I like, that is a bit of fun is the “30 second profile”. When I am people watching (a great pastime if you are waiting for something) or if I meet someone new, I always build a “30 second profile”. I will look at their clothes, jewellery, eye colour, hair style, the way they walk, stand carry themselves, the way they talk, accents, catch phrases, descriptive words and build an idea about that person in my head. The idea I get about the person maybe wildly wrong and is purely a bit of fun on my behalf. But it helps me to get used gathering information.

Give it a go and next time I will talk you through another technique for increasing your mindfulness. SO you can become a Slow Psychic!

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I have been going on about de-cluttering your mind all week and fancied a bit of a time out. It’s always nice to have a tea break isn’t it?

Tea is really the drink of choice for the Idler, coffee is too edgy, too “go getting” (not that I don’t like a good cup of coffee occasionally).

Incidentally, I am sure you have noticed (and I think I have said it before) I use idle and slow interchangeably. The Idle Philosophy and the Slow Philosophy are, although different in places, almost identical and cross over, intertwine and complement each other.

I discovered the Idler, just before I discovered the Slow Philosophy and the Slow Coaching principles that I have developed come from both of these ideas.

Anyway enough of that, this is meant to be a bit of a break. The idea of these irregular entires will be to look at Practical Idling or Idle Pursuits that you can do to take a break and chill out for a few minutes and gather your thoughts.

And in this first one I thought I would discuss how to make a good cup of tea.

Idea’s vary per person you ask, but the common consensus seems to be:

1. Ensure kettle is clean and de-scaled
2. Fill kettle with freshly drawn cold water
3. Boil the kettle
4. Allow 1 heaped teaspoon of loose tea, or 1 tea bag per person
5. Infuse in cup, mug or teapot with boiling water (only ever use the water once and always use freshly boiled, preferably pour whilst still bubbling)
6. Stand for 3-5 mins (important for correct flavour development and to get the full benefits of tea antioxidants)
7. Stir, add milk and sugar to taste

Anyway must go, the kettles just boiled.

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