Treat #54
: It's All in the Blink
Don't blink! I remember my over zealous grandfather saying as he tried to get the perfect photo of me. As soon as you tell someone don't and follow it with the thing you don't want them to do…guess what? They do exactly the opposite. So I blinked a lot and invariably my eyes would either be closed or red from trying so hard to keep them open. He might have had better luck asking me to breathe and relax.
Like the shutter of the camera, I see blinking as the way we register completion moment-to-moment—snapshots marked by distinct beginning and endings, separated by the opening and closing of the eyelids. According to Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink, within each blink is the opportunity to stretch out that fraction of time and gather information. And, within that blink is our intuitive knowing.
We all have received advice about taking exams—go with your first intuition and don’t second-guess yourself.
Stretching out the fraction of time during a blink is a perfect description for the process of determining the next action. We can retrieve the next action in the blink of an eye. And I believe it is more of an intuitive knowing than it is a thinking process. The more I dwell on something, the less powerful the resulting decision often is. We almost always know at first glance what we want to do. During a chance meeting in an airport on New Year's Day, I was actually hired by the owner of a company. We had an exchange that lasted three minutes or less and he asked for my card. Later when I worked with him I asked him how he made that decision. He said it was an intuition based on a first impression.
For me there is a fine line between decisions I make based on my will or external pressures and those made with my intuitive knowing. Actions that are completed with a relaxed connected pace open the spaces within and between blinks. The deciding factor is the choice to stay open and expanded as information is processed. My favorite visual of that is a child with very wide eyes of wonder. I remember sharing a year or two back about one client who started treating her In-box as a box of presents she was excited to open.
In my experience a blink is elongated silent expansion. I give my clients this experience of the expansion at the beginning of our session by opening the Hoberman Sphere very very slowly until it is expanded all the way to its outer edges. In expanded space I experience endless possibilities.
Recently I have been observing a ramping up of what I call: “living life as a blur” activity. We are moving (actually darting would be more descriptive) from one thing to more than one thing, i.e. multi-taking. Multi-tasking (actually doing two things simultaneously) is increasing exponentially as BlackBerries and other handheld multi-functioning devices take interruption to a whole new dimension. I watch as we rush forward without space, breath, or pause.
We are losing what Gladwell describes in Blink…the ability to “stretch out that fraction of time to slow the situation down” before we act. I have the privilege of watching my clients process their In-boxes from a relaxed expanded place.
I am able to see people catch the vision of what is possible as they stop chattering to me, settle into what is in front of them, focus their attention and complete their actions. They move into an even flow of picking up what is next, looking at it for a moment, listening for their next action with their knowing/intuition and then putting it into action. It’s all done in a connected blink.
All the worry, avoidance, pressure, etc. usually directed at having to process the In-box disappears when there is a one-at-a-time-through-to-completion focus present.
Their decisions are clear, as they are made with full attention, and there is space to pay attention to the “white space” (expansion and pause). The yes/no’s are decisive and the outcomes productive.
I look at the clarity before me when a client reaches that expanded flow and I can actually see between the blinks. The room becomes very quiet when that takes place.
Sometimes I think all we need is someone sitting next to us, simply breathing at a relaxed pace, as we work; then we could slow down into our natural knowing. As the retiring queen of speed, I know how powerful it is for me when I simply stop, breathe, and focus on one thing.
Practice for one hour shutting out the mind chatter, turning off every possible interruptive device (new email notification, BlackBerry, phone, etc.) and simply do one thing at a time, paying attention to the in-between your blinks.
Remember in the blink of the eye is the freedom to know.
Martha Invitations
1. Instead of reading emails while you are talking to someone on the phone, sit back in your chair and simply watch your breath and expand like the Hoberman sphere.
2. Pause before you do the next thing and open your eyes wide and stretch your body.
3. Walk half as fast as you normally do and just notice what happens.
4. Try this experiment: Think of something you are undecided about. Take a quarter and assign one choice to heads and the opposite to tails. Choose heads or tails. Flip the coin. Look at the result and in the instant (blink) of looking, notice what you feel in your body. If there is any disturbance, doubt, etc. over how the coin landed, then you clearly wanted the other choice.
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