From: Mansfield Elkind [mailto:
melkind@mindtech3.com]
Hi Fred,
You ask an interesting question.
I do the following process in any and all kinds of situations.
I inhale gently, take a longer gentle exhale, say to myself "I will find
a way to ...... (whatever it is I want) .... and relax ... and wait for
a response. It works almost every time with an answer that works or an
answer that at least gets me unstuck with some way to think differently
about the situation.
I'll use this in a variety of situations:
- When I'm by myself
- When I'm talking with someone and they ask me a question, I'll say,
"Give me a quiet moment to think about your question. People seem
content to sit or stand quietly while I go through this "thinking." For
about 15-30 seconds.
- When I'm on the phone. Sometimes I'll add humor and say, " And just
because there's no sound doesn't mean I'm not working."
- In front of a group that I'm teaching (I'm a consultant who teaches
business executives). Sometimes I'll say, I want to think a moment about
what to do next so talk to each other for a minute.
There are some important details beneath the process that seem necessary
for me. I say to myself in a very soft tender inner voice "I will find
a way to ...... (whatever it is I want) .... as if I'm talking to a deep
inner knowing self. Then I take a slow inhale of about 5 seconds,
expanding the diaphragm area of my abdomen (not expanding and heaving my
chest)and a slower exhale of about 10 seconds where the rate of exhale
of air is constant and gentle from beginning to end. It's a process for
getting into a relaxed state that allows me to quiet my mind and be
almost empty of thoughts. And most important for me is simultaneously
focusing mostly on my anus to make sure that part of my body is fully
relaxed. If I focus there it leads and carries the rest of the process
essentially automatically. So why do I pay attention to that part of my
body?
Some years ago when I started to do a lot of meditation I found I could
get into a very relaxed state within the time of a breath and so I used
the process I described above to ask myself what I was doing that
allowed me to relax so quickly. That's when I discovered how I had been
relaxing my anus and I was absolutely unaware of it. So the short cut
for me now is just in one exhale to relax my anus and the rest just
happens.
It's funny how the expression (metaphor) that is sometimes used to
describe others is also physiologically accurate ... "That person is a
tight-ass."
I hope this helps.
Manny
Manny Elkind
Mindtech, Inc.
35 Williams Road
Sharon, MA 02067
Tel: 781-784-2315
Fax: 781-784-4764
E-mail:
melkind@mindtech3.com
Website:www.mindtech3.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles Wankel
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 5:23 AM
To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Re: Looking for Answers
From:
karl2@karlalbrecht.com
Karl says -
Fred, I often use an additional option. I go into an intuitive listening
mode. I simply stop, ask myself a question such as "Are there any
options
I may be overlooking?" and then I drift into a quas-alpha state for a
few
minutes. Sometimes an answer pops into my head; often not. If I do it
fairly frequently, with various kinds of prompting, it shows a pretty
good track record. I guess the creative-thinking experts would call it
stimulated incubation.
Example: many years ago I was driving from San Diego to Los Angeles in
the evening, planning to stay over in Santa Monic for client meetings
the
next day. I had just bought a new car and had only driven it a few
miles.
I probably overestimated its fuel efficiency, and found myself on a
freeway in the south of LA, with the gas guage down on zero.
I left the freeway and wandered onto a fairly large street, the name of
which I recognized, hoping to find a gas station. No luck. Worse, it was
in a pretty nasty-looking neighborhood and I wasn't keen on asking the
neightives for advice.
After zig-zagging around several main streets - it was after 11:00 p.m.
by now, I was having no luck and getting desperate. I had visions of
trying to sleep in the car, or leaving it and taking a taxi to the
hotel,
or calling to have it towed to the hotel.
I stopped for a moment and went into a listening mode. I asked "Are
there
any options I may be overlooking?" [These were pre-Internet,
pre-cellphone days.] An answer popped into my mind. I went to a phone,
called the LAPD and asked the dispather "If I tell you where I am, might
you be able to tell me where to find a gas station that's open?"
"Sure, he said." After a few seconds, he told me about a gas station
within a few blocks - but it was several blocks over on another street.
"By the way," he said, "don't hang around that area any longer than
necessary."
I refilled the tank and went on my way.
I still believe that, in my increasingly stressed state, I would
probably
not have come up with that option without backing off and listening for
the inner, intuitive thinking process.
FWIW...
Karl
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 13:35:08 -0400 "Fred Nickols" wrote:
> My apologies for the cross-posting but I really do want a wide range
of
> respondents.
>
> So, please either respond to me or to one of the lists but please
don't
> respond to all...
>
> I'm looking for answers to a pretty basic question.
>
> The question is this: What do YOU do when you find yourself in a
> situation
> where you don't know what to do?
>
> Some obvious answers include the following:
>
> 1 ignore it; maybe it will go away
> 2 figure things out; with or without help from others
> 3 ask around; see if you can find someone who does know what to do
> 4 focus on other situations, ones in which you do know what to do
> (related
> to number 1)
>
> I'm curious as to any additional answers people might have, so let me
> close
> by asking the question again:
>
> What do YOU do when you find yourself in a situation where you don' t
know
> what to do?
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Fred Nickols, CPT
> Distance Consulting
> "Assistance at a Distance"
>
nickols@att.net
>
www.nickols.us
>
>
>