Categories
Culture Thoughts

Getting the festive spirit

For a number of years now, I have been providing training in many countries around the world, where there are different cultures, beliefs, and religions.

Being born a Christian, the Muslim country of Saudi Arabia was an especially interesting experience, which taught me to be tolerant to other peoples beliefs, as in the 1980’s when I spent over five years in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
 
In the Kingdom, any religion other than Islam was not tolerated, and any non Muslim holiday was banned along with any trappings that went with that “festival”. Thus Christmas cards were never seen on shop shelves, no Christmas trees or pictures of Father Christmas could be seen, and certainly I was not allowed a day off on 25th December, Christmas Day, to celebrate, although I did sneak off at lunchtime I remember, to go and join others sitting on the beach to enjoy Christmas dinner.

So it has been for a number of years since the 1980’s. I have found myself in non Christian countries during the month of December.


For my non British readers I better explain.

The holiday period of Christmas held every year in December, is in the UK the most important holiday of the year. It is a time when families and friends get together for love and friendship, not withstanding the religious aspects, but as this period is celebrated by many non Christians I will leave this aspect out.

Gifts are exchanged on Christmas Day, and of course, children go to bed on Christmas Eve (24th) knowing that during the night Father Christmas visit every child, coming down the chimney to deliver and leave their presents.  

The two main days of Christmas are the 25th December, Christmas Day, and 26th December being Boxing Day.

Boxing Day, also known as St. Stephen’s Day, is believed to have got its’ name by the practice of the upper classes who had exchanged their gifts on Christmas day (25th), allowing the lower classes or servants to have the next day off (26th), and giving and distributing gifts of money, clothes, food to those less fortunate often in boxes for easy transportation.

In the UK, nothing moves on Christmas Day except those people traveling to visit friends and families. Schools, offices and factories are closed. No buses run, no trains race up and down the railway tracks, often the last train to leave is at 10pm on Christmas Eve. No shops are open, no theaters or cinemas open their doors. No restaurants serve food. It is a special day where everything is closed.

Boxing Day is nearly as bad, as the country slowly awakens, some buses and trains run, but on a limited timetable. Some shops open to start the Sales of heavily marked down priced goods. Very few restaurants open as everybody has over eaten the day before and have loads of turkey meat and Christmas pudding left over to eat.

This festive period is started over a month before Christmas Day, with shops selling all the paraphernalia that goes with Christmas, the cards we send to each other, the decorations we put up in our homes and in the streets, the gifts we exchange (often unwanted), the seasonal food we only buy for that period, and the children becoming excited at the prospect of Father Christmas visiting.

 
Christmas lights in Kingston upon Thames late at night

The spirit of Christmas is built up day by day, and people get more and more excited, being conditioned to expect and want the special festive season.

But for me, working in countries during the month of December,  where Christmas does not exist in their culture or belief system, I miss this build up, this conditioning, and as I have got older the festive season has lost its allure, I have not entered into the spirit of the season.

This year, due to the postponement of courses I had been asked to give, I find myself in the UK, and I am beginning to enter into the spirit of the season, and perhaps if you indulge me, I will report on some of my up and coming experiences.


See other articles:-    Being Santa Claus in Kingston upon Thames 
                                      Santa joins the SHH (Special half Hour) Club

Categories
English Sayings Thoughts

As one door closes another opens, Woolworths and usefulshopp

There is an English saying that says, “as one door closes another opens“.

In the town center or market square in Kingston upon Thames there are many shops, some small and some large.

One of these shops is Borders, and as in the articles Relationships change – Borders and Yes it is true, they are lost to me, I wrote that the company is closing much to my displeasure.


Borders bookshop Kingston upon Thames to close

Only one year ago the shop next door to Borders, a very old established shopping chain, (99 years), once found in many British high streets, called Woolworths also failed and went out of business, and for a year the large shop in Kingston stayed empty.

Today an established Swedish outlet opened a new shop in the old Woolworth’s premises. Clas Ohlson’s hardware shop is called usefulshopp. The new Clas Ohlson stores sell useful items, from electrical and multi-media products, hard-to-find kitchen and bathroom accessories, to tools and gardening equipment, or to me gadgets, my wonderland.


Clas Ohlson usefulshopp, Kingston upon Thames

I spent a happy few hours wondering around the shop eyeing many products I am sure in the near future will find their way back to my home.

So as Border’s doors must surely soon close, I wonder who, what or when will the company be to take over the premises, and if what they sell will be attractive to me as te open their doors.

Border’s shop, with its’ historic 300 year old stairs, has occupied the premises for only a few years, yet they have found a place in my heart, but like most things in our life, nothing lasts forever, and something else will take its place. Every week it seems a shop closes in the every town, sometimes a new shop takes up residence, and sometimes the old retailer reopens its’ doors revamped and better, renewing perhaps a stronger relationship in the partnership of retailer and shopper.

Categories
Uncategorized

Yes it is true, they are lost to me

Yes it is true, my “local” favorite bookshop will be closing.

Braving the rather rare English inclement weather today, I again faced the cold darkness of the heavy clouds, and walked down to the town center of Kingston upon Thames to get my exercise. Even though it was just after lunch, the cars had their lights on, as the skies darkened, and I had to dance around the puddles of water from the previous downpour.


A cold wet walk into Kingston upon Thames along Old London Road

I still cannot believe my “local” favorite bookshop, Borders,will be closing, but it is. The shop windows are empty of any merchandise, just signs declaring the closure. I will miss you.


Borders bookshop closing Kingston upon Thames

Categories
Thoughts

A Rainbow over Norbiton

The weather here in the UK today is a mixture of sunshine, showers and heavy rainstorms with claps of thunder. The high winds are driving the weather fronts quickly over Norbiton Hall, like moods we often find ourselves in, sometimes up, and sometimes down, sometimes in a dark period sometimes in a more enlighten period.

It was whilst communicating with a great friend over the internet that a very dark cloud swept over, so dark that I could not see the keyboard even though it was mid day. The rain came down from the skies leaving the road outside like a river. (click to see video).

Soon the cloud passed over, but the rain still fell in the bright sunshine, and the beauty appeared, a wonderful rainbow over the roofs of Norbiton Hall.

Life goes on, and somewhere there will be a rainbow for us all if only we are aware and look for it.


A rainbow over the roofs of Nobiton Hall

Categories
Thoughts

Relationships change – Borders

It is said “nothing lasts forever“.

I have had a long relationship, which is going to come to an end I fear.

When the relationship finally comes to an end, I will have a period of time when I will feel lost, empty, longing for the days when I go and visit for my pleasure.

The book shops own by Borders here in the UK, has gone into administration, that is to say that the company could soon cease trading, that they are trading at a loss.

I love researching for information, reading books, more books and more books, and Borders was my favorites book shop. Their selection of books was wide a varied, their staff always willing to talk and impart knowledge.

As with friendships, business relationship, associations, circumstances change, and sometimes the circumstances are out of our control, and the relationship must come to an end.

Sorry to loose you as you are coming to an end Borders, I will sadly miss you, Now I will have to find a replacement for you.

Categories
Rotary Club KOT

My Job Talk to Rotary International Club

It was a privilage to be able to give a talk today to Kingston upon Thames Rotary Club about the work I do around the world, giving training in NLP, Hypnosis, Stage Hypnosis, phobia cures, PhotoReading, Mind Maps and Memory techniques.


Kingston upon Thames Rotary Club

Categories
Thoughts

I am not the star of the show

I have put my thoughts down in the articles I am like a theatre and I am a theatre on tour, and I would like to add some advice I had from a great American Stage Hypnotist and trainer, Jerry Valley whom I learned such a lot from, enabling me to become a Stage Hypnotist myself.

He said that the performer, the actor, the trainer is not the star of the show, it is the audience, the participants who are the stars.

If ever the person on stage, the Stage Hypnotist, the leader, the trainer, ever becomes the star, then the show is over.

It is an idea that I have taken into all my trainings, courses, presentations.

I am not the star.

I may be the leader, the person the people or participants follow on their journey of learning. I may be the guide, but that is all I am. I must take the people on a journey, using whatever may be in my toolbox of training and communication skills to paint a picture so that they can understand what is being said and that they can make the changes they seek, to place and install what has been taught  into their lifestyle.

Some people may appreciate my style of imparting information, others may not. Some people like jazz music, some people like opera. There is a place for all styles, and to experience different styles can give us choice, perhaps being a jazz fan and experiencing opera for the first time will enhance the appreciation of jazz, perhaps listening to opera for the first time will enable you to become equally a jazz and opera fan at the same time, perhaps listening to opera for the first time will mean that opera becomes the preferred style, or perhaps it means that opera becomes a type of music that will be never visited again. But now you have choice. 

I know that I have touched many hearts in my journey, and that I have helped people to gain and change, so I am looking forward to the future to meet many more, in many more countries, being able to offer many styles of training.

Categories
Uncategorized

Being Aware, Awakening

Too many times I am aware that I am to wrapped up in my own problems, and not seeing the wider picture, of what is happening to other people, to listen what they saying to me, what information they are giving me, in fact, what information is available to me in the outside world.

As I watch other people, I also observe the same attitude, people just wandering around in their own world, missing vital clues, missing opportunities, missing messages of change, missing signals, even missing money just waiting to be picked up on the street. (see Playing with Phillip’s Sausage).

These clues, these messages are picked up. Not perhaps consciously, but certainly subconsciously, and we fail to recognise the signals the subconscious gives us, we let the opportunities pass us by.

We are too centered in our vision, which is called foveal vision, we are too aware of our own internal dialog to hear and notice external sounds, we are too attentive on our own state to notice the feelings, smells and tastes that are all around us.

Perhaps it is George Millers’ 7 +/- 2, where we delete, distort and generalise, resulting in our own Map of the Territory, or cat on the mat.

By becoming aware of the peripheral signals, messages from the outside world, signals both internally and externally, perhaps by using La Salsiccia di Phillip, Phillip’s Sausage, by having an active dialog between our conscious and unconscious, being aware what the subconscious is telling us, we can enhance our world, as Freud said making “a decisive step towards a new orientation in the world and in science“, or Gregory Bateson said to be in “uptime” or having the use of “loose thinking“.

Our subconscious, unconscious mind does notice these signals or messages, and we have to start to notice them. Our eyes will look at an object, but we fail to see consciously what we looked at. We make movements, perhaps a change in step, perhaps by a hand signal, perhaps a change in our breathing, our heart rate.

Why are we making these signals?

What to they mean?

Bateson stated that we should :-

        a) use peripheral vision as opposed to foveal vision
        b) focus on external sounds instead of our own internal dialog
        c) have no excess emotional thoughts and to be in a physically relaxed state.

Walk around the streets, and start to notice the signals you have missed before given by the unconscious mind.

For example, when you notice you take a deep breath in, STOP in your tracks STOP what you are doing, and go back just before you took the deep breath in and ask, “why did I take that deep breath in?”

When you notice your eyes flicked to an object, even for an instant, a fraction of a second, STOP, and ask, “why did I look at that item, what did I notice?”

When that involuntary movement happens, STOP, and ask,”why did I make that movement, what did I notice, what do I notice now?”

By stopping and noticing what happened to you, what did you notice that you were unaware of, you will begin to see more, hear more, feel more, to start to have an active dialog between our conscious and unconscious, to have what Robert Dilts calls in his book From Coach to Awakener, an awakening, or Dr Win Wenger of Project Renaissance called Side Bands.

Categories
Thoughts

I am a theatre on tour

Yes I am a theatre, as I wrote about in the article I am like a theatre, but I am a theatre on tour.

My work takes me around the world, China, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Italy etc, giving courses, training people, passing-on knowledge, and working with people, and unlike the UK where I also give training, I am not the producer, I am not the organiser, I co-produce with the local organisers who become part of the theatre.

As I guest, as a co-producer, and sometimes a member of the actors or training team, I have to fit into their style, their play, their script, their culture, their understanding, their requirements.

My trainings can be said to be something like a theatre production is Mama Mia, Cats, in the West End of London or on Broadway in New York. That is my play, my musical, that I have rehearsed, that I know, that I am comfortable with and people come to see that.

Then I am asked to be part of someone else’s production, someones else’s training, to join a team of actors working on an operatic production in La Scala in Milano.

I have to be ready to change my performance, put on a new set of clothes, a new costume. Yes it will be uncomfortable for me at the beginning, and it could be strange for those that come to see the production, like knowing a famous pop star suddenly singing an opera, a comedian changing roles to play in a tragedy.

It is good to be adaptable and to love my profession, my job.

Categories
Thoughts

I am like a theatre

Some years ago, a participant attending one of my courses said to me that “I am like a theatre“.

This confused me, and I did not have chance to asked why I was like a theatre until the next day. All sort of ideas raced through my mind as I tried to unravel the saying.

Was it that I was run down, repeating the same production time after time?

Was it that I was producing material which was for a small specialised audience?

Was it that I am only open certain times of the day?

What was it?

When I met with the participant again, I asked what did they mean “I am like a theatre“.

It was explained that, I was like a play in a theatre.

I am the author, putting together the content of the course, and arranging the sequence of the content so the participants can follow.

I am the producer, often arranging the venues, the facilities, handouts, the dates, the advertising and marketing.
 
I am the theatre manager, making sure that the facilities and layout of the room/s are correct.

I am the stage manager, arranging the running of and the timing of the course, making sure any assistants and translators are doing the job correctly.

I am the administration, or the back office, collecting the course fees, printing the certificates, sending and receiving messages, keeping the diary.

I am the musicians, making sure that the appropriate music is played at the right time.

I am the director, keeping the course on track, making any changes that need to be made.

I am the actor, standing in front of the participants, giving the information.

That is what I love about my job.