Does Language influence the way we think?

https://www.ted.com/talks/lera_boroditsky_how_language_shapes_the_way_we_think

I was recently talking to a young friend of mine who is pursuing an internship where she is making small videos on teaching younger children on developing their writing skills. I was very impressed at how she was able to communicate the idea of using imagery in writing in a simple and elegant manner, keeping in mind that her target audience would be middle-school children. After I finished congratulating her on her extremely effective video, I started thinking about how language, not only allows us to express our experience of our existence, but also is very powerful in shaping our thoughts and feelings about our experiences. Language, literally, shapes how we think and feel about our lives, our work and our relationships and therefore determines our behavior.

The common perception is that we think and thereafter,  speak.  I came across a TED Talk by Dr. Lera Boroditski which sheds light on a provocative premise – that the language we speak shapes the way we think. And the manner, in which we speak and think, therefore influences all aspects of our life, especially how we view our own experiences and our relationship with the world we inhabit.  According to Dr. Boroditski, the underlying structure of different languages, which make up the rules for a language, will determine how people will think in that language. You can watch her TED Talk by clicking on the link under her picture. 

She gives a fascinating example of how,  in certain languages, there are no words for exact numbers. Consider that the realm of Mathematics and all the disciplines based on numeric concepts would not be accessible to people who grow up in such a culture. How does a person from such a culture relate to another person who is able to express their reality in mathematical terms? In our globalized world, where we live and work with people from different cultures, the need to find ways to communicate effectively becomes critical, especially when we care about certain outcomes. When we change the way we speak, we change the way we think, and in turn change our lives and the lives of those who are significant in our work or personal lives. And what about the written word? That question opens up a whole other world of how the written word impacts someone differently from the spoken word.

One day, I was talking to my mentor about a particular problem I was having with someone and as I described my conversation, I said the following, “I should start to do what she tells me.” He stopped me immediately and asked me to examine my use of the word, “Should”. Instead he suggested to me to try the same sentence with the word “Could” instead of the word “Should” and asked me how I felt when I said the same sentence with the change he suggested. I experienced a slight expansion in the way I felt. From feeling compelled to do what was asked of me, now I was able to detect a slight possibility of a choice in the matter. As I experienced the feeling of having a choice, I felt liberated. I restated the sentence again with the word “Could” and felt that I could choose to act in a certain way or not. That immediately empowered me rather than making me feel I was forced to do something.

How may we change our language to influence our thinking and expand it? Stay tuned for further articles.

Harini Narayan is a certified Master-practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Life Coach. This is the first in a series of articles on how to use our language to have better outcomes. You can reach her at harini@cruciblelearning.com for coaching and workshops.

How may we develop Self-Awareness?

In my last post, I had written about how my young friend was able to shift his perspectives as he began to look inwards and develop some self-awareness.  When we are in the grip of some strong emotions, we are unable to view our situations dispassionately and arrive at a satisfactory solution for ourselves. We often find ourselves triggered when we encounter similar situations and find ourselves stuck in those emotional patterns. This in turn, gives rise to increased frustration with ourselves and the relationships or situations around us.

In this case, how may we start to cultivate self-awareness?

An important part of my journey through life begins with looking within myself  for insights. How do I react in certain situations? What triggers my emotional reactions to those situations? How may I choose to respond to other people in those situations, rather than react? And if I choose to respond, do I have better results in terms of those relationships? This exercise is important for children as they grow into their teenage years and beyond to high school and college. Teenage is particularly fraught with bewildering changes and is exacerbated with social pressures and the challenges of high school. As I am about to graduate from high school, what kind of work do I want to engage in? What kind of career would I like for myself? As I start to ask these questions, more insights emerge about who I am as a person. Do I like working with my hands?  Do I like working with other people?  Do I like helping other people? Slowly career choices start to crystallize.

The hope and desire is that the habit of seeking within for answers is encouraged and cultivated throughout one’s life.

On the flip-side, it is not just important for me to look within myself for insights and answers, but also necessary to gain an understanding of how others view me. Different research studies and articles on Self-awareness suggest that introspection alone is not enough to gain a comprehensive view of oneself.  Introspection alone may cause a person to be overly critical or harsh with himself and may be counter-productive in such cases. It is also important to seek to understand how others view us. This is particularly true in the work-place as I seek to make a space for myself in my career. And as I venture forth to build significant relationships in my life.

Self-awareness is, therefore, a balance between how I view myself and how others view me. In seeking to find out how others view me, I discover aspects of myself that I was unaware of – my ‘blind spots’ – which educate me and serve to give me a more comprehensive view of myself. While it is undoubtedly uncomfortable to seek and receive feedback from others, it offers me a window into myself and provides me with rich opportunities for growth and expansion. And as I become more open to seeking and welcoming feedback, I am actually able to respond to situations with an understanding that was not possible earlier. I therefore, become less reactive and more responsive.

How Awareness Can Change Perspectives

‘We cannot become what we want by remaining what we are’ - Max Depree

My young friend is living abroad and is looking for a different job opportunity so that he can come back to this country. While traveling abroad and working there for the last one year has been an amazing learning opportunity, he is ready to come back home to a more familiar environment. He misses little things and misses being close to his family and friends.

When he started to look for a job, he was starting to get stressed. It did not help that he had started working on a project which kept him working six days a week with fourteen hour-days. While he is used to working with a fierce intensity and determination, he is also particular about maintaining some semblance of work-life balance.  So equally, the job search was getting to be intense and needed focus and concentration; yet he was finding he had very little time and even less energy to do the needful when he had one day off.

What was interesting was hearing him talk to me two days ago. His tone of voice was different and he was enthusiastic about the insights that he had had. He routinely displays a maturity well beyond his years and is given to frequent introspection and self-awareness. He had done some soul searching and realized that he was experiencing feelings of despondency and desperation in relation to his job search which seemed to be a repeat of what he went through last year when he was looking for his first break. It appears that when he realized this about himself and became aware, he immediately decided that he was not going to go down that path again and suffer from the same emotional down slide. This awareness seems to have motivated him to change his perspective completely. In so doing, he shifted emotionally to a more optimistic view. Interestingly, this helped him see new possibilities for himself and helped pivot him towards what he truly wants to focus on.

When we are used to doing things a certain way and have a set of outcomes to show for the way we do things habitually, it is impossible for us to have a different set of outcomes by continuing to do the same things. If we want different outcomes, we need to change what we are doing. While this seems elementary, it is anything but. What helps in a situation like this is self-awareness. When my young friend became aware that he was experiencing the same negative emotions, his awareness helped him to observe his own behavior and decide that he did not want to go down that path and repeat the experience. Instead, when he consciously chose to change how he viewed his situation, his outcomes changed.

Heliotropism

Heliotropism is defined as the directional growth of a plant in response to sunlight, where the plant moves and grows in the direction of the light source.

Life is similar and moves in the direction of the stronger energy, according to one of my teachers.

I was talking to my young friend who is faced with a great deal of uncertainty regarding his job and his location. He wants to relocate and therefore, needs to find a different job in the location of his choice. Earlier, while he was optimistic about his prospects for finding a new job, the breakout of the global pandemic has changed the environment completely. Now he does not know when he will be able to find a job so that he can relocate. When and how the job prospects will improve is completely unknown. In this situation, he is having a hard time managing his anxiety and therefore, his emotional state.

I was talking to him about the principle of heliotropism. Just as a plant reaches for the sunlight, Life also reaches towards what we put our focus on. If we focus on the negative circumstances in our life, more of the same manifests for us. On the other hand, when we focus on what is positive, our life responds in similar fashion. This idea seemed to resonate with him.

In any situation where we are dealing with unknowns, there are certain possibilities inherent in that situation. Within the range of multiple possibilities, there are always some that are positive and some that are negative.  In a case where there are two possibilities, with one being positive and the other being negative, the odds of choice A or B are exactly 50/50. Thus, as we look at these various possibilities, can we choose to plant and nurture a positive thought, rather than a negative one? By choosing to focus on the positive, we energize the possibility of have a positive outcome. If, on the other hand, we focus on the negative outcome, that is what will manifest. Thus, can we consciously choose to move in the direction of the positive thought or energy, much like the plant moves towards sunlight?

What do you think? Do share your thoughts or experiences in this regard. I would love to hear from you. Please write to me at harini@cruciblelearning.com with your comments or thoughts.

Discover the possibility of growing from withing - Offering one-on-one personalized sessions!

 I am very happy to be offering personalized sessions since we are not able to do group work. Our workshops will return when it is safe to have them. Grateful that I get to do this work!
#processwork #humanprocesses #growfromwithin #personalgrowth #enablingconversations #untappedpotential

Self Care – What we can do to take care of ourselves in these uncertain times

As I talked to my young friend today, I realized just how much of an impact this current situation is having on people’s mental state. To say that the world as we know it has changed is stating the obvious and a gross understatement. Yet what is truly unsettling is that we don’t know how long things will continue to play out and in what manner and to what extent every aspect of our lives is going to be impacted.

A lot of people have started noticing higher levels of anxiety, cases of panic attacks or worse, depression. The Fight or Flight response or the acute stress response is a physiological reaction to a perceived threat to survival or danger. In such a reaction, our bodies produce different hormones which affect how we react to stress. Elevated levels of some of these hormones lead to elevated levels of stress which result in a host of health conditions.

It is therefore, in our interests, to do what we can, as we hunker down in our homes, to learn to care for ourselves. And as we are told repeatedly on flights by the cabin crew, it is important that we put on the oxygen masks ourselves before we can take care of the children or other passengers we may be responsible for.  In these trying times, it is important for each of us to learn to manage our stress levels as we care for our families, our children and our seniors.

A simple and effective method is to allocate some time to a breathing practice. The simple act of diverting our attention to our breathing creates interference in our Fight/Flight response.  At the risk of sounding prescriptive, I am actually going to detail the steps taught by a couple of my Yoga teachers. A shout out to Malathy Chandrasekhar of Healthy Indian USA who taught me one of these tricks, which really works.

Stand with feet hip width apart in a relaxed manner. You can do so on your carpeted floor if you do not have a yoga mat. Loosen your shoulders by rotating them a couple of times. Then, as you inhale deeply, raise your shoulders towards your ears; then exhale loudly and forcefully, while releasing your shoulders back down and relax. Repeat this sequence of inhaling and exhaling three or four times. This can be done anytime there is a feeling of stress building up.

The second set of breathing exercises involves finding a quiet corner. Sit in a comfortable chair or cross-legged on the ground or mat. Close eyes. Rest palms softly on the knees, open and facing upwards.  Close eyes. Inhale slowly to a count of four; hold the breath to a count of two; exhale slowly to a count of six. If at first, it is difficult to inhale to the count of four, reduce it to three and exhale to the count of five. The idea is to get into a rhythm. Try this for five minutes or longer as needed. This is especially effective, if there is a rising sense of anxiety. I have personally, been able to overcome sudden anxiety attacks which I used to have for many years, using this very effective technique. Listening to soothing music certainly helps. I am providing a link to some calming and meditative music in case you are interested. Or listening to a soothing chant or prayer will help as well.

'Sound Healing' by Dean Evenson



Stay safe, stay healthy and nurture yourselves, my dear friends.

Surf Turf - What a fun morning! Wait....it was a workshop!!

“Surfers are the ‘throw-aheads’ of humanity, not the dregs; they aren’t the black sheep of humanity but the futurists and they are leading the way to where man ultimately wants to be. The act of the ride is the epitome of ‘Be Here Now’ and tube ride is the most acute form of that. Which is: “Your future is ahead of you, your past is exploding behind you, your wake is disappearing, your footprints are washed from the sand. It’s a non-productive, non-depletive act that’s done purely for the value of the dance itself. And that is the destiny of Man.” Timothy Leary.

To say that I was surprised when we were invited to conduct a workshop at a school for water sports near Chennai at a beach resort, is putting it mildly! I never expected to visit a school like this in my home town, much less be part of the facilitating team at the workshop!

The school is the collaboration between a businessman and a largely self-taught surfer who is now a celebrity in his own right. His story is the stuff of dreams…the kind of dreams that a boy from a poor fishing village had, to learn how to ride the waves and ended up representing his country in competitions around the world. I am posting links to his YouTube videos below this article if you are interested in learning more about his inspiring story. One of the dreams, this young man is committed to, is to mentor and train other young men from his village and provide them an alternative source of employment other than fishing. He lays down strict rules as far as smoking and alcohol consumption are concerned and instead expects commitment to serving the customer and learning and teaching people how to ride the waves.

The workshop was conducted at the request of the partners to talk to the employees (there were about 22 participants and included surfing instructors, administrators and marketing staff)  about the following:

·        Motivation

·        Customer Sensitivity

·        Thinking progressively

·        Demonstrating the values of the Firm

·        Working as a Team

After a brief introduction, the session began with an energizing theater activity. After the activity, the participants shared that the activity allowed them to understand the need for coordination and supporting each other. It was also a fun activity and acted as an ice-breaker. Participants were then asked to introduce themselves and share what they liked and what they disliked. What emerged was that people realized that just as each one is different, so also are their likes and dislikes.

Through an interactive session, the group was introduced to the ideas of self-management and recognizing one’s own intrinsic value and self worth. In doing so, one learns to appreciate oneself and therefore, the other person as well. The participants engaged in a lively manner and further explored the ideas relating to having goals and not allowing themselves to be constrained by self-limiting beliefs.  Through further interactions, the group was introduced to the ideas of choosing the right attitude on a regular basis, and learning to be in the present. This was a concept they were familiar with as they spend a lot of time communing with the ocean.  They shared that they were also aware that as surf instructors, they had to be conscious of the safety and welfare of their clients and therefore, needed to have the necessary focus and concentration.

The last activity had the group divided into three teams for a challenging team-building exercise. The teams started conferring among themselves on how best to participate in the activity so that they would emerge successfully. There was a lot of brainstorming, planning and figuring out how to execute the given task. The ability and willingness to trust each other, motivate each other in a healthy and positive manner and learn by observing each other’s practices all contributed to increased efficiency with each iteration. With each round, the teams were highly motivated to exceed their previously achieved goals, and in the process, realized what lay as potential within them. As the activity was physically challenging, the teams were not hindered in any way as they supported each other with a complete lack of personal egos; all energy was focused on attaining the successful outcome. 

Towards the end, we summarized all the salient points and tied them to the concept of customer sensitivity and the willingness to explore better ways to serve customers. The session ended on a fun note with music and dancing. Participants commented after the session ended that it had been very lively, energizing and thought-provoking. We were also very gratified with the enthusiastic participation of all those present and the manner in which they shared and interacted with each other.

The activities were based on J.L. Moreno’s theory called ‘Creative Action Method’ which mobilizes the body, mind and spirit to explore spontaneity and creativity of participants within a group. Through these fun activities, the participants experienced their own playfulness and got in touch with their ability to be creative and collaborate with each other. What emerged so powerfully was the experience of actually exceeding benchmarks that individuals and groups set when they get in touch with their own creativity and engage fully with each other in a collaborative manner. And all this was possible in a short session of just three hours

For Murthy Megavan's story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLIu2KSzgro