Calibrating your Senses 

I worked with a young man of 15 recently who told me that he hated school. He said to me "I can't learn anything".  So I asked him "do you learn anything outside of school?" He told me that he had studied martial arts since he was 7 and he began to show a glimmer of excitement. He said "that's totally different to school....I see clearly what the martial arts master shows me what to do and then I follow him". I asked him "what do you see in class?" and he looked blank. He told me that he "knew" that the teacher wouldn't answer his question and show him what to do, so he stopped asking. So I asked him to practice asking for the response that he wanted and look at what his teachers at school were showing him and to see how he may follow them. 

After the session I began to become curious about other contexts where people close down their senses as they already "know" the response that they are going to get. Like the salesperson who misses the buying signals as she is convinced that the client will say no. Like the husband who doesn't listen to his wife after the first few words as he "knows" what she is saying, he's already "got it". Like the interviewing panel who are so busy thinking about their next question they miss the answer to the one they just asked.

So how do you practise opening up your senses and becoming aware of the response that you're getting? 

Well, you  can pick one of your senses and practice noticing what you see one week, hear the next week, feel the next week and (for the adventurous) smell and taste the next week. Notice which sense you tend to use the most and which senses you can have the most fun developing. Enjoy

Whole Being