#and also because it's good to learn to grapple with discomfort in a controlled setting such as through lit

[kaurwreck]

fanfic discourse is stale. high schools should start assigning equus by peter shaffer.

[namaikiii]

Twst Ch 5 Thoughts

[Testing out to see if Tumblr eats this one]

I have a problem with Rook: He speaks French. Rook, where did you learn French? Is there a France in Twisted Wonderland? How is French cuisine a commonly known thing in Pomefiore? And if so, where is this France? How can there be a place that speaks French or a Japan for Lilia to learn about natto if Crowley has never heard of our world in his 100 year career? How does this world work???? or maybe the problem lies with us/Yuu

Random Spacefiller Before the Cut: Leona living up to the phrase “cats hate collars”

Rest is under the cut to avoid spoilers (also it’s lengthy):

[Spoiler 5-10] Jamil: Kalim, it’s fine if you don’t (clean gym with ADeuce)……This line really stuck out to me because although we’ve seen Jamil be concerned over Kalim before, it’s the first time he’s showing signs of caring AFTER their incident in Ch 4 (AKA new relationship standing is: we are not friends) and it also invokes a different attitude.

Part of it is still probably out of habit, old-Jamil would say a master shouldn’t be doing the work of a servant. Another part I feel like is guilt. Having Kalim follow his orders (even though it wasn’t directed at him) might’ve triggered Jamil to how he treated Kalim in Ch 4. And his discomfort shows that he’s reflected on his actions and knows he was in the wrong. Grim comments the change in Jamil is extreme (duh Grim, his quick turnaround is thanks to his maturity, unlike some Overblotters…). The thing with Jamil is his growth will never by shown explicitly due to his nature, but the small snippets of focus on him give enough to read between the lines.

And throughout Ch 5 we see Jamil still keeping an eye on Kalim from afar, and his expressions are pensive. Kalim is showing signs of putting himself as an equal with Jamil by doing the same tasks as him and learning to put in effort at improving himself so that he may compete with Jamil on equal footings. And Jamil has to fight back old habits of giving in his victories to/coddling Kalim (thereby enabling his ignorant helplessness) and learn to let Kalim (and himself) go through the process so that they can both mature as their own person. And I think this growth between them will develop further in this chapter. Also I high key love Kalim’s reasoning for picking his favorite story. The boy believes in 2nd chances and redemption arcs.

It’s a bit of a pity that Jamil’s frustration was directed towards Kalim instead of the social system of the Land of Hot Sands itself, because he clearly is grappling with himself on his opinion of Kalim (yesss Jamil, be friends. He’s a good guy and you know it). But then again, he’s a teenage boy so it’s understandable that he’s unable to see past the oppression in his immediate space to see the issue in light of the big political picture of it all. And it seems that our overblotters suffering from twisted oppression(s) of this world outside of their control seems to be a common theme.

[Spoiler 5-21] So at this rate, we’ve technically had a sleepover with Savanaclaw, and Octavinelle, and now with Heartslabyul/Scarabia/Pomefiore. Will we get to finish the set with Ignihyde and Diasomnia? Will Malleus finally get invited to something???

Thoughts on Vil so Far: Coincidentally, while playing through Ch5, I came across an article talking about how ultra-Independence is a trauma response and while reading it, a lot of it resonated with Vil from what we’ve observed of him so far. From what I gleaned, characteristics of ultra-independence is:

A survival mechanism stemming from a past trauma (neglect/abuse/bullying/grief/etc.)

Tend to be the rulers of the household (They run the show)

Take on all the responsibilities/decisions because they don’t trust others to make the correct decisions (micromanage)

Results in too much responsibility on one person –> Become overwhelmed/unable to cope with the pressure

Asking for help/Admitting they are not coping is terrifying

Tend to take on codependent relationships (allows them to fix others which gives them a sense of security/control rather than a person who tries to help them)

And in the same order, I’ll relate the observations and how it pertains to Vil:

He holds bitterness to his past/hometown for whatever he experienced there (humiliation?) and is disillusioned by the concept that hard work will bring good results (the falsity of which he is currently experiencing due to, despite all his efforts, Neige is still “#1″). In Deuce’s SR Lab Coat story and other instances, he always scolds those who ask for help without putting in their own effort first.

Uh…..Dorm lead. Fairy Gala/His movie club projects/This training camp also show how much he invests in directing to make sure everything is as perfect as can be

Same as above, the strictness of his lessons in Fairy Gala, the nitpickiness of the smoke color in his Lab Coat Story, his critiques during lessons as well as managing everyone’s diet and skincare

We’re seeing him slowly slip and act out of character like standing blankly in the middle of the hall (every time that ink blot drips yo). Also I could add in the way his severity towards Epel is becoming more and more unreasonable and more of living a projection of his own desires through someone else (tiger mom anyone?)

Rook knows what’s up. Despite others seeing Vil as a very strong and confident personality, Rook’s description of him suggests something fragile and needs to be looked after. More so especially if the person in distress is unable to ask for help himself

His interaction with Azul in Azul’s SR Ceremony Robe story and Jade in Jade’s SSR story shows he is another one of those who hates being indebted to others. He will not be a charity case. His general relationship with Rook is also very quid pro quo. And the whole nosiness of him constantly getting involved in improving others to reach their full potential (he wanted to continue Fairy Gala boys’s modeling career even when it was unnecessary).

Rook mentions how he and Vil are excited for the first years to break out of their shells and show their true beauty and tbh I hope that means one step closer to finding their Unique Magic. Let it happen dang it! Also, when Vil OBs, I see Rook reacting in 1 of 2 ways: him with his beauty optimism will still find OB Queen as Beauté! in its own way OR  he’ll call it out that Vil has strayed from his true beauty (AKA: for once, you no beauté!). But he’ll help get his Roi de Poison come back to his senses and back on track. Yah I’m leaning towards option 2.

Yeah that was an essay but I’m loving Ch 5 so far because! MORE SCARABIA BOYS SCREENTIME AND DEVELOPMENT. and also lots more info on Twst lore. Thanks for reading!!!!!

[dandrabbles]

Find the Word

I was tagged by @fictionshewrote for this! Thank you so much <3 Basic concept: find a quote that contains the following words “breath, open, deep, gently.” Every post gets different words, so if I tagged you, your words are at the bottom of this post!

I’m gonna have to dig around through various drafts, since all I’ve been writing are short stories. But all of these short stories will be part of the same collection! I’ll post the associated titles along with the excerpts. Breath

This is from my story “Until it Hits Something Solid” about two guys in Oakhurst sorting out their friendship.

All his adult life, Wilder has felt he hasn’t quite understood things. The lectures at his community college, how to talk to women, why Corey always looks like he’s ready to fight. Now, with Corey’s sad, self-assured face staring at him, and the creeping suspicion that he’s in the wrong, he takes one, slow breath. “Then fucking enlighten me,” he says.

“No,” Corey says. Then, quieter, “What do you think is going to happen to Tracy’s daughter?”

“I don’t get it.”

“Every asshole here has an opinion. How do you think this works out for her?”

“I don’t know,” Wilder says. His neck hurts, tense with the promise of a headache. He isn’t sure if he wants Tracy’s daughter—or the idea of her—to have a kid or not. He wants her to make her own decision. He doesn’t want to have to think about what that decision means. Whenever things like this came up in his house growing up, they were pushed aside. They didn’t involve him. There was the obvious answer of choice, the answer that he felt was best because he didn’t have to have an opinion about it. Now, the more he thought about Tracy’s daughter, and having to carry a baby with Oakhurst watching, or without a place to sleep, the more he was certain he couldn’t know the answer. “There’s no good option,” he says.

“There it is,” Corey says. “For once you figured something out yourself.” He sinks back into the seat, body hanging slack. “There’s no version of this where she doesn’t do exactly what she needs to survive,” he says. “Same as any of us.” Open

This is from a short story with the working title “Collection,” about a young girl trying to find control and power in her life in self-destructive ways. She tosses more crackers whenever the ducks grow disinterested, keeps them waiting around for more. They quack and squabble and snap flat bills her way, wide open and demanding. The youngest ones are the loudest, still shedding their grey fluff for full grown feathers. The babies leave clumps of themselves floating on the water in a way she finds careless, stuck to each other, snagged on twigs or scum. But, whenever they draw close to land, the parents crowd around their children, shrill and over protective against the girl’s interest. Her dad always pulls her back from the edge when they walk the paths around the lake. Concerned is the word he uses for how tightly he holds onto her. “Your mother and I are concerned,” or, “You can’t wander off” or, “I love you—stay close.” He never lets her leave the paved path to feed the ducks or climb trees, always keeps her where he wants her. She suspects that her parents know more than she does about where danger lurks, or if, more likely, they are just scared of the possibilities that lie outside closed doors.

Feet crunch in the dirt behind her and when she turns it is as she suspected: Reid is watching her. He smiles at her as if she has said a funny joke or invited him to stay, and she does not smile back. She knows he will come closer whether she smiles or not, because it is hot and her tree has shade. Because they are the only two looking out at the lake. Because he has followed her here from Mrs. Herschel’s house. She had wanted him to show up, but now that he is here a part of her misses her closet and the dark and the ants.

Deep

I cheated slightly and went for “deeper” instead of “deep.” This comes out of a story titled “Beyond the Storm, the Night is Peaceful.” It’s about a young girl and her father trying to communicate, and trying to learn to trust each other to care.

“Tomorrow we’ll go into town and thank Bill right. Pay him for the gas he used on you,” her dad says.

Calliope sits across from him, the pint of pistachio ice cream between them. It’s half soup, no point freezing it again. Once solid, it’ll taste like freezer burn. She digs her spoon into the island of ice cream floating in the middle, pins it against the side to get a scoop out. Melt drips onto her shirt. Wiping it rubs it deeper into the fabric. Her dad looks tired, shoulders slack, eyes red. They sit like that, her eating and him quiet, until he picks up his spoon. The pint goes back and forth after that. A few bites, then pass it along until it’s gone.

“I was going to Fresno,” Calliope says.

“Don’t start like that,” her dad says. He sets the empty pint down between them, spreads his hands, palms against the table.

“How else is there?” she says. Her backpack lays open next to her father’s chair.

He reaches into the backpack, pulls out a wad of bills. “You took three hundred dollars.” He tosses it next to the empty ice cream.

“Two thirty-five.”

He pounds the table, palm flat, hard enough to jump the empty pint. Then again, just as loud, but the weight behind the blow is gone. He looks at her without moving his head, up through his lashes. His eyes look large and wet and too young for his face. Like a child who has found his parents out in a lie for the first time, all that trust broken open into tears. “What’d you expect to do?” he says. “Fresno, sure. At night when everything’s closed. And alone—I didn’t raise you to be this fucking stupid.” When he looks at her this time there’s a weakness, a pain in the trembled set of his mouth that sends discomfort down Calliope’s spine. “I went to your school to find you,” he says.

“Didn’t have to,” she says.

Gently

This comes out of a story called “There Is No Fire Here.” It’s about a young person trying to grapple with their sister’s abuse, and the ways they’re implicated by not stopping that abuse.

The first time I set a fire, I was fifteen. In the fading evening light, I had bundled dry twigs and some brush in the dirt behind our trailer. Used some matches I found in a drawer to start the burn. It had smoked up so bad I’d almost passed out. Dad watched Survivor religiously. One season, a contestant passed out from smoke inhalation and fell into the fire. The pain was what woke him up. I only heard him screaming from the TV, turned in time to see him wading into a lake, skin and blood dripping from his hands. The flare of light and that image kept me steady. All of me clenched so tight that I saw spots, eyes aching against the severity. It was like staring into my own, hand-crafted Sun. I had made a star. A single point of light in the dark and the cold.

Inside, I could hear the belt. I could hear Tati. But the fire—the light—was alive. It burned so hot I felt the skin on my cheeks dry and gently blister. I watched until it had burned itself to ashes, until all that was left behind was blackened earth. Until the evening was quiet. Until I was quiet. Still me. The offering.

This was a lot of fun! Thank you so much for tagging me <3

I’m gonna tag @bealicey @ritedudehere and @wulphi but if anyone else would like to do it, please do so and remember to tag me so I can see the post. (Also, I’d say, if you can’t find something with that word, I challenge you to write a paragraph or some such using it.)

Your words are: Scrubbed, another, tangle, and everywhere.

[ladystylestores]

Family affairs: Everyone learns they can’t go home again in Killing Eve S3

After being shot and left for dead by Villanelle, Eve (Sandra Oh) is now working in the kitchen of a Korean restaurant.

BBC America

She’s trying to patch up her marriage to Niko (Owen McDonnell), who is recovering from PTSD.

BBC America

Villanelle (Jodie Comer) on her wedding day, to a wealthy heiress in Spain.

BBC America

Villanelle’s former mentor, Dasha (Harriet Walter) shows up unannounced.

BBC America

Villanelle and Dasha have some issues to work through.

BBC America

Meanwhile, Eve’s former boss Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) isn’t in good favor at MI6.

BBC America

Another MI6 supervisor, Paul (Steve Pemberton) is vying for control of the division.

BBC America

Carolyn finds an ally in MI6 agent Mo Jafari (Raj Bajaj).

BBC America

Carolyn’s son, Kenny (Sean Delaney) has left MI6 and is now an investigative journalist with The Bitter Pill.

BBC America

Eve finds her own ally in Kenny’s new boss, Jamie (Danny Sapani)

BBC America

Yeah, Konstantin (Kim Bodnia) is still around, with his own agenda.

BBC America

Villanelle is less than pleased when Konstantin comes to call.

BBC America

Villanelle’s latest kill takes a page from Dasha’s old playbook.

BBC America

Villanelle wants to be a Keeper with The Twelve.

BBC America

Villanelle tracks down Eve during a London visit.

BBC America

A violent fight leads to a passionate kiss.

BBC America

Killing Eve burst onto the scene in 2018 to rave reviews, as viewers and critics alike were enthralled by the sexually charged cat-and-mouse game playing out between MI6 agent Eve (Sandra Oh) and expert assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer). Alas, while S2 had some powerful moments, overall it lacked the same taut, addictive focus. But the series came back strong for its third season, fleshing out the story in some fresh, fascinating ways. Small wonder it’s already been renewed for a fourth season.

(A��couple of major spoilers below for first six episodes of S3—we’ll give you a heads-up when we get there—but no major reveals for the final two episodes.)

As S3 opened, we learned that Eve survived being shot by Villanelle in the S2 finale (duh). She is keeping a low profile, working in the kitchen of a dumpling eatery in London, and living on a shocking amount of junk food in her dismal flat. Her long-suffering math teacher husband Niko (Owen McDonnell) also survived his encounter with Villanelle in S2 (although his fellow teacher, Gemma, did not). He is now an in-patient being treated for PTSD, and unreceptive to Eve’s efforts to reconnect.

Meanwhile, Villanelle is marrying a wealthy heiress, but her plans for a life of semi-retired luxury are upended by the appearance of Dasha (Harriet Walter), her former mentor from Russia. She gets sucked back into working for the shadowy organization known as the Twelve in exchange for a promotion to “Keeper” (aka upper management).

Eve’s former supervisor, Carolyn (Fiona Shaw), is out of favor at MI6, with an irritating rival named Paul (Steve Pemberton) challenging her former dominance over her division. Carolyn’s estranged son, Kenny (Sean Delaney), has left MI6 and is working as an investigative journalist for an outlet called The Bitter Pill, while her former Russian paramour, Konstantin (Kim Bodnia), is plotting to flee the country with his now-teenaged daughter, Irina (Yuli Lagodinsky).  

In my review of the first S3 episode, I noted that the series faced a major challenge in its third installment, as viewers have come to expect shocking twists, thereby making it harder to achieve that element of surprise. “I trust that the writers and new showrunner Suzanne Heathcote have plenty of exciting twists and suspenseful moments in store for us [in S3],” I concluded. “But at some point, the basic premise—already wearing a bit thin—will run out of steam altogether. And then the real question becomes, where does the series go from there?”

Well, I’m pleased to report that S3 successfully met that challenge, mostly by changing the focus a bit. Keeping Eve and Villanelle (mostly) apart was a good creative strategy, even more so now that we’ve moved well beyond the “who’s the predator, who’s the prey” dynamic of S1. This third season is really about family, as every major character must grapple with the high personal cost of their decisions thus far.

(Warning: major spoilers begin below this gallery!)

Villanelle has that magic touch with children.

Gemma Whelan plays Carolyn’s daughter (and Kenny’s sister) Geraldine, who tries to repair her relationship with her mother.

BBC America

You may remember Konstantin’s strong-willed daughter, Irina (Yuli Lagodinsky) from S1.

BBC America

Niko moves back to Poland and his roots.

BBC America

Villanelle does a favor for Konstantin in exchange for information about her biological family.

BBC America

Meanwhile, Dasha has her sights set on Niko.

BBC America

Eve witnesses the attack.

BBC America

Niko survives, but rejects Eve.

BBC America

Eve confronts Dasha about the attack on Niko.

BBC America

Villanelle looks over family pictures with her brother Pyotr (Rob Feldman).

BBC America

She bonds with half-brother Bor���ka (Temirlan Blaev), who is obsessed with Elton John, at the local Harvest Festival.

BBC America

Her mother, Tatiana (Evgenia Dodina), insists she leave: “Do not bring your darkness into this house.”

BBC America

Villanelle’s revenge.

BBC America

Eve still clings to the futile hope that she can fix her marriage, unable to see just how damaged and shattered Niko has become after all she’s put him through by exposing him to the risks inherent in her job. Those risks are only heightened when Villanelle discovers she’s still alive and her obsession with Eve rekindles anew. But our favorite assassin is also confronting her own past in Dasha—the woman who turned her into the “perfect killing machine” and then betrayed her—and in a sudden desire to seek out the mother who abandoned her to an orphanage as a child.

Carolyn suffers a devastating loss when Kenny (allegedly) commits suicide by jumping off the roof of his office building at the end of the first episode. She’s a woman who has spent a lifetime suppressing any genuine emotion, who must now deal with her estranged  touchy-feely daughter, Geraldine (Gemma Whelan), seeking to bond in their shared grief. Konstantin is trying to keep his daughter safe, only to realize she has her own inner darkness, exacerbated by his constant absence, the nature of his work, and Villanelle’s pernicious influence.

As always, all the performances are spectacular. Most of the attention has a focused on Oh and Comer, and rightly so. Villanelle is just as outrageously unpredictable and charming (in a deadly psychopath way) as ever, with even more spectacularly outré outfits. You never want to take your eyes off her; no wonder Eve remains obsessed.

But the supporting cast is every bit as strong, particularly Shaw and Bodnia, who quite possibly has the richest, most expressive laugh on TV these days. Among the new faces for S3, Harriet Walter is a sheer delight as Dasha, a chain-smoking, raspy-voiced former Olympic gymnast turned brutal assassin for the Twelve (and trainer of the the next generation of brutal female assassins). Game of Thrones fans will recognize Whelan from her days playing Yara Greyjoy, and she is given ample opportunity here to display her impressive range as an actress. And I loved seeing Lagodinsky return as Konstantin’s precocious, sarcastic, tough-minded daughter Irina.

The plotting is much tighter than last season—especially the final two episodes, as Eve pursues Villanelle by following the bodies piling up along the way—and while Villanelle’s kills don’t quite measure up to the macabre creativity she employed in the first two seasons, the S3 writers manage to pull off one very good twist. Concerned that Villanelle is once again behaving erratically because of her Eve obsession, the Twelve asks Dasha to intervene. Dasha decides to drive a wedge between the two women by killing Niko and framing Villanelle—making sure that Eve arrives at the Polish farm where he’s been working just in time to see it happen.

Eve tracks down Villanelle.

BBC America

Konstantin has plans to flee with Irina.

BBC America

Villanelle is a bad influence on Irina.

BBC America

Hélène (Camille Cottin) is a member of The Twelve.

BBC America

Villanelle does not hug.

BBC America

Yet another assignment, this time with fellow assassin Rhian (Alexandra Roach).

BBC America

Tensions are rising between Villanelle and Dasha.

BBC America

A hit at a golf resort in Aberdeen.

BBC America

Eve finds Dasha.

BBC America

Konstantin collapses at a train station.

BBC America

Paul might have his own plan in place.

BBC America

Carolyn faces off with Villanelle.

BBC America

Eve finds Villanelle.

BBC America

The happy couple, together again.

BBC America

It’s genuinely shocking in a way that Kenny’s death, while tragic, is not, thanks to some very clever editing. Unfortunately, the writers then blinked: Niko barely survives, although he (understandably) severs ties completely with Eve when she comes to see him in the hospital. I love the character, but it does undercut the power of the attack. I guess the writers are keeping their S4 options open where Eve and Niko are concerned.

By far the best single episode is “Are You From Pinner,” in which Villanelle visits her hometown in Russia and reconnects with her biological family, especially her brother Pyotr (Rob Feldman) and her coldly distant mother, Tatiana (Evgenia Dodina). Comer’s social awkwardness and discomfort with even small affections contrast sharply with the loud and boisterously enthusiastic family members. She tries to join in on a post-dinner singalong to Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock,” to comic effect, and watching her intensely compete in the dung-flinging competition at the local Harvest Festival—and her euphoria when she wins—is both hilarious and strangely touching.

Villanelle is trying so very hard to belong, even briefly bonding with her young half-brother Bor’ka (Temirlan Blaev), but she is far too damaged. And it is inevitable that the equally damaged Tatiana will reject her, telling her to leave and not bring her “darkness” into their house. Of course, Villanelle takes her revenge.

Killing Eve is based on Luke Jennings’ 2018 thriller Codename Villanelle, a compilation of four e-book novellas he published from 2014-2016. He published a sequel in 2019, Killing Eve: No Tomorrow, but despite Eve’s prominence in that title, Villanelle was clearly conceived as the central figure. So maybe it’s not surprising that we spend far more time on her backstory and family of origin issues than on Eve’s in S3, which makes Eve’s own journey back to Villanelle over the course of the season less impactful in comparison. The first two seasons did a better job balancing the focus between the two.

But that’s a minor quibble with an otherwise excellent season. These two women are clearly damaged in similar ways, with a shared social and emotional awkwardness, and morbid/violent bent. It’s just that Villanelle’s tendencies were encouraged and exploited via extreme physical and mental abuse, while Eve managed to channel her darker tendencies into her government work, and found some semblance of a family with Niko—at least until Villanelle burst into her life. But we still have little idea what Eve’s own early family life was like, or how it shaped her.

Here’s hoping that will be a major angle of exploration for S4, when Laura Neal replaces Heathcote as showrunner. Delving into how Eve and Villanelle have shaped and changed each other over three seasons would be another promising narrative vein to mine. Perhaps these two women can eventually find the families they have lost with each other, in their own uniquely twisted way.

  Listing image by BBC America

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[chocolate-brownies]

Office politics. Dictatorial bosses. Coworkers’ emotions bouncing up and down and sideways. Hi-tech tools that keep changing and updating. An uncertain economy and a volatile job market. Escalating levels of expectation. Loss of direction. Too much to do. Too little time. Not enough sleep.

Whether you work in a traditional or progressive environment, on your own or in a sea of cubicles, work life is full of challenges. Most of us are beholden to the income we receive from our jobs, and beyond that, we get up and go to work because we have a real desire to contribute to the greater good. Turning away from work is not an option for most of us, so we buck up and throw ourselves into the challenges of the workplace. Some of us are doing well, successful and satisfied. But too many of us are not happy at work. We’re stressed out and quite possibly confused. We may appear to be effective, but gnawing issues like those above can make work secretly (or not so secretly) a drag. That’s not great for us and it’s not great for the people we’re working with. So where do we begin if we want to improve our work life for ourselves and those around us? I suggest starting with the mind. Ask yourself: what is the quality of my mind at work? What’s happening in my mind as the hours at work go by day in and day out? Is my mind working at its utmost?

Ask yourself: what is the quality of my mind at work?

The mind contains untold resources and possibilities—for creativity, kindness, compassion, insight, and wisdom. It’s a storehouse of tremendous energy and drive. And yet it can also be a nattering annoyance, an untamed animal, or a millstone that drags us down. Sometimes we would like to just shut it off so we can get some work done or have a moment’s peace. Yet our mind is the one thing we can’t shut off. So why not make the most of it instead? Why not put it to good use? Through mindfulness, we can train our minds to work better.

By training us to pay attention moment by moment to where we are and what we’re doing, mindfulness can help us choose how we will behave, nudging (or jolting) us out of autopilot mode. Here are a few suggestions for how to bring mindfulness into our workplace. This won’t just give us some relief from stress; it can actually change, even transform, how we work.

Four Ways To Create a More Mindful Work Routine

1) Keep an open mind

Do we see what is really there, or is what we experience filtered through our own thoughts and preconceptions? Maybe we should check how we’re seeing before we try to change what we’re seeing. First, we need to make sure our lens is clear.

Much of the suffering and discomfort we experience at work—and elsewhere—stems from our deeply held views, opinions, and ideas that become lenses through which we perceive the events of our lives. No doubt the machinery of perception each of us has developed has served us well for the most part, guiding and supporting us at critical junctures. But the burden of adhering to set patterns of perceiving while we grapple with the drama and minutiae of everyday life can be limiting and, frankly, an invitation to misery.

When we’re convinced things ought to be a certain way and they’re not, we suffer. When someone refuses to act in the way we think they should, we suffer. When we don’t get what we want, when we want it—or when we get what we don’t want, anytime—you guessed it: we suffer. The workplace, such a microcosm of life in its entirety, is rife with opportunities to march straight into suffering. What we need to explore is whether our distress really derives from the workplace itself or instead from how we apply our default ways of perceiving to the challenges we face at work.

The workplace, such a microcosm of life in its entirety, is rife with opportunities to march straight into suffering.

The mind will try to force any situation it meets into its favorite ways of perceiving and will react with distress when it meets resistance. Many years ago I had a coworker who consistently got me riled up. She had a way of doing things that just got under my skin. I would think to myself, “If she would only act this way instead of that way, we would all be happier and more productive.” This was pretty much a daily, and sometimes hourly, occurrence.

Of course, what I was really feeling was that if she acted differently, I would be happier and more productive. I was seeking the comfort of the familiar and the expected and yearned for my coworker to act in a way that precisely supported my needs. However, as soon as I realized that I was caught up in a particular way of perceiving, I found I could alter my perception and apply real choice to how I felt about her. And when choice entered the equation, I quickly realized I no longer needed my colleague to change—because I had.

It can be difficult enough to be open-minded toward others, but it is even more difficult to be open-minded toward oneself. It takes real training. To discover the ways of perceiving you’re apt to blindly apply, experiment with keeping yourself curious, attentive, and receptive.

Whenever you detect yourself falling into an old, familiar pattern, stop and examine what is actually going on. Notice the physical sensations in your body; notice the emotions that have bloomed; notice what stories your mind is generating that make your body tense and inflame your emotions. But it’s important not to disparage yourself for falling into an old and unhelpful pattern. Recognize the potentially explosive negative charge generated by your body, thoughts, and emotions. Accept that it has arisen, then make the decision to be in control of it instead of being controlled by it.

2) Learn to respond, rather than react

Inflexible patterns of perceiving inevitably prove too small, too confining, for all that our minds need to encompass and accomplish. Inflexible patterns of reacting squeeze the life out of us. Each of us has our own pet scenarios that chafe against our expectations. When they pop up, they threaten to stir up jealousy, anger, defensiveness, mindless striving, and a stew of other possibilities. We may end up saying or doing something hurtful, something we’ll regret later and may have to apologize for. We leapt before we looked.

Conversely, when we stop to examine how we typically respond to situations, we create space for more creative and flexible responses. Ultimately, as we build the habit of mindfully examining our responses in the moment, mindful awareness becomes our new default mode.

Let’s take an example that hopefully is not too familiar. You’ve been working tirelessly with a coworker on a project, but when it comes time to receive accolades for the project’s success, your partner manages to take all the credit. You’re now entering that decisive moment when you have the chance to become master of your reactions. Or, to put it another way, to meet your experience.

By decoupling what’s happening from your reaction to what’s happening, odds are you will prevent yourself from simply being carried along by the experience and instead will prove yourself capable of getting ahead of it.

Becoming aware of the impact the slight has had on you is the first step. Separate yourself from yourself just enough to allow you to examine, free from rote reactions, how your body, emotions, and thoughts are combining to gear up for a response.

By decoupling what’s happening from your reaction to what’s happening, odds are you will prevent yourself from simply being carried along by the experience and instead will prove yourself capable of getting ahead of it.

In examining your thoughts, you’ll probably see a story forming, something along the lines of how you heroically brought the project to completion, only to have it stolen away at the last minute. Once you can see this narrative open out before you like a book—once you have become the reader of the story instead of its protagonist—you have put yourself in position to let it evaporate. You may notice how the pounding heart, sweaty palms, and tightened shoulders you just experienced slip away along with the storyline you just let go of. You gently shift to a state that is more relaxed and, as a result, more confident. States of being, which can seem so permanent and monumental, are not in fact static. They shift moment to moment, and they can change in response to our awareness of them. It’s amazing how easily a grimace can morph into a smile.

There’s no need to assume that mindful self-examination means you have to allow your coworker to take credit where credit isn’t due. Rather, its goal is to allow you to respond in a new way that frees you from old, ingrained, automatic patterns.

3) Remember, thoughts are not facts

Consciously, confidently meeting experiences, instead of being carried away by them, is a practice you can apply in all situations. It is helpful not just in emotionally charged events like the one above, but also in situations that may seem insignificant, but which could become more significant if left unexamined.

Let’s say you’ve taken the attitude that the tasks assigned to you are unimportant or undervalued. Ask yourself if you feel that way because it is true. Or do you feel that way because you’re so used to telling yourself it’s true that you can’t think of it in any other way?

Think even smaller. Imagine something as routine as the way you hoist the phone to your ear when it rings. By really examining this action—seemingly so inconsequential, so unworthy of examination—you feel like it’s something you’re doing for the very first time. You may detect anxiety traveling down your arm and tension as you pick up the phone. Experiencing everyday actions up close in this way is not about being self-conscious. It’s about bringing choice, attention, and awareness back into things that you’ve allowed to become automatic. By opening up to the tiniest habit, you make it possible to crack open the larger habits, which seem more resistant to change. You can look at every action and interaction freshly.

The more you understand your own mind, the more you can understand the minds of others. If you come to understand your own body language, you can read the body language of others better. Mindfulness doesn’t give you a crystal ball, but it tends to increase your empathy, your ability to put yourself in someone’s shoes with greater understanding. It enhances your connection with other people and supports you as you build relationships. No action, reaction, interaction, or relationship ever feels uninteresting or unworkable if a curious mind is brought to bear on it. You can actually transform that feeling of, “Oh man, here comes John, my supervisor—I bet he wants me to change my work, again” into “Here comes John again. How can I see and hear him, without judgment, as though we were interacting for the very first time—just dealing with what comes up in the moment?”

4) Build healthy habits

For mindfulness to work at work, it helps to have both a formal practice of mindfulness and informal practices that extend mindfulness into everyday life. Formal practice involves learning a basic mindfulness meditation such as following the breath and practicing it on a regular, preferably daily, schedule. Informal practice, no less important, can literally take place any second of the day. It involves nothing more than focusing the mind on whatever is happening in the present moment, outside of the shopworn patterns we have built up over a lifetime.

Mindfulness interrupts the conditioned responses that prevent us from exploring new avenues of thought, choking our creative potential. Each time we stand up against a habit—whether it’s checking our smartphone during a conversation or reacting defensively to a coworker’s passing remark—we weaken the grip of our conditioning. We lay down new tracks in the brain and fashion new synaptic connections. We become less likely in the future to default to patterns that can trap us into being satisfied with ineffective and outmoded strategies. We take steps to improve not only how we are at work but the work environment itself.

In this way, mindfulness is not just personal. It has a contagious quality that will change the culture in an organization—not necessarily in big, sweeping ways but gradually, incrementally.

This article also appeared in the August 2013 issue of Mindful magazine.

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The post Train Your Mind to Work Smarter appeared first on Mindful.

[olaluwe]

"Thinking, says the book: Speech: A High School Course", starts with a problem; a difficulty that is felt." Really, if there is anything for which humanity has consistently been called out since the morning of creation I can say with a fairly high degree of accuracy that it is ' Thinking.' Even at individual level, it is pretty the same thing. It is so because much of our advancements have been accomplished on the back of thorough thinking around many a societal or existential challenges whether it is in the field of natural or social science. Therefore straight thinking is a skill worth having by everybody; more so because we are bound to be challenged everyday of our life. Among others, challenge could manifest itself in form a faulty car, an empty pocket, unemployment, sickness, unwanted pregnancy, barrenness, failure in examination or business, chronic single's life, rape, rejection and loveless marriage.  I can go on and on and on! But which life if I may ask doesn't at some point in its evolution suffers one or two of these aforementioned challenges? None! Where there is one even seemingly; it must be so categorized as a clear case of fraud. For life without challenge just as living without prayers is fraudulent; a fallacy. Don't get too excited, Pals, if today by some luck, magic or ingenious contrivances you are neither faced with any challenge nor are you praying to get by in life. It is most probable they are piling up for you somewhere along the journey of life. And you're bound to pick them up anyways as you stride on. So brave it when it hits you any moment from now. This goes to show that life is a constant battle for adjustment for the living. 'Therefore adjustment defined, is what a man gained when he comes to himself."   Adjustment from disequilibrium to equilibrium; from discomfort to comfort. Where there is no maladjustment as enumerated above then, adjustment wouldn't necessarily be a topic here. If for anything, it is because most challenges of life are largely unpredictable leaving us more often than not desperately exposed to all manners of equally contrary sprits. i.e. fears, anxiety, hypertension, low self esteem, depression, and worst of all suicidal thoughts. Before I go on, can we just ponder briefly these questions- I mean why problems, challenges or maladjustment at all? The answer it must interest you lies in the fact that there is absolutely nothing in life without a purpose; a divine purpose; and that include problems or challenges as it were. They spring up on our paths either as a test of our resolve and faith or as a filter for our becoming the very best that we can possibly be. And the analogy still suffices here that: "Then iron wouldn't be as tough as it comes without the true test of fire". And the same applies to human kind. Can anyone call himself brave without been battle tried? God forbid! So have you been grappling with some challenges and you are at a loss on how best to solve them, at least dependably; without allowing things get messier. Now don't worry. In a way you are in the right company. I'm a life coach? No, I'm not. I'm just your regular passionate online guy who is always striving to help change the world in my own little ways in the pursuit of my 'philosophy of positively being and becoming by all'. Many times over I've had and still have my own share of some of life's meltdowns and I didn't get overwhelmed by them. So if I'm not; I bet you can't too. All it takes is being attentive to some of the suggestion I'm about to offer here. But before then, maybe I should share a story from my own personal experiential archive. "Some ten or so years ago I face the first romantic rejection in my life. You know when you love a woman so much you want to go down the aisle with her. And then one day she hits you with a 'No' for an answer even when all signs had strongly indicated it’s a foregone conclusion. Like every human I was naturally gutted and forlorn. But my response has been that of calm assurance and perfect wisdom in the midst of this sudden romantic storm and tidal waves. To her break up text message which reads "I can't marry you. God will provide you your own wife”. I replied “thank God it's never too late to seek a newer world".  Despite that confident air of positivism, It will interest you that those ten years down the    line the anticipated newer world never really materialized neither for me nor her. And today she has returned to the rejected stone http://ift.tt/2xqVcwy she ought to be in the first place". In a scenario like this, some men with different level of maturity are known to have done drastic things either to themselves or the women in question because they lack what is needed at a time like this which is ignoring the lies that they are inadequate as a men or women for some reasons. Worse still, some of these reasons may not even be your making. Creation for all I know is based on the principle of compensation. If you lose one thing; another will be giving unto you as replacement. And if that which you've lost is divinely yours; it would definitely navigates back to you. So, I got my justice. End of story." Now shall we get down to business? Thinking through a life challenge is pretty within the grasp of those who can excites their thing faculty. And that includes those who have ignorantly taken their own lives. I mean if not ignorance, what can possibly explain a young chap who committed suicide because he failed his semester exam. Or a woman who was sexually abused by a gang of morally depraved men resorting to killing herself or continue to wallow in feelings of inadequacy, dejection and shame. Agreed they needed help; and they could have gotten it. Many have the world because they were deliberate about it. Now to the list of my recipes for thinking through life’s challenges to a dependable solution: 1.  Identify the problem and knowing what the immediate and remote causes are. Like I said earlier, life challenge can be any one of unemployment, disappointment in love or business, unwanted pregnancy and so on and so forth. The key to starting out towards a solution is identifying what yours is and knowing what the causes are immediate or remote. It could due to lack of self control in sexual matters as regards unwanted pregnancy. It could be due to lack of financial prudence, non-dedication to duty as regards why a business failed. 2. Reaching out or unburdening your heart to an ally, family and friends. You might want to talk to someone you feel would have a superiorly matured way of looking at things from among your allies, family and friends. After all, problem share is problem half solved. 3. Be open to the possibility of solution. Don't shut yourself out in disbelief, ignorance, self pity and grief. You're not the first to be in such situation and would not be the last. It doesn't matter for how long you've been under the yoke of the problem. Never shut yourself out to the possibility of solution by lackadaisically resigning to fate confining yourself to seclusion. 4. Be ready to go the extra mile. The lesson of the Biblical woman with twelve years issue of blood who brave the odds of the mammoth crowd surrounding our Lord Jesus Christ to get her healing by touching the hem of his robe cannot be over referenced. A few snippets of the narratives that were not told would be one or all of the following. I personally believe she must have spent quite a fortune in the interval leading to encountering Christ from consulting with one physician or the other. She must have been abandoned by some family members and friends. She must have become a pariah in the women associations or circles. But she got her healing anyways because she was always ready to go the extra mile. You can't begin to imagine how many people today have surrendered when they were closest to solution to some of the challenges confronting them. They simply tired out when it was the least thing expected of them. And how tragic! 5. Show determination even if people have made you subscribe to unworkable prescriptions some other time. You know just as we have fake doctors so we have certified ones. So it doesn't matter if you've lost monies to these horrible wretch; you just have to keep on trying; more so because just as we have lies so we have truth. 6. Learn to be calm in the face of storm sweeping through the ward of your life. Avoid taking a rash and irrational decision. Christ in God who speaks peace to the raging storm and tidal waters couple of millenium ago can still speak peace to your life or circumstances. All you need is faith and being meticulous. Don't resort to deathly escapism yet because you fail your semester exam, got separated from your wife or husband, ran into debt and the likes. 7. Do not resort to self help. In many instances, it has led to serious complications and even deaths avoidably. i.e. unwanted pregnancy is a good case in point. That's by the way an illustrative example. Prevention here is better than cure. Talk to someone in the know who might be eager to help for free or for a token. It is better that way than attempting to help yourself around something you knew practically nothing about. 8. Motivate yourself. It is normal to feel depressed some time; but what is not normal is staying depressed. So one of the best ways to handle depression is self motivation. Motivate yourself through positive thinking. You can also motivate yourself by listening to soul lifting music and motivational speeches. Tell yourself, you're not indomitable. Engage more in group activities. Do more of out-dooring chores. Devote yourself to helping others achieve their set goals. I bet in no time you will gain morale as a by product. Above all, ****Don't give up yet; because you're closer to dependable solution than you can imagine. The Rejected Stone