Look Up. Look Down. Look All Around.

It’s confession time.  Occasionally when there is something tasty in the fridge that I want to savor before the family devours it, I hide it. It’s easy enough.  Depending on who I’m hiding it from, I stash it on the higher or the lower shelf.  Daughter doesn’t look high.  Partner doesn’t look low.  More for me.

Let’s leave my trust issues aside for the moment.  There’s something to learn here about how we see and pay attention.

We tend to see things, ideas, and solutions at “eye level” – metaphorically speaking.  We look where we expect them to be, for what’s familiar.  These expectations are based on past experience.  If I regularly hang my favorite jacket in the same place in the closet and one day it’s not there, I rack my brain trying to remember where I wore it last or may have left it.  If I can’t trace it, I assume it’s lost.

This is a fixed perspective – expecting the same result based on our beliefs or past experience. The problem with a fixed perspective is that it severely limits our creative skill set.  When we decide something can only be one way or another, in one place or the other, it closes down possibility thinking –and the odds of finding your stuff.  Curiosity, flexibility, adapting to new situations, and asking generative questions are not even available when we’re holding onto old ideas of how we expect things to play out.

Expectations hold others and us in stasis, in old behavior patterns. They are also a way to avoid conflict or telling the truth. If we expect that someone will always act/react the same way, we don’t give him or her room to change and grow. By assuming that we already know what the result of a difficult conversation might be, we avoid it all together.

Want to conjure up more of your natural creativity?  Widen your perspective and let go of expectations.  Look up.  Look down.  Look all around.  Look beyond the usual places that you normally look.  Listen for insight from people you don’t normally listen to.  Consider the opinions of people you don’t agree with.  Look for common ground.  Be open to surprise and new possibilities.

Funny thing about that jacket.  A few days later, I looked down on the floor of the closet and found it resting comfortably where it had slipped off its hanger.

Look up.  Look down.  Look all around.  See what you’re missing.

P.S. This video came my way via Brene Brown shortly after I finished writing this post.  I like his point about it taking humility and courage to put aside our biases.

PRACTICE:

If there is an event that you attend on a regular basis that you have an expectation or assumption about, make a choice to widen your perspective when you next attend it.  Appreciate something about it that you haven’t noticed before.

Without using any of the typical objects (flowers, plants) look for 10 different things in your home that could be used for a centerpiece.

Look for something in the news that disrupts your beliefs about an issue, person, or political view.

Notice the next time you’re in a difficult conversation, what expectations you have about the person you’re talking to.  Drop the expectations (and the strategizing that goes with it), look for common ground and see what new possibilities arise between you.

One Response to “Look Up. Look Down. Look All Around.”

1. Daniel Jones says:

   February 14, 2012 at 3:32 pm

   this is a test.

   Reply