What do you see?

This morning I noticed the fruit trees in the picture for the first time ( an apple tree in flower and a citrus fruit tree, I figured it is a lime tree). I had never seen these trees before, yet I walk here almost every day. It is not the first time I am noticing something new that I had failed to see all long.

It is what happens when you take a moment or moments to slow down and notice what is around you. You notice things you have never noticed before or see them from a different perspective. And it helps to use all your five senses; smell, taste, sight, touch, sound! Not only do you notice new things, you savour your surroundings better and it tremendously sharpens the senses.

You will start reading books you read since your youth – including your Bible and you notice statements that stump you “I have been reading this all these years and it never outraged me, how is that possible?”

There is a conversation that has been in the buzz these last few weeks that reminded me of this reality. A politician who came to the rescue of his child who was suffering GBV. I am filled with admiration for the way he stood up for his child and how he restrained himself in the face of extreme provocation. I do pray that the matter will be resolved amicably, and the culprit will realise that punches and whips don’t solve problems, constructive conversations do. And constructive conversations do not happen out of the blues, they are learned. As Alison wood Brooks tells us in her book TALK

 “I bring good news from the world of science! We can learn to do conversation better-we can be more astute at assessing and adapting to the context, and we can be more mindful of our purposes and how they shape what we choose to say and do. And here’s the best part: learning to converse even a little more effectively can make a big difference-for the quality of your close personal relationships and friendships; for how you come across in your everyday interactions; for your professional success; for the impact your existence will have on the world.”

So there we go, there is an art and science in making good conversations (and conversation coaches to boot) and the good news is it can be learned. But I have somehow digressed from what I wanted to address here (and that’s because I think the entire topic of meaningful and relationship building conversations is a very critical topic.

While many of us cheered the good gentleman, we missed some red flags, one of them as someone pointed out to me was the possibility that this might have been a well choreographed voter wooing show. I pointed out that the entire drama ended in a hospital but the question remained “how is it possible to have such a picture perfect moment complete with camera crew recording every single action in such a tense family moment?

We need to notice some of the more serious revelations that took place in the drama if we are not to be duped come the next election cycle when these grand actions will be used to convince us of the suitability for office of the gentleman in question and the likes of him

The aggrieved old man divulged to us that he has bought the young couple some high range cars, pays their rent and school fees for their children! A man who has been successful in his parenting job, especially one who has held high office should ensure that his children and those of his electorate are able to fend for themselves.

Unfortunately, what this very well-meaning gentleman is doing in his way of proceeding is keeping his children stuck in dependence and possibly very frustrated and resentful. No wonder they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It is part of what we might unpack if we try to process the vision of hell that was described sometime in the past by one of our top clergy.

To paraphrase the story of the vision very briefly; whereas other races were busy helping each other get out of their hell holes, our race was doing very little to support escape, in fact according to the good man of collar people were pulling each other back in what I would describe as hutoki hapa (you shall not leave this place) in my lingua franca.

If examined carefully proudly parading your lavish lifestyle and how you are spoon feeding your adult children falls squarely in the hutoki hapa narrative. In the spirit of asking multiple whys so that we can get to the root cause of our problems and deal with then we might discover that hutoki hapa is fuelled and kept alive by:

1. The depth of where we are getting out of – debilitating and dehumanizing poverty. So, we are scared that failure would take us back to a hole that we want to escape from by all means? Unfortunately, we use the wrong means to stay and keep ourselves away from sliding back into those holes (kleptomania anybody?)
2. I am the first mentality and the feel-good emotions it elicits. I am the first one in my family, clan, village to go to college, to own a car to build a storey house and therefore I feel like I am the only one who can lead, yet all of us are all leading all the time, and the better leaders each of us are, the better our society will be for each one of us
3. A lack of support structures, scaffolding that would help those who fall rebuild again using their God given abilities and not some preconceived ideas about what the best abilities for rebuilding look like.
   
   The anthology we published recently is a wonderful companion to those who might be in situations where they need to rise up again but it is also a help to all of us to start conversations that help us process how  to build the infrastructure that embraces failure as part of daring greatly into our social fabric and also helps people rise each time they fall.
4. A scarcity mentality which makes us believe that there isn’t enough to go around? What would it take to create an abundance mentality?
   
   In Professional Coaching I have glimpsed this abundance mentality. Professional Coaches, are people who embody this abundance mentality. Beyond believing that we have the capacity to solve our problems, coaches give us a safe space to process our ideas and develop ways to implement out solutions.

Launching the book – Bounce Back