There is this ice breaker test in a seminar that made us identify faces of people reflected in our Philippine money such as 20, 50 ,100, 200, 500 and 1000 peso bills and correspondingly the back part of the bills. I got only 1 correct answer. We are paid P20 for each correct answer and sadly i only had one correct item. Wow...great job dang.
What if you could do the same? What would your score be? Would it matter much if you know your bills? I have not really found great significance with it not until I took the quiz and realized that I have been spending money for my entire life that there is one thing that I am not really interested with...who and what reflects in our money bills...
Another activity that I experienced in a seminar was given by a Jesuit priest Fr. Xavier Olin, SJ (years ago) when he asked all of us participants if we knew the number of steps in going up to the school. Sadly, not one was able to answer.
Another thing. When you ride the public vehicle each morning. Do you see faces and expression of those in front of you? Or do you take time to look and observe behavior, facial expressions, texture of your walls, how many lines of wrinkles does your forehead have, your wife's or you just notice how big your tummy has been all this years or how your wife as grown bigger since you married her (hahahhaha now you are laughing with me...lingaw sad). Great observations hahhaha.
My point here is FOCUS. I have struggled lately with focusing. I get inside a room to get something and all of a sudden i forget why I am in the room which led me to a funny strategy of going back to where I was originally and amazingly hehe and hahahaha ...memory gets back.
To simply put it, focus is giving our full attention both mind and heart to something or someone. The recent training that I facilitated included the activity of getting a partner and looking at each other in silence and particularly looking at the eyes to focus and observe. The following were the comments of the participants in the processing :
1. Not comfortable looking at the eyes
2. Not comfortable with the silence
3. can hardly concentrate...(would prefer talking)
I tried to explore on each of the specific points shared and discovered some important stuffs to ponder (which also served as a reminder to myself.
NOT COMFORTABLE WITH LOOKING AT THE EYES
What's with the eyes? This is my usual question to the participants. Our eyes reveal so much about us. In fact when we like someone, we tend to drop clues through our eyes without really saying anything. We don't really have so much courage to translate them in words so we use our eyes to communicate. When we are not certain or uncomfortable we walk with our eyes straight to the ground for we fear our eyes may reveal things that may not be reciprocated. The safest would be to hide our eyes.
Eyes reveal the most honest of emotions. We may be so verbal about things and sometimes they don't hold true or reflect our stand but our eyes do not lie. A friend asked me about those who are being trained to lie... that they can still afford to look at the person straight in the eyes. You know what I told him? Even those trained to lie can still slip. Those who are most natural of themselves are able to see what's true or not ( try me...I would know hahahhah char lang...natural lugar:-). Again they still slip.
Eyes don't lie. They reveal strongly of what we feel ...of what we are. Our words do not reveal entirely everything we say but the non verbal...the unsaid are much louder than words. They are more credible most of the time than words.
Our not being comfortable with other's eyes reflects us being uncomfortable being seen in silence through our eyes - our vulnerability and truth about us revealed.
NOT COMFORTABLE WITH SILENCE
In a training module I wrote entitled That Space Within and Finding Meaning in Everything We Do stresses this...
"Man moves through a space. From outside of him he sees every living and non living being and within his most immediate environment can be that space such as family, friends, and things that supply his physiological needs. But there can be that space within him that may not be visible by the naked eye but felt only by him. Going into this space is traveled not by any visible vehicle except that of silence.
This module sums up all the modules for this training such that one needs to travel in the vehicle of silence in order to reach that space revealing and deepening that self - awareness and value consciousness. The space within is that space where varied emotional experiences reside - products of the past, present and possibly be an anxiety or anticipations of the future to come.
Silence on the other hand and at its first site means the absence of words or sounds that one can hear through the ears but mystics would say far greater than what is visible and say that "silence speaks a thousand words".
What do they mean by this? Silence does speak. In fact vague and unexpressed emotions prod in silence which may cause discomfort to a resistant soul. Silence is so powerful that it shakes the soul ( this is rather straight) ...it will make one go crazy if one continues to run away from it.
It is thus, in this space that one soul encounters an intimacy with himself. This intimacy we call - spiritual encounter, rarely felt and invisible to the naked eye."
Well the discomfort of silence is only for those that are not familiar with it. If we go through life cluttered with so many things in mind and heart, one would hardly enter silence if not, impossible to tread.
In silence we quiet ourselves and we listen to its movements, feelings and the non feeling state or simply the nothingness but that which is nothing reveals many things for in it SOMEONE else speak. We might think then that we own that space...no we don't...We hear this SOMEONE ...OUR GOD speak...loud and clear. The real and true owner of the space within.
...CAN HARDLY CONCENTRATE(WOULD RATHER PREFER TALKING)
Imagine spending talking with someone without stopping ...spending all your waking moments talking simply because you are not comfortable with silence...hahahha murag gihangos naka while reading this... gikapoy pud kog imagine da :-)
In my previous work, I experienced plunging into an 8 - day retreat of complete silence. Though processing happened at night, the rest were done in spent in silence, meditation and contemplation.
The second day was kind of unbearable so I presented my case to a Jesuit priest Fr. Asandas Balchand, SJ who facilitated it. Though he told me to strive so hard to the finish, he still did not force me to push through the process if I was not ready to it. But of course I was challenged and did it successfully and well by God's grace.
The silencing process goes this way from that experience...
1. sit on a throw pillow in a cross-legged position
2. we close our eyes
3. Back straight
4. focus on the in and out of breathing
5. Listen to movements outside of us but we go back to the movement of the breathing
5. if imaginations disturb us we still go back to our breathing
(next days are spent through the use of some mantra like mentioning Abba, God, Jesus, etc. as we breath in and out)
The exercise above was done on a 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 minute intervals and was a whole day process with breaks for snacks, lunch and dinner. For the straight 8 - day process, we did it and unknowingly communicated in silence even without looking at each other in the eyes. We found it out when we were allowed to talk on the 9th day, that familiarity was well established in silence since we feel like we know each other so well.
It can be a tough process. In fact, it will drain our energy. When we strive to focus, we use a conscious effort and discipline. It is like that of a physical exercise. If we want to be fit and trim or be healthy, we would spend arduous training in the gym or perhaps do the jogging with established program for ourselves. We have a goal so we make step by step plans on how to achieve it.
And so if we want to be spiritually and psychologically well, we plan out on how to go about the whole thing such that spirituality and encounter with our God is done in prayer and ultimately in silence...in the deepest silence. This not just a mere planning...this should be done in the context of prayer.
So how is it that an article like this bears such title. This may be entirely absurd to you or to many. Actually, it all started on the quiz exercise checking how much I knew my money from where I realized that I have not really focused well and i have done it for a long time. I just spent and stayed that way.
Lastly, intense focus is a product of that silence in the deepest recesses of our being where only one voice is heard...GOD's. When He starts to speak...WE LISTEN...
If I had only done this really well...I would have gotten perfect with the money quiz (hahahhaha char what a conclusion...) :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment