I have been away from my blog for 4 months - for all sorts of reasons, including both physically away and also a period of intense 'doing' has got in the way of my 'reflecting' - and, in turn, from turning my reflection into writing.
Distance - going away - looking from a different place - coming back - looking again. Different perspectives and taking ourselves 'out' of our usual viewpoint gives us opportunities for new learning and insights. It happens frequently in all aspects of living.
I have been listening to friends' recent travel tales - people who have visited cultures very different to ours, and those who happened to be in Santiago during the earthquake in Chile. These intense experiences, these 'culture shocks' prompt us to re-examine, re-consider, re-evaluate, re-shape our own 'world' as we 'know' it (construct it).
A therapist may help a client to create family 'groupings' in representational space, and by 'stepping out' of their own view and into the 'place' of others, can open up new explanations and understandings of dynamics and situations.
Narrative mediation, based on social constructionist theory, engages people locked in conflict to shift/let go of an attachment to their own view as an absolute truth to a shared understanding of a situation from different places.
In personal development, by standing back, changing your role from being 'taken over' by an emotion/reaction/limiting thought, to one of an observer gives an opporunity to 'see' what is going on, and enter into a different dialogue.
Football coaches watch from the sidelines - they have a bigger view, a bigger picture and encourage and help individuals to change and work better as a team. An 'overview' conjures up rising above a situation - looking down on it to see it in a new way.
Taking people out of their work environment in training, learning or development to give space, time, and opportunity to stand back and look at what they are 'doing' in a new way.
There are many more.
Being 'away' can give rich learnings.
(photo: Laura Crichton)
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