A day to remember

I wonder what comes to your mind when I ask you about the days that you remember best. Are they the big benchmark moments: births and deaths and weddings and graduations? Are they the days of personal achievement, the days when you completed the big project (or started it) or won a promotion or started your own company? Or are they the days of absolute engagement, days when you went to the beach with little kids or let yourself flow into team performance?

Maybe the days you remember are darker. Maybe you remember best the days of struggle or grief, the days when the line between health and death was very thin.

Memory is tricky. We remember what has been important to us or what we need for what is important to us now. We remember strong emotions and we remember what was drilled into us through repetition. Memories change as we remember them, and as we remember remembering them.

On this day, Remembrance Day, we remember something that most of us have not experienced. That is the point, indeed: that people have experienced war so that most of us will not have to experience it. Our freedom and well-being depends on someone freely choosing to walk in dark places, risking life and identity and well-being. We remember because we know, and we remember because we have not had to know.

It's a strange concept, remembering because you have nothing to remember. It's not hard to understand that people let this day slide by without pause, that people who do not have to go to work plan errands and recreation more often than they plan trips to a cenotaph. It's not easy to remember that not remembering is a gift.

It is a gift. When you look at images of soldiers marching today, or of wreaths laid at memorial services, see an image that says: together we believe that not having to remember is a gift. Together we believe that violence is wrong, and destruction is wrong, and tyranny is wrong. That's what the marching means. We know that some people have experienced terrible things on our behalf. We remember that they do not have a choice about remembering. And we remember that we do.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Yes" sets for building agreement and manipulation

I recently watched a video of a solution-focus therapist working with a client. The clip began with a number of questions and statements with which the client would agree.  In hypnosis and sales, it's known as a "yes set." If you're not familiar with the concept, it works roughly like Simon Says.  In that game, you get into a pattern of doing what "Simon says" so that you eventually do what the leader says even when s/he does not insert the magic words "Simon says." In the "yes set," you get used to saying yes until such a strong pattern of agreement exists that you agree with statements or instructions you might not otherwise give your agreement. The more times in a row you have said "yes," the greater the probability that you will say "yes" to the next statement. Yes sets can be seen in two ways. The first is that you are offering someone evidence that you are observing and accepting their experience. When every
Read more

The hypnotic contract

Under what conditions would you allow someone else to tell you what to think?   If you have watched a stage hypnotist, you have seen what looks like one person exercising remarkable control over the thoughts and actions of another. It is fascinating, in part, because we have all seen it happen in real life. Suddenly someone we know seems to be relying on someone else to do the thinking.  Even if the influence is good, it is a little frightening. The secret is that there are no magic words.  In order to lead someone into hypnosis, that person has to be willing to go there. Often the people you see on stage are more than willing. For whatever reasons, they are enthusiastic about giving up self control and allowing someone else to take charge. They know that there are limits to what can happen on stage and they are only agreeing to give up control within those limits. What you see in hypnosis is an agreement between two people. Like all agreements between human beings, it stretches as far
Read more

The fine line between observations, suggestions and commands

I have been watching Tony Robbins this week in the documentary called " I Am Not Your Guru ." You can read a nicely ambivalent review in the Financial Times here.   I think the ambivalence is built into the process, which might be surprising given the loud celebration that characterizes the Date with Destiny in the film. For those of us whose work has evolved from NLP, there are lessons to be learned from modelling the most famous and successful practitioner of NLP (Robbins has far surpassed all the founders by all measures of success). Because he does so much so well, Robbins lets us see how fine the line is between observing and suggesting. Let me explain. Robbins frames his "interventions" both with the exercises and performances we do not see in the film and with his invitations. The film opens with an intervention with a young man who says he is suicidal; it is only later that we see Robbins say he is looking for someone who is suicidal to work with. Since
Read more