Learning to choose

Nearly a week off, after the end of the January blogging challenge, and I find my fingers are itching to put a new post together. I have a very good reason as well, with some great stuff to share. So here goes.

Last November, I wrote about attending Richard Wilkins’ Recharge Day in Northampton. It was a really positive and educational experience and I came home excited and inspired. I immediately booked on the next Recharge Day, which was on 2nd February 2013 – this last Saturday.

Meanwhile, I had read It’s Not Your Fault, by Liz Ivory, who is Richard’s partner and runs Broadband Consciousness (BC) with him. As reading is always my preferred form of learning, the book helped me to understand Richard and Liz’s message a bit better.

Having driven to Northampton in the morning last time, and then driven back at night, and got rather tired, I decided to try and stay overnight on the Friday and it worked out really well. I found a very cheap, very clean room a couple of miles from the venue and amused myself on Friday evening by enjoying the lack of jobs to do in my immediate surroundings, then lying on the bed and pretending that I was actually in a hotel in New York, and if I opened the curtains I would see the famous skyline and not another Travelodge wall. It was fun!

Richard is a unique speaker: warm, funny, unpredictable. He is so easy to listen to, understand and feel close to. Liz also speaks wonderfully, with compassionate warmth and a flair for making abstract concepts easier to understand. I was really looking forward to the day and wondered how different it would be from the previous event.

So what is this message and why is it so important? Richard talks about the Script, which is all the negative stuff we pick up throughout our lives, from parents, siblings, school, friends, society etc etc, and then use to form our beliefs and assumptions about ourselves and our lives. If I hear a voice in my head saying “you can’t do that”, “you’re rubbish”, “let’s not try”, “you can’t say that, people might not like it”, or anything else that keeps me small, separate, inauthentic, well, that voice isn’t me, it’s my script. I had known, in my head, for quite a while that I was not my thinking, that those negative thoughts were not really me, that the critical voices had come from somewhere else. What I didn’t have, however, was an easy way to understand this, which is where the idea of the Script comes in.

Richard holds up a stack of papers as he describes the Script and makes it easy for us to visualise the messages, ideas, beliefs and assumptions that we all have, that we live by, which are not actually us.

As Richard and Liz explain so well, both when they speak and in Liz’s book, when we are living by our Script things often don’t go so well, or we are less happy than we might be. We might think there is something wrong with us that needs fixing, but, in fact, there is nothing wrong with us; we are just living according to a crap script. We are all amazing just as we are, as we really are, and it’s ok to feel awful sometimes – that’s just part of the human experience, especially if we are “born sensitive” as Richard says he was.

But. This is an important but. We do have a choice. In most circumstances there is a range of feelings or reactions open to us, although, when we are living according to our Script, we don’t see any alternative to feeling or reacting in the way we always have. We just go on creating the same old patterns, wishing we were different, hoping that one day we might change. We might try really hard to change, but the problem is that you can’t change your Script; you can only choose to ignore it. In fact, Richard’s message is that there is no need to change; all we need to do is recognise our Script then decide to ignore it.

And once we know that we have the option to ignore our Script, and crucially, that our Script is not us, we finally do have a choice. We can survey the range of possible reactions or feelings available to us in a situation and decide what we would choose. This is incredible news! And to reinforce this point, Richard got us, several times during the day, to shout “WHAT WOULD I CHOOSE?” really loudly. It worked; I came away knowing very clearly that I could ask myself this any time I want, and I have certainly put it to good and effective use already. Immediately after my return, I picked up a whole lot of work, much appreciated but a bit stressful and tiring. I was able to ask myself, “what do I choose?” I could choose to feel the stress, to focus on the tiredness, to be annoyed that I didn’t have time to rest after my journey home. Or I could choose to focus on the brilliant day I had experienced, gratitude for the unexpected work, and to try to be present. It really worked. And as you can see from the photo, I decided to make some labels to place strategically around my house to remind me!

All in all, another brilliant day, lots of laughs and quite a bit of learning. I was really happy to meet up with some like-minded friends and the whole experience is full of love, laughter and acceptance. Even just a day with this stuff can make a big difference, and BC can be life-changing, as we heard from other speakers during the day.

If these ideas interest you, I strongly suggest you read Liz’s book and/or book on the next Recharge Day. These are both good ways to find out more about the Script, Richard’s famous Sausage Machine and the five day BC course which Richard and Liz run. Chances are, you’re not 14 if you’re reading this. If you were, and if you attended a school sensible enough to book Richard to come and speak, you might learn about the Script, the Sausage Factory and the fact that you can learn to choose, nice and early in life. For those of us who are a bit older, and who have been acting according to big, fat Scripts most of our lives, luckily we can do something about it now. Why not be a bit curious, find out more, and perhaps I’ll see you at the next Recharge Day!