What should I do? A Practice for Looking Beyond the Obvious

In this companion episode to Jennifer's conversation with Bayo Akomolafe on breaking the trance of pragmatism, she invites you to notice your usual response when something needs fixing, solving, or resolving.

What have you been taught to do? What feels expected? And what other responses might be available, even if they are less visible, less legible, or more strange?

The idea behind this practice is not to uncover a better solution, as tempting as it is. Rather Jennifer invites you into a practice of noticing your default response — and then staying curious about what else might be happening. 

In this episode you'll:

•  notice your own or others' "obvious" or "expected" responses 
•  observe the pressure to act quickly and efficiently 
•  stay open to less obvious possibilities 
•  explore bewilderment, ripples, and generative cracks as sites of generativity

Jennifer reminds us that this practice will not solve the problem, but it may disturb the waters of conditioned seeing and widen our sense of what's possible.

Gratitude for this show’s theme song Inside the House, composed by the talented Yukon musician, multi-instrumentalist and sound artist Jordy Walker. Artwork by the imaginative writer, filmmaker and artist Jon Marro. 

Transcript

Earlier I spoke with author, trans-public intellectual, and student of cracks, Bayo Akomolafe.

 On breaking the trance of pragmatism when the times urge us to act. And if you haven't listened to that episode, I highly encourage you to do so. He's one of the most thought provoking philosophers whose curiosity about what's not obvious might help us understand why we keep getting stuck.

He's helped me wrestle with this season's koan this tension between saving and savoring. I haven't solved it, but I have learned more about how I've been enlisted first in our obsession with saving and problem solving, but also in what can [00:01:00] become a simple reframe that also has its limitations that even of savoring.

And as I work through this coen of mine, this life coen of mine, I realize that this tension is never going to be resolved. But I do appreciate this unsettling of the binary logic that underpins it and paying attention to the cracks that come up between them. The spontaneous gestures, the strange happenings, mysterious energies.

In other words, how we can unsettle this typical either or response to the question, what do we do, especially when we feel the urgency to act because this is a practice episode, I'd like to get ironically pragmatic, which Bayo might resist. Um, and [00:02:00] say, Jennifer, you can't actually turn this into a practice.

But I think it's important to try to work with concepts and allow them to seep into our everyday lives and to see new things and to invite new ways of being. So that's what I'd like to invite us to do. So over the next week, see if you can bring a little more awareness to a moment when you are asked to fix or solve a problem.

For most of us, this is something that we do on the daily, but I want you to notice any expectations that you have to handle it quickly and efficiently. In a way, like the obvious thing to do.

Here's a few examples, like a conflict at work. Just make it go away. Maybe an unfair government policy. Call your senator or a member of parliament. A really tricky system-wide [00:03:00] challenge that. Cannot be resolved yet. Everyone's yelling at you to resolve it. Call in an expert panel or if there's tension in your family or with your kid, quickly smooth it over.

If you listen to my conversation with bio, you'll hear one of mine and I'd like you to just notice what it feels like to. Experience either the habitual response inside yourself or the expectation to do the obvious thing. And then see, and this is sort of step two, see if you can sense into what other responses might be available to you, other than the obvious.

The invitation is not to come up with a so-called better solution. But to stay curious about what other energies flows, perspectives, things that are hidden. What else might be [00:04:00] moving?

And maybe you journal about this. Maybe it takes up space in your dreams. Maybe you make music about it. But the purpose here isn't to solve the problem, but to simply notice how we're conditioned to deliver the obvious and to wonder whether does that reinforce the problem we're trying to solve or get us stuck.

So while this practice, I can assure you will not solve anything, I do think it helps as a way of disturbing the waters of our conditioned seeing. I hope it unsettles the assumption that the obvious is what we must do. I can think of myself, like sometimes that's the things I recommend to a client or something I post on LinkedIn, share on a professional keynote or demand from my [00:05:00] politician.

But I think the more interesting, less obvious is where the aliveness is, where there is a wider view of what's possible. And I think sometimes it shows up in what's un pragmatic, what's not so useful. That actually becomes the most generative now, I don't know, but let's see.

 A few final words about practice distinct from a tool, a technique, or a mindset shift. Practice is an ecosystem unto itself. It is a world that invites playful curiosity. What can you learn, see, feel, sense from a new doing, a new way of seeing. And what you'll experience will be different from me. No two [00:06:00] experiences will be the same.

I think that's maybe the unpredictable thing about practice is that it's experimental, it's dynamic and relational. And what I always emphasize is that practice is a gift of learning from direct experience. It's not to master something, but to experience the wisdom, the flows of perspectives, not from experts or sages or coaches, but from you.

Practice centers, you as the aware, awake, and attuned one you already are. Practice is simply an invitation and direct experience. You're greatest teacher. So if you play with this practice, I would actually really love to hear from you. This is one that is still working me and I am learning so much from. 

Share a comment through your podcast [00:07:00] host, or if you'd like email me with any questions or observations at jennifer@sparkcoaching.ca. And if you know someone who might appreciate the wisdom and gift of this practice. Please share it with a friend or, you know, pragmatically share on one of your platforms to spread the news of this show.

So with that, I'm Jennifer England. Thank you for listening to the tension of Emergence and being a such an amazing community to be part of.