Noticing…
The other day I had a young client who noticed that all of the water in my rain barrels was frozen over. First of all, great noticing! He was very intrigued by this and picked up a small stick and tried to break the ice. Quickly he realized that his little stick was no competition for this thick block of ice. I asked him, “Is there anything that would work better than your stick?” I think he was surprised by the fact that I was not only allowing, but encouraging him to break the ice. He thought about it for a moment and said, “We need a hammer". Yep, sounds good to me I thought. “Where might we find a hammer?” I asked. “In the shop”, he replied. “Good thinking”, I said. (He noticed we HAD a shop and he made the connection!)
We walked into the shop and together narrowed down where such a tool might be stored. We found one, surprise surprise, and then we took it out and he started smacking the ice. We took note of how hard he had to smack in order to break the ice and practiced how it felt when he hit harder vs. lighter. We noticed the patterns that were created by the cracked ice. We examined those patterns like a Rorschach test, exploring his imagination as I considered his emotions.
We moved from one barrel to another, with great focus and attention, noticing the differences we could find. In our last barrel we found slimy algae that was under the surface of the ice. We took a stick and picked it up and tossed it on the ground.
In this one session we noticed so many things. We noticed something that was different than the previous week, we noticed our curiosity of cause and effect, we noticed how our preconceived ideas sometimes make us think one way or another, we noticed how to problem solve and find solutions, we noticed how our body felt and how much exertion was required for a desired effect, we noticed the fatigue when we worked our muscles, we noticed the expanse of our imagination, and we noticed what we liked and didn’t.
The fun about this kind of guiding is that it’s not about the ice. Through engagement in a physical activity we are leaning about noticing things within ourselves. It is an external practice for an internal process. Next time this little dude gets upset we can talk about what the ice looks like in his own body, how cracked is he feeling, what’s under the surface of the ice? We can talk about whether there is a place that feels slimy and what to do with that yucky stuff. (Let’s take it out and throw it on the ground instead of keeping it in our barrel.) When he gets easily distracted we can remind him that he has the ability to really focus on a task like he did with the ice breaking exercise. Let’s use everything that happened in that short amount of time to remind him that he has everything he needs to be successful…awareness, creativity, finding solutions, using his body, giving his focus…NOTICING!