It's a Bit Like A Hall of Mirrors

The last time I went to a Funfair I made a beeline for the Hall of Mirrors. I went to another in a Belgian town and they were exactly the same mirrors; I even saw the same ones in the Natural History Museum in London! Yet you can look at yourself through these mirrors and see something different every time – they have been designed to make you look different but in a pleasing, non-threatening way. After all you know you don’t really look like that…

It’s A Bit Like Applying Learning

When you first reflect on new learning it can seem confusing; it’s never exactly how it seems. Stepping back you see something new, looking closer up you see something new and different. Other people can add their perspective too and this also can change your view. And yet what has changed? The mirror is simply the learning, the view you have of yourself has changed. If not, you haven’t learned.

BitILike

“Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see -- to see correctly -- and that means a good deal more than merely looking with the eye.” Kimon Nicolaides

It's A Bit Like Real Empathy

Doing what I do, i.e. a trainer, I have content and I have delivery skills. It’s similar to the sun I guess (the solar object not the newspaper), it has heat and it shines. Trainers are hired to shine their heat and light on other people and situations. The good ones are aware of the effect that their message and their methods (of delivery) are having on the individual delegates; they have real empathy and don’t really need feedback forms – although their clients often do. Accomplished trainers, coaches and facilitators can change in mid-flow. It’s almost as if they can see the message being received from the other side.

It’s A Bit Like Stained Glass

The sun may be aware of the fact that it radiates; not being a scientist I reckon I’ll never know. But is the sun aware of what happens when its rays hit stained glass? Shards of colour, images and stories spray out in all directions, fragmenting and twisting even further as they are cast on different surfaces. All different people with many different takes on the projections take myriad meanings from the display. For some it is beautiful, others find it mysterious. And when the sun goes down (or shines its light elsewhere), memories and thoughts remain in the people who witnessed it.

BitILike

“Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight means to them?” Rose Kennedy