“If you see it, say it…” I remember this line first being used to urge a coach to trust her intuition. This time, I was the client, and my coach, in the last few minutes of our hour together, sought my permission to try something different. (Maybe my coach saw me struggling to see what was in plain sight, hence the offer to try something different.)
I was willing to experiment, and in the last 10 minutes of my session, courtesy of a constellation board and some colourful wooden figurines that became characters in my world, I got a glimpse of what I had not seen before. “Where are you standing?” ; “Who are you facing?” ; “ What is emerging as you stand there?” – Such questions transported me out of my head into a felt experience, and the answers emerged.
That moment when something shifted inside is one that we call an insight. I felt it. Having struggled with the question of how and where I need to spend my time, torn between different worlds and priorities, it suddenly became so very clear to me. From this place of deep knowing, actions emerge, and my way forward is defined.
The technique or approach my coach brought into the session uses figurines placed on a board (the family constellation). I don’t know much about it, other than the fact that it helped me see something that I needed to see, and in doing so feel something deep inside. With clarity comes conviction and from such a place, possibilities emerge.
In Public Relations, this dictum “seeing is believing” has always worked. Creating opportunities for journalists to attend a launch event, visit a manufacturing faculty or Restaurant or country (whatever one is doing PR for and about), to experience it first hand, if well managed, often has a lasting impact.
“A picture is worth a thousand words” is another saying possibly born from the same insight. This could explain why social media users have embraced the visual and now audio-visual world so fast. Reel after reel of content pours into the World Wide Web every day. Depending on your particular interest some of it will be the thumb-stopping content that captures your interest or fantasy and a tap or a double click away, there is more on offer.
AI has added a whole new dimension to this world of seeing and believing – the dimension of distrust. In the past, if I saw it with my own eyes, I knew it was real. Photograph evidence. A video that captured the moment. These were the things that I could believe. Now with deepfakes and made-up images, seeing is not enough to believe. Fact-checkers and a host of new services will emerge to tackle the problem for sure. But in this world of hallucinations and misinformation, the need to find a way to see what is real and believe in it will continue to be at the core of the human experience.
We will have to find new ways to see with certainty. New ways to trust our own eyes. New ways to create authentic experiences. This is where the opportunity lies. Can you see it? If you were to place yourself as a character on the board game we call life – “Where are you standing?” ; “Who are you facing?” ; “ What is emerging as you stand there?” From the answers that emerge, your way forward will become clear. A lot has changed in the world around us, its time for something to shift within.
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
