Opportunities on the cusp: what to do with an intriguing opportunity that isn’t world-bettering? June 17, 2009

I haven’t posted for a few days, so it feels about time to do another check-in with myself: how is my intention to serve the humanizing impulse going?

My first thought is that I said a few not terribly nice things about a few people today behind their backs. They aren’t people who would ever know, and they weren’t horrible or even gossipy things, just not all that nice. The phrase “not very bright” stands out, in particular. Still, that doesn’t really meet my standard for staying genuine and human and connected to others, whether they would ever know or not.

At the same time, I’ve been feeling pretty happy over the past few days at how the group I’ve been facilitating has shifted. Not that I’m fully responsible for that, just as I wasn’t fully responsible for it going sideways in the first place, but I do feel that I took some steps to shape the environment and culture of the group that had a positive impact. It’s ironic, because part of what we were intending to do with the group is dig into an exploration of what happens when we engage deeply on group process issues — but because of those group tensions, the participants really shied away from doing that, and in fact, every time we headed in that direction people got a little cagey. In a sense, then, we failed at meeting that goal, of being able to engage on that level, but we did find a path back to sowing more seeds of trust. They haven’t grown to full-fledged shade trees at this point, but I think we’re a healthy little new-growth glade.

I was also invited by some folks I know, though I don’t know them well at this point in my life, to be a part of an entrepreneurial project involving writing and the internet. I’m trying to decide what I think of that opportunity. On the one hand, I feel flattered to have been invited. I feel intrigued because I have never been involved in an entrepreneurial, business-y project, and I think I could learn some interesting things. And I have a tendency to get thrilled by new ideas and want to jump in feet first. I’m definitely a big idea person and less a follow-the-details person (though of course I do have to follow lots of details at my job and beyond, so I manage). On the other hand, I am already overloaded with commitments. And when I think about the purpose of this new project, I hesitate. It is creative. It is interesting. It might be fun. But it does not serve a humanizing impulse. No, no, it really doesn’t. It isn’t world-destroying or anything, but it isn’t world-bettering either. To me that’s the most important thing.

In that case, what I should do is pretty clear, no?

I’m still thinking about it.

An overlooked gift and a healing bomb June 12, 2009

I am riding a wave these last few days, being tossed between anxiety and contentment. At this very moment I’m sitting in a dirty little vegetarian restaurant waiting for a friend, and up until about two minutes ago I was fretting, still about the group I’m facilitating. Then, all of a sudden, right next to where my heart is in my chest, I felt a quick swelling up of joy. Nothing’s different than it was a few minutes ago — the issues I’m trying to untangle are still there — I still have a nagging little burden of worry hovering over me — but there’s also pleasure. The sun is warm. Commercial Drive, my favorite part of town, is teeming with people. I biked all the way here from work, and FAST — with a pit stop at the public library to pick up a book on cycling the Pacific Coast, to help us plan our weeklong trip through Washington State in July. Even though I have lots of work to do this weekend to prepare for Monday, and I feel overburdened and a little shackled by how much work I’ve taken on at my job, and I have three plans for this weekend that I don’t really want, despite despite despite all that, I’m free.

The stuff that is troubling me took a new little turn today. Every twist of this story is walloping me in a new way, and I suddenly realized why: it is too similar to a situation that I’ve been in before. In that situation I was one of the two participants embroiled in the conflict, and it was traumatizing to both of us, and to a few innocent bystanders who got caught up in it along the way. I have given it a lot of thought over the year, have come to understand my culpability on multiple levels in that situation, and I assumed I had finished coming to terms with it. But now I see almost the exact same dynamic — totally different situation — playing out in front of me, and this time I can make facilitation choices that could potentially diffuse, remedy — or exacerbate the situation, and I feel powerless, like I’m standing just an inch off the path of a great rolling inevitability.

I was told, the other day, by one of the participants, that at a particular moment she would have liked to see stronger facilitation, that she thought I should have intervened. She would have liked a ‘healing bomb.’ And at the time she made that comment, I wasn’t sure how I could have really intervened in a way that could have helped. I mean, I tried to intervene by entering the conversation and supporting her by agreeing with her comments. That didn’t work; it just sucked me into the discussion, and at that point I lost my potential to change the dynamic because I tacitly agreed to enter it. Now I see, I could have said, “X’s statement wasn’t a blaming; it was a gift.”

It wasn’t blaming; it was a gift. She was angered by the situation but held herself aside, held no one responsible, and chose to give us a gift by going meta, making an astute comment about the nature of the discussion that no one else in the room had noticed (or at least, I doubt they had noticed it), and connected it to her past experience. It was wisdom.

It provoked a defensive reaction. I stayed within the constraints of the discussion, kept engaging with the person who got defensive. To no end, and I knew, even as I batted the ideas around with that person, that it was pointless, that no learning would come out of it, but I didn’t have the wherewithall to extricate myself.

“It was a gift. Let’s just think about the gift we’ve just been given, end this particular conversation, and move on to something else.”

Fault lines and facilitation June 10, 2009

This morning I’m still ruminating on the fault lines running underneath the surface of the group that I’ve been facilitating.  Funny that this weekend I was thinking, “I love my job!” and now I’m thinking, “My job causes me a lot of stress!”

Yesterday morning on my bike ride to work I decided that to honour the humanizing impulse I had to address the tensions I was feeling directly, and not to smooth them over and ignore them. I started the day with a check-in, and I started the check-in by addressing my goal to serve a humanizing impulse in all my actions, and to do that I think it requires addressing group tensions – but that by bringing them up, there’s also a danger of doing damage. And indeed: my approach helped some and alienated others. So, I continue to manage fallout, and continue to ruminate.

How do you learn from a ‘learning moment’? This is the same challenge I skirted around when I was asked that by another group I facilitated, because as much as I can say, ‘reflect!’ and ‘connect!’, ultimately that’s unsatisfying. There are no strategies or tools to whip out. It takes having sensitive feelers and then being skillful, and there are so few role models out there of soft and skillful handling of conflict – I have so seldom seen that in action – that we all have to make it up as we go along, and just… get better at it, I hope.

“Fail. Fail again. Fail better.”

The only other thought I have is that I don’t have a good distraction today to get me off ruminating about the group situation. Happily, I have a break from facilitating until Monday. And as I was riding my bike to work today, I realized that to best serve the humanizing impulse right now I need to take care of myself. So I stopped for a bagel and lemonade, even though I’m going to be a little late to a meeting. I’m almost done sipping my lemonade.

Being true to the work & group conflict June 8, 2009

I’m still chewing on the events of the day. I facilitated the first day of a new program. Interesting, thoughtful small group of participants, not without some internal stresses and tensions. A good challenge for me, but not 100% pleasant.

I’ve been thinking this evening about how to negotiate the tensions so that we don’t just glide over them, acknowledging them in private asides but ignoring them in the group. I am rather conflict-averse, so I get stressed out when I’m responsible for leading a group through tension that has the potential to erupt into full-blown conflict. But that’s my job, in this case, so I’ve been thinking about how to do that.

I don’t have the answer yet — maybe it will float to me through sleep, or maybe it will seem clearer after I’ve slept, since I certainly could use a solid night of rest — but just as I was brushing my teeth and readying for bed I started wondering, “What would I do if I followed a humanizing impulse in the moment of tension in the group?” And I don’t quite know what I would do, but I know that I would not ignore it. The move to humanize that moment would involve welcoming in the discomfort and the conflict because that’s a part of the human experience, and it is definitely a part of this group’s experience, and to deny that shuts down the full humanity of the group. Which is sad, but especially so when the purpose of the group is tied to humanizing education (though that isn’t the language we’re using).

I want to do that, be true to the humanizing impulse, but also do it softly, skillfully, so that no one is damaged in the process. That’s the scary challenge: that I might not be skillful enough to navigate the group through discomfort without creating damage. But it’s my job.

Following the humanizing impulse June 7, 2009

I’m reading a book (and, apparently, reconstituting this blog from the dead) called Positivity, by Barbara Fredrickson. She was a professor in my department at the University of Michigan when I was a graduate student there, but I didn’t know her very well; I just knew that she studied positive emotions. Traditionally psychologists studied just negative emotions (anger, sadness, depression, anxiety, etc) — and most of them still do — but there’s a movement towards looking at and understanding positive emotions like joy, interest, love, gratitude, and others.

When I saw that Barbara has a new book out on Positivity I thought, “Oh, this looks interesting; she’s summed up her research and other work on positive psychology and has written a book for lay readers,” so I requested it from the library. I’ve been reading it for a few days now. I’m surprised at how firmly situated the writing style is in the self-help genre — which doesn’t turn me on — but nonetheless I’ve been gleaming useful insights from it. And one of them inspired me to start journaling, or at least to strive to journal, and if I’m going to journal, why not do it here, since that’s the purpose of this space for me?

The inspiration came in chapter 11, pages 212-213, under the heading “Tool 12. Visualize Your Future.” The idea is to write every day for a week or so about what you want your future to look like in 10 years, if all has gone as well as it possibly could. From that writing, draw out a life mission. “What purpose do you want to drive you–each and every day? Why do you get up in the morning, feed yourself, and bother to stay healthy? In other words, what’s the meaning of your existence?” And from this, craft a mission statement.

When I read this I thought, ahhh, I’ve already found this a few months ago: everything in service of a humanizing impulse. I reflected to myself, but is everything I’m doing in service of a humanizing impulse? No, of course not. Maybe I should start thinking about that a little more often, I mused, and then kept reading:

When you think you’ve got it right [the mission statement], put it to the eulogy test. If you were to carry out this mission, would your time on earth be well spent? Would others resonate with appreciation and admiration? Now create a ten-year plan to help you meet your mission. Distill it to bullet points, so that your dreams can guide you through your decisions now.

That’s it: that’s the problem! I came up with this grand statement about what I would like for my life to mean, and I haven’t done anything to make that vision real, in a day-to-day way. What would it look like, for everything to be in service of a humanizing impulse? That’s work that perhaps I should do, at least if I’m serious about my mission.

I think it would be great to work out that 10-year plan, like Barbara suggests. But I feel overwhelmed by that idea right now. So what I’d like to try instead is to journal at the end of each day, or as often as I can manage, about where in my day I have acted in accordance with my vision, and perhaps where in my day I really haven’t, and by doing that start to pay more attention. Because I think my first challenge has been to keep that vision of the humanizing impulse at the forefront of my mind. I’ve thought of having it tattooed around my wrist.

I think I’ll try this first.

When did I serve the humanizing impulse today (in ways both large and small)?

• I expressed genuine appreciation for my running buddy at the end of our 18 kilometer run (a record for me!
• I phoned a few friends to see if anyone wanted to spend time together, even though I don’t like making the phone calls. I didn’t reach anyone, but I did leave a few messages, including one to V., who I haven’t spoken with in ages, saying that I wanted to reconnect.
• I have been sitting to meditate a few times since I started reading Positivity, and today I went to the Do-It-Yourself Dharma meditation session. It included a metta (lovingkindness) meditation, which made me happy. In particular I thought about a young girl I hung out with yesterday, my friends’ daughter’s friend. She’s going through some challenging situations, and I was able to offer something concrete to help make her happy yesterday (bought her two shirts! If that’s all it takes…), and I’ve been left thinking about her, so I’m glad I could bring her to mind when I was practicing wishing health, happiness, safety and ease in meditation.
• I contemplated buying a chocolate bar at the supermarket, but I didn’t because it wasn’t fair trade and I didn’t want my money to be tangled up in child slavery.

When did I NOT serve the humanizing impulse today?

• Killing time surfing the web and playing sudoku online. It’s funny, because in her book, Barbara suggests playing sudoku as a healthy distraction, but it is definitely an unhealthy distraction for me.

I’m sure I could think of more things in both lists. I definitely grumbled a bit today; every time I do a long run, I injure myself, and I have a semi-useless left leg at the moment. Grumble, grumble. I’m still really pleased that I did that run. And it also is in service of a humanizing impulse in that I was connecting with someone, connecting physically with the wider world, even with nature (lots of trees and one very friendly dog).