Presence for the Holidays

I’ve come to appreciate that the holidays present all kinds of opportunities for high-heat moments — awkward social events, challenging family gatherings, stressful retail encounters.  One of my friends feels so anxious about her family’s yearly holiday gathering that she literally gets ill during the weeks leading up to it.

Last weekend my friend and colleague Sam Elmore of Brinc Consulting facilitated a workshop called “Holiday Presence” in which participants had a chance to explore different strategies for staying present (e.g., not becoming reactive) in the face of work demands, unpleasant family dynamics, and unmet expectations about to what this time of year “should be.”

During the workshop with Sam I made myself  a little talisman fashioned from a bell connected to a piece of leather twine with five knots. I intend to keep this bell in my pocket and whenever I hear it jingle I’ll quietly check in with my physical and emotional state by asking: “What’s up with me right now?” And then if I feel off center or not present, I’ll use it in this way:

I run my fingers across each knot and the space between the knots. Each time my fingers touch a knot I ask myself one of the questions below. Five knots, five questions. Each time my finger runs over the space between knots I take an intentional, deep breath.

1. Who am I here for? (breathe)
2. Why am I here? (breathe)
3. What can I release from my grasp (e.g., an expectation, distractions, judgment, etc.) that will put me into a stronger partnership with my reason for being here? (breathe)
4. What would my wisest friend or teacher whisper in my ear at this moment? (breathe)
5. Where in my body can I imagine compassion hiding, taking safe refuge, and reminding me of its ongoing presence? (breathe)

(Note: In advance of the big family gathering or office party I will take a little time to reflect on the first two questions and imagine one or more wise friends or teachers whose presence I want to feel with me over the holidays.)

Bringing Heart Skills to Conflict

For a long time I believed that the key to resolving a difficult conflict was to help the disputants arrive at logical conclusions to which they could agree.  I tried to help people think their way through differences and negotiate compromise based on a rational definition of fairness. Over the years I have come to appreciate the role of heart skills — our capacity acknowledge and  address the emotional dimension of the conflict in an authentic and non-manipulative way.

I can remember learning this lesson when I was facilitating a meeting between farmers and farm workers in the state of Washington.  The goal of the meeting was to create a plan for newly funded farm worker housing. But within the first five minutes old battles, lingering resentments, and name-calling ensued. The long-festering bitterness in people’s hearts made it impossible to proceed with the agenda. I called for a break and when we reconvened I asked farmers and farm workers to pair up and discuss two simple questions: 1) What makes you proud about producing food for others?  2) Can you tell me a story about when it meant a lot to have a house in your life?  After about 10 minutes you could literally feel the shift in the room. Through the stories being told, self-proclaimed adversaries were discovering their shared human connection. As hearts opened so did the possibility for getting something done that day.

One of the best teachers on heart opening skills is Ken Cloke, an author, mediator, and attorney. Ken’s perspective is that we who convene high-heat meetings must learn to be vulnerable and self-aware. In his recent article in ACResolution Magazine Ken offers a number of strategies for mediating from the heart. Among these strategies is to begin the meeting with questions and invitations that go directly to the heart.  Here are some of the questions Ken offers:

• Why are you here? Why do you care? What did it take for you to come here today?
• What kind of relationship would you like to have with each other? Why?
• What life experiences have led you to feel so strongly about this issue?
• What role have you played in this conflict, either through action or inaction?
• What would you most like to hear her say to you right now? What would this mean to you?
• What would change in your life if you reached an agreement?

When intense emotions fill the room we often want to take the safe route, pretending the feelings aren’t there or maintaining a superficial frame on the conflict. It’s only when we bring empathy, heart-piercing questions, and  and a willingness to move to the deeper levels that we become true catalysts for transformation.

Making Peace Our Purpose

Purpose matters. Like a personal gyroscope, clarity about and commitment to a guiding intention in the heat of challenging interactions gives us a way to keep the ground underneath our feet even as others are being swept away in the heat of the moment.

I’m reading Getting to Peace by William Ury who writes in his introduction:

Never before in human evolution have people faced the challenge of living in a single community with billions of other human beings. Anthropologists have identified more than fifteen thousand distinct ethnic groups on the planet. Far from bringing a lessening of conflict, the ingathering means, in the short run at least, a heightening of hostilities as people are forced to confront their differences, as jealousies and resentments over inequities flair up, and as identities are threatened by different customs and beliefs. Coming together can produce more heat than light, more conflict than understanding,..

One can either read this with a sense of fear or hopelessness, believing that our human nature dooms us to continued cycles of war and suffering. But for me it reads like a call to purpose — to explore new ways of thinking and seeing that open up new paths for collaboration.

Every time we take our seats at the table — in every interaction casual or formal — we can be the ones who transform heat into light. We can learn to  draw on the creative qualities of group fire in service of peace.

Group Fire – For Better or Worse

Group fire is the state in which a situation feels uncomfortable, emotionally heated, intense, and perhaps quite personal. Fire is as pervasive in human interactions as it is in nature — and just as necessary.

We see fire in the halls of government and in the hallways of our elementary schools. It shows up when the leaders of our churches, synagogues, and mosques gather. We feel the fire at town council meetings and industry conferences. When historic adversaries, diverse ethnic groups, and world leaders come together, we expect and usually get fire. When industry leaders, elected officials, scholars, social activists, and citizens come together to deliberate pressing issues like hunger, climate change, and national security, we witness the fire.

Though it may vary in its form, group fire seems not to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, education, economic class, or culture. In a wonderful documentary film titled Dalai Lama Renaissance (see video clip below), forty of the West’s most innovative and enlightened thinkers were invited to the home of His Holiness in northern India. The guests included religious scholars, writers, at least two quantum physicists, and a psychiatrist. When they arrived, they were asked by the Dalai Lama to work together to come up with a “solution to some of the world’s problems” and to identify “the transitions we must make if we’re going to survive.”

What transpires over the course of several days is a portrait of group fire. The esteemed guests could not agree on a format for their discussions, let alone on any solutions. Bickering, interrupting, showboating, or simply getting lost in wishful thinking, they struggled to collaborate. In the midst of the bickering one participant pleaded, “I’d like to feel a little compassion here.” One leaves this film with a simultaneous sense of hopelessness (“If these folks can’t get it right, how are the rest of us supposed to learn to work together skillfully?”) and relief (“Now I don’t feel so bad about all of my lousy meetings”).

Conflict and emotional intensity are everywhere, and they are often a source of suffering. But high-heat moments are as natural and as necessary to human progress as they are in nature. We need fire in our families, teams, organizations, and communities as much as our prairies and forests need a cyclical blaze to stay healthy. Nothing interesting or innovative has ever really happens in groups without the heat of passion, disagreement, fear, or confusion. In fact, fire is often the best indicator that people care about the issue with which they are struggling. The absence of heat almost always means apathy, suppression, and non-engagement.

“Dalai Lama Renaissance” Documentary (with Harrison Ford) #3

Dalai Lama Renaissance (narrated by Harrison Ford) | MySpace Video