It feels good to fight and argue, but when there’s no pressure to convince others or be convinced, we listen in ways that allow us to improve our communities.
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I caused a disturbance a few years ago. Near the beginning of a three day meeting of a community I am part of I spoke up, as a participant, and named a harmful and racist practice in which many of the group were participating.
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We all know this feeling of surrender, of turning around or giving in. It is not failure; it is facing reality with a clear commitment to look after self. Nor is this about losing, about having not won. It is a recognition of when we’ve hit our limits and choosing to accept the emotional challenge of not being able to do what we expected to do.
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When we use technology like Zoom, even with a panel presentation, when we choose to allow participants to see each other we are allowing the community that has gathered to see each other and make further contact with itself. We choose to enable, rather than disable, community agency.
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Low-grade depression—the words a friend spoke on a call a few weeks ago. It never occurred to me that the word ‘depression’ could apply to me, but I knew to trust the reverberations in my body. It explained how I’ve been feeling for several weeks. And it lead to a big gift in understanding how I “power” myself.
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When I take action to do the work I need to do for myself, or to stop doing work for other people, I change the rules of the game between us. It is vital to understand that awakening agency, whether in myself or others, is destabilizing. When I asked my loved one, in my dream, to stop leaning on me because her actions were going to push me over the edge, she was unable to stabilize herself. There may be places were others need to ask me to stop leaning on them, and that will destabilize me.
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There is a strong pull within us to move back to normal, to business as was usual. Opening businesses, ceasing our physical distancing practices too early is collapse behaviour. Wanting something to be as it was in insufficient to make it so; feedback loops are life or death right now and we ignore them at our peril.
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I’ve long been struggling with how we can gather in ways that are socially proximate. When we gather at conferences, for example, we are physically close, but socially separate as we sit and listen to the expert sage on the stage. I’ve had what I call “a keynote itch” that needs to be scratched. And it will work both face-to-face and online. I call it Street Corner Visiting.
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I’ve long been uncomfortable with keynote speakers who fly in, speak for an hour or so, and then fly out. This format of information delivery is a download, often without confirming the download is the right download, let alone if the download is complete and meets the needs of the audience.
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It was a tense part of the meeting, when the neighbours were challenging city staff about who the city was going to invite to an upcoming meeting. It was one of those moments when I’m quietly telling myself: this is tricky, so make sure you say the right thing or this is going to go off the rails!
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At a conference where the crowd assembled believes in designing cities to mitigate and adapt to climate change, we avoided talking about the heat—the emotional heat. And avoiding emotional heat means avoiding the hard work needed to effect the changes we say we want.
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He was a conference speaker with an urgent message: we must change our ways or we will die. We will only save ourselves if we do what he says, what he prescribes.
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My two kids are great at metaphors. The latest: that they are buying a car “with training wheels”. Whether it is kids, co-workers, students, anyone for whom we serve as training wheels, this experience has taught me a few vital things about my relationship with the sovereignty of people making decisions, whether they are my kids, clients, friends (or myself!):
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