Inspired by the author David Grossman whose eloquent and beautiful work takes on many important topics - most recently grief in his book 'Falling Out of Time':There are often so many reasons to despair. All that we want to bring about that is beyond us, all that seems it cannot change, all that we do not have the power or wherewithal to address.But, despair itself brings about despair, and hopelessness brings hopelessness, because they draw our attention most strongly to what is despairing and what is hopeless in our worlds.For Grossman, if you despair 'you declare that you are a victim of the situation, that you have no control over circumstances, that you are at the mercy of the behaviour of your opponents, that you are totally trapped and motionless.'And for this reason it is important to hope. Because it is the act of hoping itself that points us towards what is possible, in any situation, for us to do.
Two conversations
Two kinds of conversations you can have when you're in difficulty with others:The first is an inner conversation.
You talk to yourself, in the privacy of your own thoughts, about their thoughts and motivations. You invent moves and counter-moves, and you weigh your course of action against the imaginary actions of your foe. You're sure you can read others' minds. You reassure yourself that you're right.
In this conversation, you get to decide what's true, even if it's far removed from what's going on.
You may be way off the mark. You may well be keeping the conflict going. But at least you're in charge.
The second is an outer conversation.
You speak with the other person, asking them what they want, listening deeply and fully. You make requests clearly and completely.
It's risky. They may say no. You might find out you've misunderstood.
And you're making yourself vulnerable to disappointment, to shame, to your own self-judgement.
In the second conversation you no longer have the monopoly on the truth. But in giving up your rightness, you're much more likely to discover what is true.And you open yourself to the possibility of hope, surely more powerful than spiralling further into rigidity, certainty and mistrust?
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Remembering and forgetting
What a miracle our consciousness is.That an assemblage of matter, atoms and molecules, earth and stardust, coheres into cells - entities with processes and membranes and the capacity to produce themselves, and cells into organs...... and that those cohere into a living, breathing, thinking being that can experience itself as alive, and think about itself, and take conscious deliberate action...... that we can have other people and what happens matter to us...... that we experience joy and love and grief and disappointment...... that we can choose and speak, move ourselves and others to action, create and build and make and destroy, teach and play and invent and compose and undo ourselves...... that we form relationships, communities, organisations...... that we make worlds.Maybe it's only when we come into first-hand contact with death that we appreciate all at once what a miracle any of this is. And most of us do not come often into such contact directly. We are hardly in touch with the inevitability of our own end. Death is a rumour, a whisper, a great silence of which we are reminded only occasionally. It is, mostly, what happens to others.I am coming to see that when I forget death I also forget how improbable any of this is. I forget that my body lives and that I live because of it.It feels safer that way.In my forgetfulness I am quickly distanced from the realness of things. I try fit in, to be liked, to avoid judgement, to stay within familiar horizons. I hold back. I retreat into the security of my own mind, where my suppositions and judgements of people can not so easily be tested. I become concerned with looking good. I get distracted, reaching repeatedly and automatically for what feels recognisable, for what will soothe me. But in order to shield myself from death something has to die and freeze and become very small within me.I'm gradually finding out that the miracle of my own consciousness and the consciousness of others comes with a compelling responsibility to take care of life - to turn away from automatic pilot, and towards creativity, compassion, fierceness, love. Away from distraction and towards being present. Away from disconnection and towards listening deeply and speaking out. Away from denial and towards what's true.Towards life itself.Because in my forgetfulness I also forget - and oh so quickly I forget - just how soon this miracle will be over for me, and for you, and for everyone we know.
Untrue
If your assessment is that another person is untrustworthy, you're giving yourself little choice than to be suspicious, watchful, checking always for many ways they are out to get you.And when they encounter your suspicious watchfulness, and feel your uncertainty around them, they may well wonder whether you can be trusted. They become cautious, furtive, secretive around you, all of which produces exactly the kind of behaviour that seems to confirm your initial assessment.Before you know it, a cycle of mistrust is created and sustained that may have had little foundation in either of you before it began.In this way the assessments you make of others matter. Because when they're untrue - when they are your ungrounded, unchecked suppositions - they have an uncanny way of coming into being simply because you're making them.
Meaning Belonging Contribution
Three basic human needs, none of which can be met directly by accumulating more stuff, more status, or more prestige:
- Meaning
- Belonging
- Contribution
If you’re yearning for something, it might help you to consider which of these is your particular wish – that which would bring you most alive.And perhaps it would be worth considering whether what you’ve dedicated so much effort to chasing instead – money, more possessions, getting ahead of others – can ever hope on its own to address what you’re really longing for.
Zombies
A recent client counted up the number of hours he was spending in meetings per week. The total? Almost 25, many of which are meetings-of-obligation, in which there is little or nothing for him to contribute.How many of the rest of us are eating up so much of our precious time and commitment in this way?We're turning ourselves into meeting zombies: dulled and silent, resentful and over-busy, saying yes to hours of commitment to which we bring nothing, and from which we expect nothing.So, some simple rules to apply the when the next meeting invitation comes in (or, worse, when someone else simply books a meeting in your diary):
- If you ask me to join a meeting where I'm expected to be an observer, I'll say no.
- I'll automatically decline any meeting invitations where you have not made clear, in ways that I can act upon, why you want me there and what you think I can bring.
- If it's still not clear to me, I'll expect that we'll talk about it before I decide to come (and, no, we will not schedule a meeting to talk about the meeting).
- I'll only come to a meeting when I know that I can contribute.
- When I'm there, I promise to do exactly that.
- And if I'm not there, you can tell me what was learned or decided later.
What freedom - and productivity - could be generated if we applied these rules to our own meeting attendance, and to everyone else who joins us?
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On waking
You wake.The sky is dark outside, just the faintest glow of dawn lights the edges and crests of the rooftops.You have been returned to yourself, as you are each morning.What greater faithfulness and what greater love could life show you than this, the everyday wonder of returning? Or the miracle by which you find yourself aware, feeling, inhabiting your own body once again?
Go to bed
The most powerful influence on our effectiveness in waking life is sleep.
But it is also what we're most willing to give up first in our endless quest to be more productive.We have no idea how impaired we have become through our commitment to keep going - our compromised functioning blurring and distorting our very memory of what it is like to be awake.Our lack of sleep leaves us more vulnerable to illness and to accident. It mutes our creativity. It negatively influences our moods, increasing our irritability and reactivity towards others.And yet we carry on as if we are inexhaustible, wearing our sleeplessness as a badge of honour or bravery or commitment.We've elevated productivity above taking care of ourselves, producing exactly the opposite of our intentions. We lie to ourselves about what we're up to.We've forgotten - or denied - that we have bodies with limits.And as we do all this we fall asleep to our own aliveness.When are we going to wake up to this madness and go to bed?
Talking
You're all so busy that there's no time for a real conversation. Not a moment for the simple act of explaining something, or asking for what you need, or agreeing with someone else what needs to be done and not done.
And because there's no time to talk you're inundating each other with emails and voice messages. Nobody will pick up, because nobody has time. Everyone is too busy processing what's in their inbox.And so you're duplicating effort, doing what's not needed, having to work the same things out again and again - things that somebody already knows how to do.And because you're wasting so much of your effort, you're busier than ever and convinced there's no time for a real conversation.And this is where the error lies. Because this rolling difficulty is solved only one way.By talking.
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Letting go
Among the most profound works of our adult lives is learning to let go of everything we care about.
Learning to let go of people we love.Learning to let go of our projects, our possessions.Learning to let go of experiences.Learning to let go of emotions we're holding, and that are holding us.Why learn to do this?Because, in the end, we will be forced to give up all of them.And because in our capacity to let go before we have to - to give up our hidden, desperate holding on - lies the freedom to bring ourselves to everything without trying to own, control, dominate or force into our own image.In letting go in this way, we let go of our own neediness. And it's only in this freedom that we can fully encounter the aliveness of that which was never ours to hold in the first place.
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