Intentionality, because “The Universe Has Ears”

I’m delighted to present this guest blog – particularly in early February when we’ve been exhausted by a deluge of articles and posts on goal-setting.

My experience – and that of this anonymous author’s is that change begins when we consciously acknowledge and get clear about setting intentions!

The Universe Has Ears

Twenty-two years ago, I was working as a computer programmer developing financial software, but I had a deep interest in the possibilities that technology could bring to the fabric of society. 

As part of our annual training allocation, I decided to take a presentation skills course. The course was interactive and fun and throughout the day we gave short presentations that were video recorded and then reviewed and critiqued to try to improve our skills.

At the end of the day, we had to come up with our own pet topic to give a presentation on.

I decided to address the topic of home-working.

Technology was, at that stage, less advanced than now but I felt that advancements in this area could offer some wonderful opportunities to combine remaining in the workplace with stay at home parenting,  the biggest hurdle to overcome would be trust, i.e. the idea that employees need constant supervision.

In writing my presentation I needed an opener and a tag line to round it off. There is an old saying, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

I decided to use this, with a little artistic license, to make it seem that the bird in the hand is more valuable because you can watch it closely. My speech went on to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of home working and I tied it up at the end by rewording the saying to “A bird in the bush is worth two in the office.”

We were given the videotape to bring home and mine was put in a cupboard with the rest of my videotape collection. 

Years passed, I married and had a baby and found returning to work difficult. I did another course “Who am I” to discover what my authentic self, longed for.

I concluded that I would love to live in the countryside, close to the sea, and raise my child while continuing to work.

A couple of years later with the outcome of both courses very far from my mind, we were on a weekend away. I saw a for sale sign and said to my hubby, “Let’s follow that sign and see what’s for sale.  Really, all I wanted was to go for a drive to a random location, I wasn’t looking to buy a house. 

We arrived at the house and both instantly fell in love with it. Within a week, we had viewed it and put in an offer. We sold our own house very easily and moved to our new home, in the countryside close to the sea. 

I returned to work part-time and initially did a daily commute to Dublin. Eventually, I discovered an office in a nearby town where I could go and access my company network, so I worked from there a few days a week. Management realised that my work didn’t suffer through a lack of supervision and following on from that I was permitted to work from home. 

A few years later, while doing a spring clean, I came across the video of the presentation and popped it in the VCR and hit play.  As I watched the speech, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. 

I had made this presentation as a young, single city girl and it was long forgotten.

But now, here I was, a mum, working from home and doing exactly what my presentation promoted. 

Not only that but my tagline was so accurate it was startling.

You see the name of the place I ended up living was the Bush.

I am now that bird in the Bush. The universe does indeed have ears and is always listening.




On Memoir as a Call to Action…

So what’s a memoir? It’s simply a tool – and it’s best described by Julia Cameron – who created it:

Copy of textbook - It's Never Too Late to Begin Again“The Memoir is a weekly exercise that builds upon itself. You will divide your life into sections; as a rule of thumb, divide your age by twelve, and this is the number of years you will cover each week…you will trigger vivid memories, discover lost dreams, and find unexpected healing and clarity...

Along the way, you will find dreams you wish to return to, ideas you are ready to discard, wounds you are ready to heal, and most of all, an appreciation for the life you have led.” 

The book – and the exercises are grounded in the author’s experience of developing this version of her Artist’s Way method for people considering, approaching or already enjoying retirement.

One especially heartbreaking sentence I have heard over and over from my newly retired students is, “Oh, my life wasn’t that interesting.”

My own experience includes dozens of conversations with peers who relate stories of the lives of their friends who have retired – lives they can’t even imagine.

  • I hate golf
  • What would I do?
  • I’d be so bored?
  • But my work is who I am!

About the latter – let me assure you – it is not.

In groups over the last three years – men and women between 40 and 70+ have joined me in an exploration of this exercise. “A-ha” moments abound. Not because they ‘figure out’ or ‘dream up’ new ways of being – but rather because they come back into themselves.

What were those passions you discarded in search of “a proper job”? Where were those places you imagined traveling to or schools you really wanted to attend?  What did you imagine being when you grew up?

And if you became what you always wanted to be-when exactly did you decide what that was?

If you find you’re resisting the idea of remembering – you’re not alone. I worried – as did participants described in the book – that I’d find I’d made a terrible mistake. That I was to blame for every ‘wrong turn’ or outcome I’d experienced.

But a funny thing happened.

The decision made at 25 – considered in week six – was revisited with the knowledge gleaned from my deep dive into ages 1-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-19, and 20-24. That choice really was the best one I could have made for that young woman at that time.

The process of remembering is a gentle one.

Embrace it. You’ve got nothing to lose.

If you’d like to learn more or see how it works in action – you’re welcome to join our private Facebook Group where I’ve explored my journey through Weeks 1 to 8.

Not yet ready to pick up the book or start the 12-week process?

Try a baby step toward the process.  I encourage you to start gathering photos from your childhood and adolescence – pictures that catapult you back to moments in different places and times.

Who we were, what we imagined, what was encouraged, nurtured, or supported – or wasn’t – impacted our trajectories.

This one taught me all I needed to know about who I am now, why I do the work that I do, and how I know that whatever one does or says on behalf of a young child – it matters!

When you’re ready to make a change – get in touch!

#DontGoItAlone

For more information on the book, our groups or the process – click here.




Nothing changes until we do!

In a recent LinkedIn article, Ready for a Change? – I made the case for choosing change. On one level it’s selfish – I work with people and small businesses when they’re ready for a change.

On another level it’s in service to those clients, neighbours and friends who require change in their wider worlds. More on that later.

Navigating change, personally, professionally or systemically, requires safe spaces.

So whether that involves creating a safe space personally – by throwing off old habits, distancing yourself from the crazy-makers in your life or quieting your undermining self-talk (all three?) – the work begins when we make up our minds that the pain of changing outweighs the pain of staying stuck.

Or more eloquently – as pictured, it’s time to blossom.

Change in our work lives is no different, although creating this safe place is somewhat more fraught. It requires us to bring equal parts of self-confidence and humility to the process.

Unsafe at work may look like

  • the boss is mad
  • the workplace is intimidating
  • I’m a payday away from disaster

Let’s accept that every situation is “out of our control” and all we can control is our reaction to it.

What if we agree that-

  • the boss is mad! We might ask ourselves: Am I bringing my best self to each encounter? Am I consciously or unconsciously pushing his/her buttons? Have I even asked what they might be?
  • the workplace is intimidating! Does my demeanour (fear, lack of confidence, reticence) inadvertently contribute to the dynamic? What changes in my response might change my experience of it?
  •  am a payday away from disaster! How can I manage money more mindfully, get out of debt and expand my options?

These questions encourage a kind of archeology. Or as it’s called in 12 step rooms –  a searching and fearless inventory. We’re not judging or chastising, we’re observing our patterns. Not for anyone else’s purposes – just our own.

Because-

  • Every insight is power
  • Every repaired or rejected relationship emboldens us
  • Every safe place we create empowers us

Empowers us personally, professionally and should we choose to widen that sphere of influence – civically.

Back to what I meant by service.

Typically my clients (and often I) am stressed by failures in systems meant to support.

  • Caregivers waste time, energy and resources navigating the social service and health care delivery systems. Should it require a whole day off to take you ageing mother or child to the doctor, or for a scan? Should you have to go on a day that suits the health service or on an appointment day of your choosing?
  • Healthcare professionals are faced with uprooting themselves and their families while retraining or emigrating because working conditions have become too stressful, chaotic and in many cases dangerous.
  • Financial institutions insistent that they “owe no duty of care” to their clients – exacerbate homeowners attempts to renegotiate indebtedness – causing unimaginable pressures on families.
  • A culture of silence renders workplaces and schools inherently unsafe. Our default to, “sure you can’t change that”, “it’s always been that way” – allows for bullying, sexual harassment and exploitation.

Collectively more confident, we would be willing to speak out against systemic ills – without worrying about being labelled bold or cheeky.

Choose change, find your voice and take care to create safe spaces for yourself. Ask for help if you need to – just don’t go it alone!

Finding our voices simply means we willing to tell the truth. For more on what that would look like, I’ve profiled some ordinary citizen-activists doing just that in a blog post On Echoing Irish Voices Congruent with Irish Values.

The systemic abuses I was addressing were unique to the Republic of Ireland. The call to action is equally relevant to my Northern Irish, British and American colleagues where we face different, but equally concerning failures of leadership and governance.

Change is hard, #DontGoItAlone.

If supportive peer groups, workshops to help you gain clarity personally or professionally – learn more.

If you are passionate about driving civic and political change in service of the common good – get in touch.

 




On Echoing Irish Voices Congruent with Irish Values…

My hope/wish/prayer for 2018 is that Ireland will be a safe place for a #Whistleblower and an increasingly unsafe place for politicians who take cover with “it’s what’s legal” vs. “it’s what is ethical, proactive and kind”.

A government that is far more congruent with Irish values.

To create that Ireland, we need to find our voices. We need to speak up, shout out and demand better leadership. Our silence serves only those who would lie to us, steal from us, and oppress. That individual and collective behaviour in law it is called ‘willful blindness’ and it is actionable.

Action requires embracing our entitlement to a ‘legitimate sense of outrage’. Or call it ‘righteous indignation’ over our leadership’s major failures and small slights.

Major failures among which are:

  1. closing rural Post Offices and locating a new Children’s Hospital in the centre of Dublin (a 5 hour drive from Donegal, 4 hrs from Kerry)
  2. ignoring a tri-city/county regional economic development approach to Cork/Limerick/Galway by continuing to drive Foreign Direct Investment primarily to Dublin
  3. failing to gear up for the additional housing required by post Brexit growth of financial service sector jobs relocating from London – creating more upward pressure on housing costs

…and only one of many small slights

  • a citizenry that accepts that it’s okay for taxpayer-funded RTE to make you wait over 1 minute through advertising to hear an RTE Player broadcast of newsmakers interviewed on all the above

The bold texts links to articles or videos of interest; for more information on the work of ordinary citizen activists –

Homelessness – @Right2Homes; Website; Founder, Brian J Reilly
Healthcare – @Bumbleance; Website; Founders, Mary & Tony Heffernan
Transparency & Accountability; @I_S_B_A, Seamus Maye, Ireland, Democracy or Corpocracy
Corruption in Banking – @WhistleIrl; Website; Jonathan Sugarman
Legislative Oversight & Abuse of Powers – @ChangeisUptoYou; Website, Founder, Tom Darcy

For perspective and an insight into how things get so bad – and what we can change – I encourage you to consider –Willful Blindness – @M_Heffernan In her book and TED talk

Not one person here is in it for the glory! Most are reluctant activists, they have worked individually and collectively, doggedly determined, while cajoled, undermined, harassed and in some cases bankrupted, to speak up and give voice to others.

Pick a cause, focus and support their efforts. Each has made great strides, advanced new agendas and empowered change. Follow, engage and if it resonates, support their efforts. Or bring forward your own.

*David McWilliams’ testimony references findings published in his 2005 book The Pope’s Children.

 




Personal Change Management; the tools

A post entitled, Embracing Uncertainty, suggested an alternative description of the practices often recommended to support resilience.

It has become clear that the language helping professionals use, is often one of the most significant obstacles to supporting significant life and career change.

So, if you’ve embraced mindfulness, a daily meditation practice or have already found your way into a supportive recovery community – this post is not for you.

If you’ve explored mindfulness, worked with a trainer, have made multiple attempts to adopted a healthier and more balanced lifestyle, yet find it is difficult or impossible to maintain – this post is for you.

If you’re struggling with periods of malaise, outright depression, anxiety or physical symptoms which might be stress related, or if you have a sense that your work/home life could be better – this post is for you.

And if you’re living well, but have a niggling feeling that something is missing – keep reading. It can’t hurt.

Personal Change Management

Change management has been formally studied and implemented in business and industry for over half a century. In the early days it was characterized by a top-down exercise in defining goals and strategies; in recent decades the focus has moved toward ‘stakeholder-driven’ change.

This shift is important to note. Industry has determined that sustainable change and innovation follows bottom-up management by individuals, team leaders and ‘change champions’.

Our personal top-down change management system appears to need updating as well. New Year’s Resolutions are a great example:

  • I’m going on a diet
  • I’m looking for a new job
  • I’m training for a marathon

Good in theory, but arguably top-down. There’s a ring of “the boss says I should” to it.

Personal Change Champion

What would bottom-up personal goal setting look like? How different would it be when you, the ‘stakeholder’, is in charge?

  • Would you decide to diet, or would ask yourself what pain you are medicating by overeating or not exercising?
    Ask
    : What feelings are you shovelling down or numbing with sugar, carbs, drink or drugs?
  • Should you get a new job, or could you confront the stressors at this one?
    Ask: Are you bored? Is it the right field for you? Do you ask for what you need? Do you bring your best self to the workplace – or simply punch a clock?
  • Planning to train for your first or fifth marathon?
    Ask: Are you doing it to benefit from the exercise, discipline and camaraderie – or are you running away from something or for the sense of accomplishment? “Accomplishing” seems more like work than self-care.

Setting achievable goals and ultimately moving from knowing what you don’t want to what you do want, begins with more than a few tough questions.

It requires us to fine tune or re-calibrate our ‘receivers’.  Specific obstacles that have undermined us in the past, become apparent when we learn to listen in a whole new way.

Fine Tuning Receivers

Bandwidth. It’s a perfect metaphor for our attention span and focus. It’s not limitless. Which station are you tuned into? Favourite programme on 88.5? you can hear it on 88.6 or 88.4 – but through some static. In re-calibrating our receivers, it’s the static we’re out to eliminate; the noise characterised by that judging voice and negative self-talk that reinforces the message: why bother?

The Method

Take one small action every day on your own behalf. The tools outlined below are designed to be adopted into your daily life and routine.

The process is fundamentally the same as the  “DMAIC” model used for Change Management in industry – Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control.

If you’re in “I’ll do it myself” mode, we’re inviting you to embrace one small change at a time!

The Tools

These are modified slightly from their source for introductory purposes, links to the original work follow.

Morning Pages

The best case I can make for adopting this practice is laid out in journalist Oliver Burkeman’s 2014 Guardian article.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised at how powerful Morning Pages proved, from day one, at calming anxieties, producing insights and resolving dilemmas. After all, the psychological benefits of externalising thoughts via journalling are well-established. And that bleary-eyed morning time has been shown to be associated with more creative thinking: with the brain’s inhibitory processes still weak, “A-ha!” moments come more readily.

Julia Cameron, who devised the practice, calls it “meditation for Westerners”. Absent our habit of embracing stillness or silence, three pages written in those early moments of wakefulness between dreams and consciousness, we can achieve the same effect. In her words –

“They are a trail that we follow into our own interior…”

After nearly two decades of doing them, I can attest that the days I write them go far better than the days I do not.

Simply put they are three hand written pages of whatever comes to mind – think of it as a stream of un-consciousness. Some mornings they flow, other mornings they look like a petty list of gripes, a to-do list for the day or a silly unreadable scrawl. They are meant to be private and not shared. They are rarely even re-read.

There is no wrong way to do them. Put your inner critic to the side, take pen to paper and focus on the fact that “done is better than perfect”. Perhaps you can consider them “mourning pages” –

“…a farewell to life as you knew it, and an introduction to life as it’s going to be”

Still skeptical? For more in the author’s own words you can listen to a brief description on her site .

It may just be simpler to try it!

Walking

Introduced in Cameron’s subsequent books, with this tool, she reminds us that

“…walking is a time-honored spiritual tradition. Native Americans walk on vision quests, Aborigines go on walkabouts…Walking brings a welcome sense of connection…optimism and ….a sense of health and well-being.”

Make it a point to take a walk of at least 20 minutes, twice a week.

“Walking is a luxury, an escape from our frantic pace. When we walk, we experience the richness of the world”.

Time Out

Relax. It’s doable – it’s only five minutes!

Once in the morning and once at night – sit quietly for five minutes. Check in with yourself. It’s an opportunity “for self-appraisal and self-approval”.

Set a timer, make an appointment, silence your inner critic and listen. Simply ask yourself, “How am I feeling and why?”

Play Date

Yes, I know Cameron calls it an “Artist Date“, but it is the single most resisted tool, usually while clients are emphatically insisting they are not “artists”. We’re taking liberty in describing it, as even Cameron calls it “assigned play”.

And to make the case for calling it a “Play Date”, consider this:

“What you begin to see when there’s major play deprivation in an otherwise competent adult is that they’re not much fun to be around,” he says. “You begin to see that the perseverance and joy in work is lessened and that life is much more laborious.”

That from Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the U.S. based National Institute for Play.

Once a week, imagine “what sounds like fun?” – then allow yourself some time alone to try it. Focus on the word “date”.
Cameron’s genius is never subtle – she is inviting you to “woo” yourself into doing something fun.

“Artist Dates fire up the imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play.”

And they need not be adventurous – a hour or two at a gallery, take in a film or a play, head off to an antique show, gaming convention or go berry picking. Just a few hours away, on our own and without a phone or technology is good for re-charging.

Techniques

The process is simple, but not necessarily easy. So choose one of the tools above and try it. If it serves you well, make a habit of it and add another. If you are struggling with one, add a different one and come back to it. And don’t go it alone!

The method, tools and techniques described are outlined in a series of books on creativity, resilience, perseverance, writing, abundance, money and starting over. Published over the last 3 decades and grounded in Julia Cameron’s own recovery, the techniques have evolved over the years, been embraced by millions worldwide and reflect much of the mindfulness based interventions for emotional well being.

You can find all of them from her first, The Artist’s Way to her most recent It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again online and in most bookshops.

Her intention was that small groups would come together into “creative clusters” and work through one chapter a week for 12 weeks at a time. There is information available on forming a cluster, joining a facilitated group, or individual coaching here.

For inspiration you can follow the hashtags #morningpages #artistdate on Twitter.

Thank you to our friends at CoasteeringNI and Firewalking Ireland for challenging us to play and push outside our comfort zone.




Leadership, Tangible style

“Do as I say, not as I do!” …or not!

When Tangible Ireland began in 2009, we were experiencing a lot of that kind of leadership in Ireland.

Founder, Raymond Sexton believed that an emphasis on the positive was required.

• What was going well?
• Who were the people driving the success stories?
• Did anyone else believe we were better than our bottom line?

He began to examine what drove excellence in leadership both at home and abroad.

The perspective was that of an engineer and project manager experienced in helping multinationals invest and build facilities in Ireland, a homecomer returned from a decade in Australia, and a closet historian.

Who the Irish are in Ireland and who we become when we go abroad is a fascinating study.*

And the many Tangible ambassadors, partners and guests have joined him in studying it – up close and personally, across the island of Ireland and worldwide.

There have been over sixty Tangible seminars in global cities – Dublin, London, New York and Sydney; regional capitals – Belfast, Limerick & Galway; and in the urban & rural villages that lie at the heart of Irish life and values – Howth, Kilmallock and Crossmaglen.

There’s a common denominator in all these communities. We honor our original associations, whether counties, communities, schools, or team affiliations, we pay it forward and take care of our own. We are industries, joyous, playful and determined.

Here’s what we do:

Imagine the simplicity of a “3 pinned plug” and the energy it channels. It’s the way each Tangible Seminar is designed. We showcase and model the best business and civic leadership in a region by:

• focusing on the maverick and entrepreneurial “live wires” – the local leaders driving change
• highlighting and sharing connections to the startup, trade & inward investment support offered in the Republic and in Northern Ireland
• recognising our citizens at home, abroad and in transition, uniting them in their efforts to prosper both here and across the Diaspora

Here’s what we’ve learned:

• at home and abroad our values never change
• our Diaspora represents our greatest asset; vast supplies of human capital available for spending and investment
• our citizens never cease to be our citizens

Here’s what we believe:

• Personal, business and trade relationships empower us individually & collectively, in our new lands and across Ireland.
• Our citizens never cease to be entitled to be heard.
• At home, abroad or in transition, we owe each other a duty of care, including responsible stewardship of this island, economically, environmentally and politically.

This drive for excellence in leadership and best practices reflects our duty of care to the next generation by making this island fit to come home to, or to never be forced to leave.

We are survivors.

Who we are and who we become, whether we stay here or go abroad needs to reflect our best hope for the future of our Irish or Northern Irish children and grandchildren in the Americas, the EU, the UK, Oz or elsewhere.

To join us in San Francisco on Thursday, 21. July  or at the annual Ambassador Summer School here in Ireland follow the links to register.

For a great summary of why Tangible travels the globe in search of “live wires” – here it is:

*…who we become when we go abroad as described by one of our own:

Beehan; psychosis

 

 

 

 

 




Make 2015 matter!

Resolutions are one thing – execution quite another.images

Take inspiration from the research showing that cigarette smokers increase their odds of quitting with every (even failed) attempt.

Instead of “resolving” – review. What did you resolve in 2014? 2010? 1999? My guess is something pretty close to what you’re planning to change in the future.

This year, skip the plan.

Want to be less disorganized, thinner, richer, healthier? In a new relationship, out of an old one? In a new job? A new house?

None of these things change unless you do. And it’s not just a behavioural change. It’s a fundamental one.

Alcoholics who get sober frequently become food or exercise addicts. Food addicts on a diet often overspend. Any real recovery requires uncovering the root of your problem.

Generally, it’s a need to self-medicate pain or dodge discomfort.

So why aren’t you comfortable in your own skin?

Resolve only to learn this:

How do I become “comfortable in my own skin”?

Try three questions:

How can I know what I don’t know?

Who holds the pain of my self-doubt?

How has failing to change served me or those around me?

Then make a plan to assemble a winning team; a coach and fellow players who will inspire & guide you while training by your side every step of the way.

There are some excellent self-help books to help you begin the process of unearthing your obstacles to change.

Living Your Best Life” (Fortgang) is a great way to dive in. You’ll have no difficulty reading it over the holidays – and if you take the exercises seriously you will be well on your way.

Next step – choose a team!

Fellow travellers are critical. We need safe people in our lives, however, “familiar” is not necessarily “safe”.images

Think about it. If you have surrounded yourself with the same people for years and you haven’t been able to make significant changes in your life – perhaps it is because in any system – we all return to the status quo.

There are networks, meetings and classes everywhere. Plan to take in at least one new event a month. Make a few of them classes.

Already going to yoga? Try a different class at a different time. You might meet a new best friend there. Like your gym? Take a session at another – you don’t know whom you might meet.

Ever hear of “laughter yoga” – no exercise involved – but be prepared to leave happily inspired.

Business network comfortably familiar? Other networks welcome visitors – don’t commit – just take a chance on a meeting.

Change is hard. Small steps matter!

Adopt a mantra for 2015: “I love and accept myself the way that I am today, I am enough”.

who_i_am_is_enough-104339

The miracle of acceptance is that as you come to believe this, by 2016 your life will have changed. For the better!




Tasks, tools & invention, necessity not required…

imagesIt’s a poor workman who blames his tools…

This adage conjures an image:

  • a Singer sewing machine
  • my frowning, 4’10” Italian grandmother and
  • a judgment that if times got hard, my earning potential doing “piece work” would be pitiful.

Good that I’m better equipped for 21st Century “piece work”! Probably because the “tools” are more like “toys”.

My favourite new toy is Wordle. Their copy calls it: a toy for generating “word clouds”.

And I had been playing with it as directed – until…

Collaboration, cooperation, and a circle of like-minded souls changed all that!

Complete #SS14 Wordle

Something extraordinary happened when Carol Conway, Freelance Catalyst didn’t use Wordle “as directed”.

She’s the dynamic facilitator who was directing, coordinating & tracking the content, tenor & tone of a  Summer School I attended this week. She employed Wordle to help.

The gift was not in this visual which highlights the output of 25 speakers, but rather that it was a key part of the process. Each day we submitted on post-its – words and themes that resonated with us as they came up.

In the evening, via the magic of the word cloud, she’d create and share an image.

That was powerful enough – but having slept on it – our breakfast conversations were even more enlightened.

Here’s why it mattered:

We think in images. Carol pointed out that we are exposed to thousands (did I hear 50,000?) of bits of information a day. We remember or focus on only a tiny fraction. In a crowded room, the attention of individuals was on different bits – and we all experienced those differently – through our individual filters.

This image of our collective process was a brilliant way to encourage reflection on what had percolated to the top of the group consciousness and encouraged some to bring their voices and passion to other issues that hadn’t been heard.

I delighted in the power it brought to the introverts in the room.

Their voices are empowered by reflective time. This allowed the extraverts to then could see what they may not have heard.

The visuals will speak for themselves!

 

Days1+2, Day 3 Diptic

Day 1, Day 2 Diptic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




Changing the Conversation, the Disservice of Silence

Albert Samuel Anker "Grandad tells a story"Oh, we Irish are grand storytellers. Poor though, in frank and open conversation. Worse at speaking truth to power. Perhaps the former comes naturally. For the latter, skills are required.

We teach polite, we teach deference, we don’t teach assertiveness or skills to influence¹. That is a very specific skill set.

We lack a belief that we are entitled to be heard. Not to always get our way, rather to be respected when we assert our needs, our insights, and ourselves.

How else can one explain the dearth of leadership across public institutions in two governments in Ireland? We whinge to our friends, but we are silent in public.²

Imagine finding your voice as a way to take back your power. And to empower others.

I tell this story often, to illustrate the way in which we silence ourselves.

The butcher enquired of my special request. “What would you be wanting that for?”

I’d forgotten that even a paying customer’s whims are not always humored in Irish villages.

“My children are coming and it’s their favorite.” His politely stern retort: “Well, your children will just have to learn to eat Irish”

The child in me recognized the tone. Educated by an Irish order of nuns in an academy with a mission to transform the daughters of immigrants into ladies worthy of the upper classes their parents aspired to, I knew to smile, nod and change my order.

It would have been an automatic response before a thity year journey of finding my voice. My response was polite but fierce.

“Well, I will learn to eat Irish, my guests will learn to eat Irish, but my children will get what they have always gotten. I’ll be in tomorrow at two to pick it up.”

I did and it was lovely.

Apart from my reputation as that “cheeky American woman”, all goes well enough. I shop there and enjoy conversations about children and grandchildren and have fine meals of my choosing.

Two friends related how they handle the same shop. “The Irish way” I’m told.

One, an American expat said “Eve, you will just have to learn to act Irish”. The other, a woman with a family of six, regularly drives 18 miles round trip to shop elsewhere because “he always tries to talk me out of what I want”.

Surely these responses serve no one.

Failure to assert what we need, and in this case, what we are entitled to as paying customers, does a disservice to all.

I don’t get what I want, the environment suffers the insult of extra emissions and the butcher misses an opportunity to serve, to please and as in his case with me, excel.

It belies a disrespect of both the merchant and us. It is in his best interest to sell the meat already cut in the case. It is simply incumbent upon me to insist on what I want. That is a transaction of equals.

Working with a group of clients I used this example to explore the nuances of language, practice assertiveness and exercise our voices in a new way.

Months after the long forgotten session I ran into one.

“I have a butcher story for you. I remembered what you said about asking for what we don’t see, or sending a dish back.”

In the past out of “politeness” she wouldn’t have asked for something she didn’t see.

“So I asked for rhubarb.” He didn’t carry it, he didn’t know why, but he said “The farmer up the road has a field of it. Leave it with me and come back tomorrow.”

A few hours later a lad from the store delivered a bunch to her house. Now, in season he carries it.

Her assertion provided an opportunity for him to be generous, prove his skill as a wise merchant, and my point.

A fine man, willing to please, he is rarely given the opportunity. In our deference we don’t empower each other to do better.

Power and influence are there for the taking. It requires no force, just practice. In fact you may find that the more softly you speak the harder they listen…and pay attention.

¹The Elements of Influence

ElementsOfPower

The Elements of Power

²Irish voter turnout, 2014

For more on the painting – The Storyteller: http://robvanderwildttellerstalespictured.wordpress.com/2013/07/21/this-man-is-a-real-storyteller-and-so-is-his-painter/

 

 




On Changing Conversations in Ireland

We tell stories in Ireland.

Yet, we don’t talk enough in conversation about what our current and past realities are.

Stories set our experiences in stone; a concrete past. Conversations allow us to evolve and to heal. In repeating, even our traumatic experiences from a distance, in a now safe environment, we re-experience them as our current selves, older and stronger for having survived.*

Storytelling has us repeat experiences along our tribal, party lines. We can be two faced in our delivery, polite and politically correct when telling them to the outside world; but within our tribes we stubbornly cling to old narratives, and we are often intolerant and recalcitrant in the telling.

Three speakers from panels at the XchangeNI Summer School, challenge us to tell fewer stories and have more conversations.xchange collage

Debbie Watters in Changing the Conversation about Liberties has offered what we could be talking about. Steven McCaffery in Changing the Conversation about Media has offered why those conversations must begin in earnest. Ruth Dudley Edwards in Changing the Conversation about History has articulated how our old way of framing these conversations traps us in the past. She goes on to offer a compelling insight into our rhetoric.

Debbie Watters‘  talk began with a question and ended with one.

“We’re 16 years on from the peace process, where are we now? And what does liberty and peace process look like in loyalist communities?”

You have never heard such passion more gently expressed about, among other things, the realities of life and absence of leadership in the working class Protestant community.

Debbie pointed out that within the loyalist community she hears that “things have never been so bad”. She reminds us that “(p)eace is not just not absence of violence, it is about quality of life …”

Her questions included:

  • How do we make our voice heard in ways that allow us to be heard in ways that …don’t demonize us…?
  • What is our mutual responsibility to encourage, if not to coerce, our politicians to stand up and take care of the people most in need in NI….?
  • What would that strategy look like?
  • And what is our responsibility to help those communities come up with that strategy?

I was left wondering: does liberty even exist in a democratic process if a community perceives themselves without representation?

Steven McCaffery led with: “We don’t talk enough about parades… parading has been a massive issue we trade arguments and insults but we don’t actually trade facts.” He called for data rich conversations on a range of subjects in which we talk with each other; not at each other.

He challenged us to take a long view and focus on “political dynamics building outside NI which will have a huge impact on NI”.

Why does the rise of UKIP, predominantly in England matter? How many of us are aware that as much as 85% of farming income relates to EU funding?

“It will raise questions…about the UK’s place in the EU…  NI has an entirely different relationship with the EU than the rest of the UK…It’s a big debate leaning in on us.”

A long view, he reminded us, would also have us focused less on the “flag stories” of December 2012 and more on the census results released that month.

A fall in the Protestant population to 48% and the rise of the Catholic population to 45% means:

“We are a society of minorities, more diverse than ever… this (c)hanging demographic means the future has to be a shared future.”

In this context let me reinterate Debbie’s question:

What is our mutual responsibility to encourage, if not to coerce, our politicians to stand up…”

Lastly, Ruth Dudley Edwards spoke of changing narratives. She articulated an inelegant truth about our tribal rhetoric:

Nationalists are quite often less nice than they seem because they’re very good at seeming nice and
the Prods are quite often nicer than they seem because they’re really good at seeming awful.”

This was not a flippant observation, her call was to “challenge the ancestral voices of our own tribes”. This requires a new narrative about our history. The approach of the centenary of 1916 invites such a challenge. Framed in the context of a democracy in which “the constitutional nationalists were driven out by violent nationalists” we might begin to discuss how that legacy of violence has and continues to have an impact.

She calls for more of an “equality of rhetoric”. And less of what she describes as the “immensely defensive” Orange narrative, or the “impressive” but “profoundly dishonest” Republican narrative.

Please follow the links to the left of the photo. Listen to the speakers in their own words, and then, let the conversations begin.

 

 

*For an interesting read on rewriting our most traumatic memories see “Partial Recall”, Michael Specter, The New Yorker Magazine 19. May 2014 on the work of Daniela Schiller, PhD

Visit AlaninBelfast’s Audioboo to hear playlists of each “Changing Conversations” panel.