Category Archives: Real conversation

The Truth about Truth: Part 2

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The story so far:

The truth about truth is that human beings are incredibly lousy at apprehending the truth. Most of the disappointments and frustrations at work – indeed, any place – are due to such misapprehensions. There are at least three common types of misapprehensions. The first, covered yesterday, is mistaking inference for the truth.

This post is about the second.

***

Misapprehension 2: Not enough information

The second common failure to apprehend the truth is your garden-variety misunderstanding.

A guest on a recent radio program gave a great example, great because it’s so banal, so typical of what happens in workplaces all round the countryside.

An employee who we’ll call P receives an email from her manager. The email expresses some dissatisfaction with something P had done and requests she do it differently next time.

P then notices the email has been copied to a senior executive. She goes into shock. She says, recounting it later,

I felt sick. Every time I thought about the email my stomach turned. I was so upset with my manager, I couldn’t understand why she had done that.

P’s upset and bitter rage with her manager persists for weeks. She can barely function at work. At last, after two months, she decides to speak to her manager.

Her manager tells her she copied in the senior executive because it was the senior executive who had requested the matter be addressed. The truth then? The manager was doing what she had been requested to do by the senior executive, and she was letting the executive know she had done it.

Maybe the manager could have handled it better by keeping the two communications separate, but she wasn’t doing any of the sabotaging things P had envisaged she was doing.

As the radio guest, a dispute resolution practitioner, noted

If P had had a conversation with her manager at the outset, she could have avoided it all.

Instead, she’d suffered in bitter rage for two months, which sounds horribly protracted except most of us have scores of incidents under our belt where we’ve hung out for far longer.

The wonder of it really is that P got it resolved after only two months. Having straight conversations, the risky kind – those which Susan Scott calls “fierce conversations“ – in the workplace is not your average, everyday occurrence.

And yet these type of misunderstandings, our second common failure to apprehend the truth, are rampant.

To be continued …

***

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Image: Poster by Raymond Savignac, 1986, courtesy of Galerie Montmartre, Melbourne, Australia

Leadership’s allure

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Leadership has always had a charge for me, as a concept and a practice. There are at least three reasons:

  • On good days, I recognise it in myself.
  • It is missing from the public conversation of Australia.
  • It is elusive as a concept, and I find this alluring.

Leadership as a missing in the public conversation of Australia

The other day I was in an airport book shop, prime terrain you would think for books on leadership. There were none. There were no Australian books on leadership. And there were no books on leadership from the US, the home of the concept of leadership.

What the business section of the book shop had instead were books on making money (How to make a million in a month), avoiding work (How to work 4 hours a week) and investing in property (Your path to 20 properties in 2 years).

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Real conversation #4

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A little while ago in response to a previous post on real conversation, Dafna asked whether real conversation could occur on a blog.  I answered “no” because it requires one person being with another.  Now I tossed this off pretty cavalierly, and since then I’ve been thinking about what I meant by this “being with” and how Dafna has put her finger on the great issue that underlies the topic of real conversation.

The great, precious jewel

The make-up and problem of “being-with” is everywhere in philosophy, psychology and religion.  Who are we, and how are we, in relation to another?

The problem is probably best defined by this negative instance I heard a psychoanalyst give.

It may sound strange to say this but there are more people around than one may realise that do not really see that there is another person there that is different from me. And if I’m in that state, I will try to drag the other person into my own mode of being. (1)

“Being-with” or Mitsein is a special instance of the key concept of Dasein (Being there) for the philosopher, Martin Heidegger.  “Being-with” underlies Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue and the “I-Thou” relationship, as well as the radical asymmetry of the Other in the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas.  It’s all through the courses I took at Landmark Education, so heavily influenced by Heidegger, and it’s also key to counselling methodologies such as that used in Imago Relationship Therapy founded by Dr Harvill Hendrix in the US.

Today I want to look at Imago because it focuses on the crux of the matter of being-with: the great precious jewel we’re seeking in all our interactions with others, to wit, emotional presence.

Finishing childhood at last

Hendrix begins with a startling proposition – that the whole (unconscious) purpose of marriage is to help each other

… finish childhood. (2)

When looking for a partner, he says, we all unconsciously bring to the search the “template” of our own caregivers.  In fact, we search not only for our parents, we search for the negative aspects of our parents.  We do this, Hendrix says, because we are looking to satisfy our unmet needs from childhood.

Oh huh.

Yes, this means exactly what you think it means.  Once the spell wears off, we find our “dream” lover has morphed into our “nightmare” person, the very same type of person who didn’t meet our needs in childhood.

And conflict starts or escalates.

Partners stay away from home, drink, gamble, have affairs, and so on.  And because in our society we’ve been conditioned to view conflict as something to fear or suppress, when it arises in our marriage or relationship, most of us can’t be with the chaos and we attempt to “restore order instead.”  For example, Hendrix says, we decide to divorce or lead separate lives or live in a “hot” marriage, which is not anything as appealing as it sounds, rather, it’s a life of constant argument.

Yet, he says, if we can resist the urge to restore order, we might come to see instead that

conflict is growth trying to happen.

For here, in the midst of the conflict and the chaos, is the golden opportunity, the opportunity we’ve been waiting for since childhood.  The opportunity to finish childhood and be free at last.

Did you get that?  The ramifications?  For it means that the great opportunity of intimacy comes not on wings of romance and fulfilment, but through, and only through, conflict.

How amazing is that?  How contrary to all our conditioning.  What’s even more amazing is that we can take up this golden opportunity, resolve the conflict and finish childhood by one simple means: real conversation.

One core need and one solution

Imago proposes that the unmet needs of childhood, though they have different flavours, boil down to one core need – the experience of connection or emotional presence.  Many or most parents may be caring, even loving, yet not be emotionally present to the child.  Being emotionally present to the child means really experiencing the child experiencing themselves, and not substituting the experience with the parents’ own expectations or ideas of what the child should be feeling.

Imago proposes that this one core need, and the rupture or failure of it in childhood which we carry into adulthood, has one solution: dialogue, or what I’ve been calling real conversation.

“I see you”

Imago teaches couples a highly structured form of dialogue and to become skilled in it you should consult an Imago practitioner.  In any event, the exact form of the dialogue is not as important as the key elements and why it works.  The key elements include the simple technique of mirroring, a kind of manifest demonstration of curiosity and a final empathising statement.  The isolating of the curiosity dimension is really interesting because it’s curiosity that first signals,

I’m paying attention to you, I see you.

It’s the element that most clearly announces you have stepped over the threshold – the threshold of one’s own ego – and are becoming “fully dialogical.”

And when you become “fully dialogical,” you become, at last, emotionally present to another, and you have the peerless experience of profoundly and accurately knowing another person.  By engaging in this kind of dialogue with your partner, the unmet needs and scars from childhood begin to be healed and the marriage or relationship can begin from a whole new place.

You will marvel

To know another human being in all their particularity, in every way they are, and in every way they are not – and in turn, to be known in this way – is what we all long for.  And when it occurs you will never forget it and you will marvel.

For more information about Imago Relationship Therapy, click here.

*****

Image: The Conversation (1908-1912), Henri Matisse

Notes

1. Dr Neville Symington, “Loving Companions”, Encounter, Radio National, broadcast by Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), May 16, 2010

2. I have paraphrased Dr Hendrix’s ideas from a talk he gave in the radio program listed in (1).

Real conversation #3

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One of the surprising things I’ve discovered about real conversation is that amazing things happen when you share your discoveries and triumphs.

If you’re anything like I used to be, you’re probably having discoveries and triumphs you’re not even recognising, let alone getting present to.  If that’s the case, there is a whole realm of joy and satisfaction and connection available to you that’s going begging.

There are at least three benefits of sharing.

*****

Re-doing the experience

I once heard about an experiment involving piano playing that impressed me greatly.  Some scientists had mapped the brain patterns of experienced pianists in two different situations:

  • when they were actually playing the piano
  • when they were playing the piano “in their mind” only.

What the scientists found was that in each case the brain was lit up in exactly the same way.  Whether the pianist was actually playing the piano, or only imagining it, made no difference to the pattern and amplitude of the brain’s activity.

The same effect applies when you share your discoveries and triumphs with others.  You experience the satisfaction and joy of your triumph all over again, and it has just as much power, just as much juice, as the original experience.

The effect is something we all understand instinctively.  Think for example of when you first fell in love with your current partner or the great love of your life.  It doesn’t even need to be a person you’re thinking of; it could be some grand passion you have for a hobby like dog breeding or bee keeping or French films. Or knitting.

Now think of how often and how readily you talk about that first meeting, that first glance, what he said, what she was wearing, that surprising thing he did.  Each time we discuss it we effectively re-do our feelings of this magical occasion, and experience again the rush of delight and promise.

This same re-doing of experience through re-telling is available for our smaller, everyday triumphs and discoveries.  Perhaps you feel they are not worth the tale.

Believe me, they are.

The smaller the discovery or triumph, the greater the impact often.  And they have one major advantage: they’re happening now, not back in the past.  So one begins to know one’s present life as rich and surprising.

Doing it for the first time

In some cases, sharing enables us to have the experience, not for the second or third time, but the first time.

I recently heard someone give a perfect example.  Earlier in the year she’d found herself at the Great Wall of China alone (a triumph in itself in China, she said).  It was cold and snowy and she’d spent the visit looking down trying not to slip on the icy steps.  It wasn’t until she got back to her hotel, she said, and rang her husband that she got the experience of being on the Great Wall of China.  In sharing with her husband she lived the experience for the first time and felt the full wonder and significance of the day.

This is where sharing reveals its surprising nature.  Many times I’ve been sharing something with someone and all of a sudden I’ll see something I didn’t see when I started the conversation.  It’s in the sharing that something new enters.

Creating new possibilities

The third benefit of sharing is what it makes available in the world.  Because you and me are making our world, one conversation at a time.

I talked before about G who shared how she’d been morbidly obese and had lost 50kgs.  As she said, this was an immense personal achievement; even more importantly, it was now a possibility out there in the world.  Because she did it, and because she shared about it.

I shared a small triumph myself a couple of weeks ago and was amazed at the response.  All I did was send a short text message to 20 or so friends, and for the rest of the day I received messages of thanks for having them be excited and inspired too.  As one of my friends said,

Couldn’t have got this message at a better time because I’d been putting off doing a project and now I’m inspired.

Every single time you share an insight, a discovery, a triumph – no matter how seemingly small – you create the opportunity for someone else to have an insight, a discovery, a triumph.

*****

Image: Flickr by daviddb

Real conversation #2

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You come from a family, yes?  And in that family you have secrets, yes?  Even, Official Secrets?

Of course you do because that’s what families have: members, closets, skeletons.

In my enormous extended family – my mother was one of 10, my father, one of 12 – we have an extra dollop of secrets.   The Official Type.  There’s madness, homosexuality, suicide, exile, countless estrangements, suspected manslaughter, and pièce de résistance, the fact my maternal grandparents were first cousins.

My own cousin, whenever this is whispered, sniggers and says,

That explains a lot …

Unofficial secrets

But, you know, Official Secrets are not anywhere near as dangerous as the other ones.

The other ones, you say?  Yes, the other ones.  You know the ones I mean: the real secrets, the ones that never get whispered.  The resentments, judgments and decisions you’ve made about other people you’ll go to your deathbed protecting.

Here’s the thing.  Not speaking about the resentments, judgments and decisions you’ve made about other people, with those people, will kill your relationships long before you arrive at your deathbed.

What?  With those people.  Yes, that’s right.  With the people about whom you have the resentments, judgments or decisions.

“I couldn’t possibly do that!” … “That’s crazy!” … “My wife would leave if I ever told her what I really thought of her” … “My son would never speak to me again …” “My boss would fire me for sure …”

Oh yes.  It’s counter-intuitive, alright.  Madly so.  It’s also deeply, deeply scarifying, at least in prospect.

Nevertheless, it is possible to have these conversations.  Moreover, these conversations are the road to real connection.

Speaking always trumps not speaking

Every so often, a friend of mine, H, will mutter darkly,

There are some things that should never be talked about …

Now H is a dear man and — highest recommendation – laughs at my jokes.  However, we couldn’t disagree more on this point.

I believe two things.

  1. There is nothing that cannot be talked about.
  2. The things you think should never be talked about are the things that must be talked about.

I don’t know where this belief comes from in me, but it’s always been there.  For as long as I can remember, it’s been my deepest, truest belief that speaking always trumps not speaking.

Even when it fails.

And, believe me, before I got myself trained in having real conversations, I had nothing but failures.  I had this compulsion to speak, but no safe and skilful way to do it.  I hurt myself and many others in my attempts to speak.

It was only after getting the training that I understood why my instinct was sound, if rubbish in execution.  Because what speaking makes available is resolution, healing and the creation of a new future.

It doesn’t make it happen.  However, speaking is the condition of possibility for its occurring.

Not speaking makes nothing available.  Except more of the same.

I had my training in real conversations courtesy of Landmark Education, but there are various models and vehicles for learning the skills including Imago Therapy, which I’ll discuss in a future post.

Since learning how to have a real conversation I’ve had conversations I never would have thought possible.

Not all the conversations take off, and some days I’m just unskilful.  But — massive, massive thing – no one is hurt in the process.  And the opportunity for another conversation presents itself.

*****

Image: courtesy americancorner

Real conversation #1

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Today is the beginning of a new series of posts on real conversation.  I’ve touched on it before; now I’m going to be focusing on it for a bit.

By real conversation I mean something very different from our common understanding of conversation, which is better called “talk” or “monologue.”  No, the phenomenon I’m thinking of is enormous and startling and, if you’re anything like me – at least, how I was until about two years ago – completely unsuspected.

It’s the kind of conversation in which you come to know another human being in a whole new way, and in turn, be known in a whole new way.  It’s the kind of conversation you can have with anyone, although the people close to you – your husband, your wife, your children, your friends – will be those most longing for it.  Apart, that is, from yourself.  For you too are longing for it, even if you don’t know it.

A staggering power of creativity

Previously, I borrowed the psychological term “attunement” to describe the experience of being in one of these conversations:

As for attunement, how better to describe the process, the feeling, when I’m authentically sharing myself with another, and a channel suddenly opens up between us, and coursing through that channel, in both directions simultaneously, is something for which there’s no other word but ‘love’?

Yet it’s actually more than attunement.  Because the attunement allows something else to come forth.  Something new and magical comes into the clearing, something completely outside yourself.  That is, real conversation of the type I’m discussing has a creative power that will stagger you.

Another aspect of being in one of these conversations is that at a certain point there’ll be a profound stillness, a profound hush.  You’ll notice it most fully if you’re having a real conversation by phone, in which case it’ll seize your ears.  It’ll be a silence much longer and deeper than any you’ve allowed in a previous conversation.  And you will not be bothered.  You will not rush to fill it, because you will not experience it as an absence, but as a presence which, as you’re experiencing it, will make you feel more alive, more here, more connected to another person, than you ever have before.

*****

I’ve had many of these real conversations in the last two years, and I’ll share some of my experiences, together with the deeply unpromising clay of my life BC (before conversation), in future posts.  For now, I want to look at one aspect of conversations in general: how listening gives speaking.

Listening gives speaking: an experiment

Sounds weird, yes?  Well, try this quick experiment, which I did in one of my Landmark Education courses, with another person.

One person becomes X, the other, Y.  X chooses a topic they are passionate about, something they really cherish.  X begins speaking about the topic, giving it all their passion and enthusiasm, while Y does everything to show they are not listening.  Y squirms, yawns, looks away, gets up, nods off, for example.  All the while, X proceeds valiantly.

What happens?  After just a few minutes of this, X will begin to doubt, even despise, their topic, and eventually, will no longer be able to speak.

Now, repeat the experiment, only this time, Y is attentive, respectful, listening.

Notice the difference?  It’s amazing, isn’t it?  It’s actually the listening that gives – literally, causes – the speaking.

More anon.

*****

Image:  by soylentgreen23 on Flickr