Power/thinking aloud (14)

Continued from yesterday.

Thinking aloud series starts here.

The one exercise where we divulged a real life situation took place before lunch on the last day.  I spilled the beans about the scenario that I’ve been thinking aloud about to the guy I was partnered with.  After he got over cringing at the story he did a great job of acting blithe and insouciant whilst delivering the killer blows just as if we were having the conversation in the emails face to face.  Then we ran it again with me centered, I swear he physically shrank in size, I certainly grew in dignity.  Once centered I lost all desire to drive my point home and found myself saying simply “Can you  imagine how it would feel to be treated like that?”  As he tried to squirm off the hook I repeated firmly “No, but can you REALLY imagine?”  Waiting until he got it.  That shifted something in me.  Seeing that it was actually possible to get through to this person, which had seemed impossible up till that moment.   Discussing this with Amanda on the way to lunch I confessed “It’s certainly a shift.  But I still want to punch them.”  She twinkled back, “Oh we do punching this afternoon.”!  And we did.  I learned a lot.  That when I move into action I always, but always, overstep the mark.  I overcommit then retreat a little to gauge the situation.  Compelled to leap without looking.  I saw the source and consequences of that pattern, and its remedy.  Now that I see this two steps forward, one step back habit everywhere in my life it can no longer run quite so automatically.

The other piece that was hugely important for me was the notion of support, having a team to back you up.  This is the adult equivalent of “... the teacher, my mummy, my daddy, my auntie, Father Christmas and ... the Tooth Fairy” posse mentioned in this post.  On the last afternoon we did an exercise where we chose three support sources to physically back us up.  I picked the sea with its still depths and dancing rhythms for my core, the habobat with the vast heart-wisdom of Africa drumming behind my heart and two of my teachers - Reggie and Hameed beaming clarity through my head.  This makes all the difference in the world.  I saw that I was so used to going it alone, so wary of depending on external and unreliable sources of support that I resisted support in my core and fled from it with my heart.  That was why I had no ongoing access to the wisdom of my many teachers and mentors.  Boy did I cry for that poor beleaguered child, but that was after the workshop, as the impact of this powerful work settled in and began to integrate.  There was much more in the weekend than I can say here, I just wanted to give some idea of the key elements that enabled me to make the step change in my way of being invited by the kerfuffle that had blown up three weeks before.

There were twenty of us in the workshop - a lawyer taking the practices back to the Law Society of Scotland, a senior civil servant taking them back to the Scottish government, NHS staff taking them back to their wards and clinics, people who worked with abused children and battered women, IT professionals and middle managers sent by their spouses, and a clutch of coaches and trainers.  Power to the people - the power to include others, to provide an expansive presence that says we’re all in this together; to listen for the whole and to hear what is being said without taking it personally; and to speak one’s truth with clarity and precision - without aggression or collapse.  That’s power worth having.

Finally I felt ready to finish writing that email.