Conscious Defiance
March 12, 2010 by Mary Wynne-Wynter
I’ve been defiant and it got me into trouble with whoever had the authority over that particular domain at that particular time. It created a contradiction in me because defiance made me feel alive, powerful and real. But the cost was very high so I feared it at the same time.
Its different now that I’m aware of it, and can define it as: Discernment Discipline + Natural Aggression = Conscious Defiance. I still get in trouble and although I don’t like it, I can be present with the resistance I meet.
My favorite conscious defiance metaphor is “Stick it to the man.” from the great movie School of Rock with crazy-defiant Jack Black.
But how do you stick it to the man in the midst of The Big Shift, Great Recession, The Reset, or whatever they call the massive changes we’re in. Pretty much everyone and everything looks like and acts like “the man”?
I think Eckhart Tolle’s Present Moment Reminder helps answer that:
“Change is absolutely necessary in this world, and the dissolution of many of the ego-based structures is necessary for humanity to survive. What’s happening isn’t ‘dreadfully bad.’ It needs to happen; the intelligence behind phenomena is doing it, so it’s a good thing.”
In other words, align with evolution, defy the temptation to do anything less and leave the rest to the field.
Fear of Aggression
March 10, 2010 by Mary Wynne-Wynter
When I felt trapped and stuck in a life direction that I didn’t want and believed I had no other choice but to be in, I often dreamed of the Incredible Hulk smashing his way out of a cement box.
That dream was a gift because it gave me a visualization and metaphor that I used when I found myself in situations and circumstances that I couldn’t stand but couldn’t find my way out of. I got pretty good at smashing my way out of bad relationships, jobs, partnerships, crises etc. But the problem was that another would always pop right up to take its place.
So I tried other things like fighting harder for control over people and things in my life, setting more boundaries, screaming at the top of my lungs in my car, punching the pillows, plotting revenge and trying mostly unhealthy means of escape and distraction. But unlike Einstein’s, my universe remained an unfriendly place and I got tired.
Eventually I realized that my Incredible Hulk dream was showing me how to break out of the cement box of my own resistance and ego. The people and things trying to do me in and hold me back did not exist “out there” but in me.
Much later still, I learned to discern the difference between natural aggression and the typical way we think about it which is some form of “aggression is bad”. Natural aggression is absolutely fundamental to life: birth, love, creativity, art and change. I really got that at a gut-feeling, non-intellectual level when a read a passage from Florence Scovel Shinn about an impromptu pre-dawn visit with a friend to the Prospect Park Zoo:
A faint pink streak appeared in the East, then suddenly we heard a most tremendous uproar. We were near the Zoo and all the animals were greeting the dawn.
The lions and tigers roared, the hyenas laughed, there were shrieks and howls, every animal had something to say for a new day was at hand.
It was indeed most inspiring. The light slanted through the trees; everything had an unearthly aspect.
Then, as it grew lighter, our shadows were in front instead of behind us. The dawn of a new day!
Our shadows are in front of us now. An extremely powerful emotion is arising, individual and collective. Its natural aggression that Seth Roberts described as:
“the creative loving thrust forward, the way in which love is activated, the fuel through whose agency love propels itself.”
Denying natural aggression distorts it and turns it against ourselves. Everywhere we see the evidence that shows up as scarcity mentality, ultra-competitiveness, greed, excessive consumption, obsession with others’ transgressions and even violence and abuse.
I see and hear firsthand how hard it is for people to not attempt to escape and avoid these intensely powerful feelings despite their equally intense desire for a greater self and bigger game.
Because here’s the thing: these wild feelings are valuable pointers to the unrealized wild power within us. Now is the time to bust through the concrete walls that trap and distort it. Like I told someone earlier today: you’re going to bust-out anyway so why not roar, laugh and howl for your new dawn now and save yourself a lot of head-banging.
Let It Run
March 10, 2010 by Mary Wynne-Wynter
In rowing, one of the calls that coxswains and coaches make is “let it run”. That means the rowers stop rowing and the boat continues to move through the water on its own momentum, until it stops. Pause drills are similar. Rowers stop rowing and start again at different points in the stroke in order to feel balance, synchrony and flow.
Speakers can use these techniques because the need to “run-on” and never, ever pause completely prevents them from connecting with or relating to their listeners.
This stems partly from fear of being interrupted and losing air-time. Interruption is rampant in the attention economy. Politicians interrupt, commentators interrupt and celebrities interrupt each other even if it means hijacking a major award show:
Roger Ross Williams / Elinor Burkett at the 2010 Oscars.
Taylor Swift / Kanye West at the 2009 VMA’s.
Those aren’t the only kinds of interruptions. Others include the streams on listeners’ devices as well as on the backchannels that are now being integrated with talks and presentations. Anonymity gives cover to troll-like, negative behavior that can spread through the audience, sometimes turning it against the speaker.
These changes present new kinds of challenges for facilitators and moderators. But what can a speaker do other than try to outrace, drown out or crowd out interruptions, multi-tasking and waves of unfavorable reaction?
Stop, feel and accept the individual, collective and spatial energy in the room.
Connect with one person at a time on the deepest possible level through the pauses, letting the message resonate. Its better to be in relational presence with a few listeners by holding the space rather than to desperately or forcefully fill it up.
Rowers practice letting the boat do the work for them by allowing it to glide under them as they take their rest. In the collaborative, connected world, the lines between speakers and listeners are blurred and the dynamic has shifted. To attempt to control and resist those changes is a missed opportunity to “let it run”.
Refusing to Collude
February 26, 2010 by Mary Wynne-Wynter
I woman told me the story of her anorexia. Her family couldn’t deal with it and she was eventually hospitalized. She didn’t understand the doctor’s alarm because the scale told her 100 lbs. He saw 80 lbs. and told her she would die. Although she had the evidence, what “she” saw on the scale, the doctor’s words were, thankfully, enough of a shock to get her to accept treatment and eat. She was unwilling to make the trade-off, her life, in spite of her proof that nothing was wrong. The doctor refused to collude.
Clients can get hostile when you refuse to collude. They’ll drag out the facts, proof and evidence of what’s happening to them and how it justifies their suffering in one or more personal or business domains. I’ve used that doctor’s approach, direct and hard-hitting. I lost clients. I’ve also colluded, by spending too much time listening, being empathetic and giving feedback, ideas and advice that weren’t followed. I didn’t want to be an enabler and I didn’t want failed projects. So I lost clients.
I learned. Resistance to change loves collusion and uses the proof and the evidence to get it. The only way you can help someone stop resisting is to help them see it for what is. It doesn’t work to whack them over the head with the dire consequences. These aren’t, after all, life and death situations although our clients in the grip of resistance clearly suffer.
What does work is going deep, getting to the bottom of it so to speak. What’s beneath everything that’s visible, understood and apparent is the hidden payoff. Its impossible to tell another person what that payoff is. You can only help another person realize it. That takes willingness, commitment, rigor, logic, dialog and trust. Timing is critical because resistance is a vampire. It will do anything to escape the light of reason in order to remain safe and secure in the dark.
The woman who had the strength to make it through anorexia struggled for decades with disappointment and frustration that showed up in her career, professional and business domain. It literally made her sick and frequently injured. She had the will and desire to go another way but her resistance had collected three decades of evidence that convinced her otherwise. I refused to collude.
And then there was a moment when she was able to be still long enough to ask herself: “If I’m not the one who starves and disappears, then who am I?” She answered: “I’m visible and powerful.” And there was a time in her life when she believed that visible and powerful was a dangerous way to be so she shut it down. There was no regret or grief in this realization, just relief because it all made perfect sense. She was never the effect, she was always the cause. It was the right choice at the time and she could choose differently now.
If you’re struggling with resistance to change or creativity you can do this on your own. Its a simple but powerful self-awareness tool. You have a conversation with yourself guided by these fill-in-the-blank questions:
- I’m the one who_____________
- If I’m not the one who_______________, then who am I? I’m the one who__________________
Just This Once
February 22, 2010 by Mary Wynne-Wynter
It used to be called “getting over” but you don’t hear that expression anymore. You expect it in the public so that’s not getting over. You join the private to get away from it and resent it when it shows up, which it does, more than ever. Some now call it hustle.
- The moderator continually requests that participants keep their comments within the topic, framework and agenda but the hand keeps going up and the interruption is “just this once”.
- The group’s charter includes never using the group for business solicitation or self-promotion and a new member tries to sneak one in that’s barely camouflaged and the interruption is “just this once”.
- The professional service provider provides free, search-able access to ideas, solutions and content but the uncommitted client interrupts to ask for and discuss what’s already easily available “just this once”.
This self-management technique is the best way to discern if you’re the perp or the victim of getting over. Ask yourself “what would this look like if everyone chose to do this just this once?” The key word is choose. Don’t choose or settle for the wrong hustle, unless you’re Superfly.
-
Latest Articles
-
Latest Twitter
RT @Charlie_O: Dreaming loose and bluesy like two-tone wing tip shoes at dusk on Frenchman Street with the smell of weed in the air. #poetry #RedShift Change Model
DRIVE
RedShift Programs
- Marketing
- Project
- Research
- Get-it-Done!
- Executive Coaching
- Business Coaching
- Personal Coaching
- Facilitation
- Team Coaching
- Content
- Community
Focus
Don't Miss a Thing - Free Updates by Email!
RedShift Blog Archives
Connect
Why No Comments
The RedShift Web Site Pages and the corresponding Blog: Creating Natural Influence, do not enable comments. I'm more comfortable getting feedback on social sites than here, where the work is so close to who I am, where I've been and where I'm going. If you have a comment or question, or would like to suggest a topic for an upcoming blog article, please contact me. Thank you.
