General Learning • Tenneson Woolf

October 25, 2016

The Gift of Projection

chris-and-peggy-juggling

It’s Psych 101 material to learn about projection. The act of overlaying personal inner thought (attribution, motive, sense-making, fear, accusation, etc.) to another person’s behavior or thought. That person must be butting in line because he wants to get ahead of the others. Surely, right? Oops, it turns out that he was meeting his aging mother in the line and he was returning from parking the car so that she wouldn’t have to walk far. Oh, umm, right.

Projection is a concept you can learn in five minutes, but then you deepen that learning and awareness for a lifetime. A bit like juggling. My friend Chris (that’s him above from eight years ago) has demonstrated a few times teaching someone to juggle in such a short time. But you know there is no ceiling on how much more refined and complicated your juggling can become. So it is with projection also. It’s not whether you project that is the question for most of us. It’s how much and how aware can we become of the nuancing of our projections. That’s not 101. It’s likely not 505 either. That’s wizard school.

In a recent aha of learning my own projections (which, in a way, I wanted to deny), I stumbled into them through personal journalling. I was writing in the most honest way that I could, my assessment of someone that I’m close to but have been really feeling frustrated about. I wrote down a bunch of stuff. My story. My perceptions. “She doesn’t appreciate me.” “She is not committed.” “She is abandoning our work together.” “She is distracted by other things.”

It could be that what I wrote was true. In some way, I’m sure it all was. But my writing wasn’t for the purpose of completely clarifying that truth. It wasn’t about reduction. Some things, regardless of our great efforts, are meant to remain at least, some part, mystery.

My writing didn’t stop there. With each of the statements, the inner thoughts that I was overlaying on this person, I challenged myself to turn the projection onto me. It doesn’t mean that the first assessments weren’t right. It just means that there is more territory that is helpful to explore. Caitlin Frost is one of my key teachers in this area — her work with Byron Katie is brilliant and very thoughtful. Is there a part of ME that doesn’t appreciate her (the one I was writing about)? Is there a part of ME that is not committed? Is there a part of ME that is abandoning or wants to abandon our work together? Is there a part of ME that is distracted by too many other things?

The answers to these questions for me were clear. Of course, there was a part of me that was all of that. Not “maybe.” Not, “well, I’d have to stretch really hard to find it.” It was obvious. Duh! Yes.

Now, I’m not sure everybody goes to that layer of truth telling in public or in private journalling. It takes a unique ability to be in the multiplicity of views, seeing and owning partial truth in all of the complexity. It definitely takes more than a yes / no orientation. Binary doesn’t work in projection work (though, in truth, I recognize there is a part of me that would be comforted by such binary simplicity).

So, aha. There was some important clarity for me. And not reformed from malice. Oops, it turns out there is a part of me that can relate to wanting to cut to the front of the line. There is also a part of me that relates to wanting to take care of the aging people in my life. And there is a part of me that relates to feeling a bit embarrassed, but still going for it, hoping others will understand when I go right to the front of the line.

Can you see the kicker in this? For me, any of the projections that I so conveniently blanket on to others, are already in me. All of them. Not just the flattering things. But just some of the ugly, bitchy things. This doesn’t mean I’m always any of those things. I’m not always an ass. But if I’m honest, I can relate to being an ass, or even wanting to be sometimes.

The gift of projection is that it creates gateway to seeing more of our interiors — this applies to groups seeing more of their interior also — and more of the internal, often impulse sense-making brains that we have. It’s impressive, right. In seeing those interiors, and in recognizing the “all of that is in me too” parts, ugly, shadowy projections can transform into massive gift of clarity and compassion.

From 101 to wizard school — projections.

October 24, 2016

Human Depth

I had intended to write about something else today. I was actually choosing between four or five things that arrived with me on the weekend. About projection (the gift of it). About choice (an inherent contradiction). About kindness (children helping children). Those will come, likely.

What moves me this morning is this 19 minute video, a sermon offered by my friend and colleague Charles LaFond. He is an Episcopal Priest, a potter, and a I writer. In the video is humor (“…who needs a savior when you have post-it notes…”), a personal voice that discloses frailty and even bitchiness, story (marine rescue, coaxed into fulfillment, and the deeply spiritual (“…you are going to be ok, this soft and fleshy self…”).

To marry all of these together is mad skill and honesty. Thank you Charles. It’s a call to human depth in all of us.

October 20, 2016

Contact With A Slice of Eternity

In her book, The Seven Whispers, Christina Baldwin writes about one of her great teachers, Etty Hillesum, living in World War II Netherlands when Germany was invading. “‘You can’t think your way out of emotional difficulties,’ she wrote, ‘that takes something altogether different. You have to make yourself passive then, and just listen. Re-estalish contact with a slice of eternity.'”

“Contact with a slice of eternity” is really nice, right. I think of it as connection to a much bigger story and picture. I’ve been asking people a lot lately, as individuals and in teams, how do you source what you know? It helps dig a bit deeper and make the work more real.

Like Etyy Hillesum for Christina, Christina is one of those great teachers for me. I’ve known Christina now for close to twenty years. We met in our Berkana Institute days, helping to create together the leadership initiative, From the Four Directions. It was in that time that I was introduced to The Circle Way, that would become a primary mode for me to personally make sense of life’s complexities, and for invoking Circle as a means for groups to get clear and real with one another amidst their complexities.

The Seven Whispers is well worth reading, by the way. Not just once. And not just twice. Many times. Here’s a bit more from Christina from her chapter, Maintaining Peace of Mind. “Peace of mind is the cornerstone of spiritual life. It is the tabula rosa, the clean slate, upon which messages of spiritual guidance may be written. The only way I can receive these messages is to hold myself in a quiet, receptive state I can peace of mind.”

Yes to peace of mind. Always. It is our fundamental work that underlays most, if not all, action.

October 19, 2016

6 Questions I Go To Often

Many of us who facilitate and host people in learning are asking questions, right? We give a fair amount of attention to the simplicity, the focus, the tone that will help a group. I think of the question as one of the key tools to help the group be in its own learning. And then it’s evolution. And then it’s experiments and the stuff it does.

Here’s six that I often use. I apply them to individuals, teams, and organizations. When asked to a group, I’m most often pointing to the possibility of shared, emergent understanding. But I start with individual perception.

What has your attention? (In this team, in this project, in this organization, in this community, in this strategy.) The thought behind this is that if it has your attention, we might as well be deliberate in how we give it attention. And, we are meant to be noticers, all of us. I’d write it into every job description I can think of.
What is it like to be you? (Again, in this team, project, etc. — chose your scale to match the setting. And feel some freedom to vary your scale. They all connect anyway.) I love it when people answer from this layer of subjective. “It’s like being a star in a band.” “It’s like being the forgotten stage hand.” Plenty has been written about the importance of teams and team work. Use this question as a way to witness the reality of each other — which is some really good team building.
What is the most simple, clear, and honest statement you can say about what we are doing? This points to purpose. It points to clarity that needs some time to be messy. It points to a marker to show us where we are in often very complex environments. I love asking this one, particularly when it seems everything should be clear, but I know that it isn’t. It’s a call to people’s simplicity. Less big words that sound good. More honest from the gut, unpolished clarity.
What is the bigger story that this work belongs to? More purpose. But this one encourages a glimpse from a more epic perspective. “This team is clarifying and simplifying the billing process — the bigger story is that we are supporting people everywhere to have access to skilled health professionals.” I’m not talking about making stuff up or exaggerating. It’s just that in today’s full-on, fast-paced, complex environments, it’s utterly useful to look up periodically and remember that there is more than just today’s focus. There is a sky.
How is this situation evolving? (This team, this project, this community, this initiative, this understanding, this difficulty, etc.) I love seeding in the awareness, the memory that acts and perceptions of evolution are essential. It’s less “did you fully get it or not.” It’s more, “how can you see this changing and improving?” Our jobs are to participate in evolving the work, even the assembly line parts of the work.
What one or two simple steps help now? Not thirty, though I get it that sometimes that is what we need. Very often, it’s just one or two that help move an individual or group from a paralysis of mass involvement to a small, but powerful momentum in support of well-purposed project or initiative.

Questions are tools. They come from curious dispositions, as much as from a gift with words. They come from people and groups that know that they haven’t got it all figured out. That we are figuring it out as we go.