The Only Person You Can Change is Yourself
Podcasts about love, role theory, deep democracy and finding the practices that keep you grounded
I am a month into a new job, and for the first time in nearly six years, I spend upwards of two hours getting to and from work every day. And while being in person with other people is one of the reasons I wanted to be in an organization - the truth is, like many things that are good and desired, it has been an adjustment. That singular change on its own would be enough, but since my last newsletter, every aspect of my life has continued to be hard and I don’t have any reserves. With so much going on, my joints have been flaring, my brain is foggy, and I am tired all of the time.
Seeking beauty and art has helped me cultivate joy and stay grounded amidst the hard things. After a big deadline for example, I took myself to see the movie rendition of my favourite musical Wicked in 3-D and seeing this incredible ensemble cast bring a fresh, extraordinary take to this much loved show nourished me for days. Over the course of the last month I’ve attended a lunchtime jazz concert, an evening candlelight concert of Punjabi songs played by a string quartet, a conference of directors in British Columbia, treated myself to exceptional brunches, and read wonderful books on the bus.
My favourite experience by far however, has been going with a dear friend to see artists Ali Sethi and Nicolas Jaar perform their collaborative album Intiha for their first time. It was an extraordinary night in which I found myself with tears streaming down my face at different points in the show. The songs were about patience, longing, resistance and social change and while they were beautiful, what was just as wonderful to witness was the grace and admiration and sweetness between these two artists. Over and over again, they warmly shared their mutual admiration of each other’s talent and work ethic, their love for one another’s character, and their joy about each other’s presence in the world. It was a beautiful example of collaboration and partnership. Even at the BC Directors Conference it was so energizing and delightful hearing filmmakers speak about their collaborators. It felt radically different to the way people in other industries or work settings speak about their teammates, and I love going on art field-trips because they expand my understanding of the possibilities of working and relating in different ways.
Overall, the show was a reminder to be generous, soft-hearted and brave, to resist injustice, to rely on the Divine, to let go of what you cannot control and to focus on how you can contribute to your small corner of the world.
Letting go is not easy; we often want to try and instigate change because we are affected by those around us and the environments and systems we are in. In November I had the opportunity to take a wonderful course called Foundations of Conflict Engagement (Level 1) about conflict and personal leadership centred in principles of deep democracy taught by the incredible Camille Dumond, One of the things we discussed in the course was the idea of “the field,” and how within a group we are “interdependent, continuous and connected.” If one person is feeling uplifted, lost or confused, we can all feel that. We can sense in our bodies what is present for everyone. At the Ali Sethi concert for example, there were over one thousand nervous systems in the venue sharing emotions, feeling together and regulating and supporting one another.
Related to the idea of the field is role theory, or the idea that within the field are different roles that we might inhabit. When we haven’t allowed ourselves to inhabit a particular role, or we are never seen in a particular way, then sometimes when we encounter another person/entity with x role, they can often be the person or the perspective that drives us crazy. Roles don’t have to be people, they can be ideas, concepts, opinions, thoughts, feelings, emotions, symptoms, or archetypes. When we are able to surface how we might be denying parts of ourselves, bring more of what is going on at the unconscious level to the conscious and try to nourish, express or inhabit those uncared for parts, we have more room for other people.
This course was about changing our relationship to conflict and resistance to see difference as a potential source of wisdom and leadership in our lives, rather than viewing difference as a problem. We spoke about Sara Ahmed and her work about complaint that explores how naming/describing issues often means you are viewed as/or become the problem and talked about practices that try to change this dynamic.
To see conflict as generative requires one to have the skill of equanimity, being able to be open-minded and hold multiple perspectives while centred, rather than getting immersed or “hooked” by a conflict. Over the four weeks of the course we had opportunities to reflect on practices that work for us to remain centred, and to imagine ways we can evoke those practices when we feel activated. Overall, it was a very rich course, and I highly recommend signing up the next time it is offered or bringing this work to your organization.