Over the last week, I moved house and hit 30 weeks pregnant with twins. This is alongside launching a programme for the US Air Force at eight bases across Europe with my company Team Triad and recording Season 5 of the Relationship Matters Podcast, which will go live in September. The over-ambitious part of me believed writing an article (or two) during this time was a reasonable target. Life, on the other hand, had other plans. So, whilst I began writing this article over a month ago, my experiences from the past few weeks and acknowledgement of what my body can and can't do right now have shaped what you're reading. Discovering flexibility in our abilities feels vital to finding balance in the changing tides of our lives. To quote Byron Katie:
"If you want real control, drop the illusion of control; let life have you. It does anyway. You're just telling yourself the story of how it doesn't."
Katie x
In Part 1, I discussed the mind body battle many of us find ourselves in and my ongoing journey to feel connected and aligned with my body. In this article, I continue my exploration by considering the link between identity and the body. When our bodies undergo significant change, it can act as a mirror, causing us to re-examine who we believe we are in the world. And whilst this article primarily uses examples from my life, I encourage you to examine how your sense of self lives in your body. Instead of wishing for what is lost or has never been, how can we meet the body we wake up with today?
The Body Project
Last year, I co-created a podcast series called Conversations on Cancer with co-founder of CRR Global Faith Fuller after she discovered she has stage 4 uterine cancer. Across the 6-part mini-series, we interviewed cancer patients and their caregivers on what it means to find right relationship with a life-threatening illness. Throughout the conversations, a theme emerged: cancer acted as a mirror revealing who they believed themselves to be. This was often an uncomfortable yet powerful reflection to face up to. For Faith, her chemotherapy caused her to become more forgetful and less sharp. As a psychologist, who has spent much of her life identifying with her witty intelligence, this wasn't an easy reality to face up to. Yet, it made her keenly aware of how she identifies in the world. Other people on the podcast spoke about how losing their hair, or a body part, changed how they saw themselves in the world. In one particularly courageous account, a guest revealed how prostate cancer had altered his sense of masculinity and sexual identity due to the side effects of his treatments.
These powerful conversations had me questioning the identity I have constructed for myself. There are certain qualities that I identify with; that I hold as me. Yet, as with everything, these qualities are in a constant state of emergence and can be impacted by our changing bodies in both small and significant ways. So, the "who am I?" inquiry is really more of a process than a product, in which we continually define who we are for ourselves and other people.
Another side of self
As mentioned in Part 1, I underwent several knee surgeries in my mid-20s that forced me to slow down. Initially, it felt like someone had pulled the emergency brake on my life, which was a jarring and uncomfortable reality to face up to. I distinctly remember a phone call with a colleague (taken from my sofa with my left leg elevated and iced) where I responded to: "How have you been?" with "Oh, you know, busy." Now my life had been many things in the aftermath of surgery, but being busy was not one of them.
Suddenly, I became acutely aware of how identified I was with 'busyness.' It was a part of how I saw myself in the world. And when I dug a little deeper, I discovered that I conflated busyness with being successful. So, if I wasn't busy, what did that make me? My body was working miracles, using transplanted stem cells from my hips to build new cartilage in my knees. Yet, because I wasn't power walking around London from meeting to meeting, I was, by my own definition, unsuccessful.
Of course, the busy narrative doesn't just belong to me. Society celebrates busyness and overachieving, which to a certain extent, shapes how we see ourselves in the world. This became particularly apparent when living in the USA. Many friends and colleagues would talk of their "busyness", and whilst, for many of them, there was a truth to this, busyness wasn't all that they were. So, I relished responding to variations of the "How have you been" question in surprising and unexpected ways. For example:
Me: "How has your week been?"
Friend: "Oh, so busy. I’ve swamped at work at the moment. You?"
Me: "Really well, thank you. I had the time for a bath yesterday, which was wonderful!"
Having the time to take a bath felt like an important variation of the success narrative that I proudly decided to own.
In recovery from multiple surgeries, my body provided me with a mirror for my own sense of success that I had unconsciously fashioned for myself. And with this newfound awareness, I could reimagine my relationship with busyness. So that when I stepped back into my life, I would no longer feel uneasy or guilty if I had a quiet day. In fact, downtime is something I not only celebrate but actively long for in my life. Finding space and time for myself each week is essential to my success equation.
How am I strong?
Pregnancy has provided another fascinating mirror for my sense of self. I like to think of myself as an active and energised person. Throughout my pregnancy, I've been working hard to hold onto this sense of self: working out with a personal trainer twice a week and walking daily. However, the third trimester is proving to be a different beast: it turns out that growing two babies uses a lot of energy (and even tying my shoelaces is a daily challenge!) Even still, I find myself cringing on the train when some kind person offers me their seat. And there have even been occasions where I've said, "I'm fine, thanks", even though I've been desperate to sit!
It's like I'm trying to prove a point. To whom, I'm not so sure.
So once again, I did some digging. I got curious about my response and noticed that the word 'strong' kept showing up. I like people to perceive me as strong. Yet, I noticed that my definition of strength was extremely narrow. Rationally, I know that for me building two babies requires much more strength than standing up on the train for three stops. Yet, emotionally, I felt 'less than' when I needed help.
Once again, my body has been a valuable mirror, revealing this blind spot and bias to me. I wasn’t respecting the strength of my pregnant body, which is different from, say, the 100-mile bike ride I completed last year, yet is still powerful and impressive in its own right.
So, I'm learning to lean into my body's diverse range of strengths, which I know will continue to evolve and change as I journey through this life. Age, illness, and my roles will undoubtedly impact the kind of strength I need- or am able- to step into. And just because it doesn't fit my current definition of strength, it doesn't mean I’m weak. Before pregnancy, I felt strong after hitting a 5km PB of 21:51. Now, at 30 weeks pregnant with twins, I feel strong when I place trust in my body and give it what it needs, which may mean going for a walk but more often than not means taking an afternoon nap!
Self-Reflection
Our bodies offer us a window to our innermost thoughts and beliefs. And from my experience, when the body is going through significant change, these reflections can provide provocative and humbling lessons that can help us to better understand ourselves. It reminds me of the Zen proverb, “Obstacles do not block the path. They are the path.” How might the physical change or challenge that you are facing right now be a path for self-discovery?
We can apply the lens of relationship to everything. Relationships with a partner, child, or dog are often more apparent than our relationships with money, nature, or global warming. Yet looking through the lens of relationship, even when considering objects, concepts, or ideas, can provide a powerful paradigm shift for examining our interdependence. No person is an island, and by looking through this lens, we can appreciate that relationship is a two-way street. We are all in a constant state of emergence, continually shaping and being shaped by the web of relationships within which we exist.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the concept of Right Relationship. In this article, I explore the body through the lens of relationship. Inspired by my personal explorations from the past year, which have been amplified since becoming pregnant with twins (which you can read about here), I hope that my inquiry, whilst personal to me, might help you consider your relationship with your body. What does it mean to be in Right Relationship with your body?
An unhealthy relationship
I've got a confession to make: for over 15 years, I've been in an abusive relationship with my body. I've criticised it for being the wrong shape, mocked it for being too weak, and found myself frustrated when it was tired, sick, or slow. Yet, on the flip side, when it's been healthy, helped me hit a PB, or just simply supported me through a busy day, I've never thought to appreciate it. My body didn't always meet my high expectations, yet on the occasion when it surpassed my lofty goals, there was little thanks or praise.
In my mid-teens, my knees started to give way. I'd wake up to find them locked in a particular position. Or I'd have to take the stairs one at a time, which was excruciatingly embarrassing for a 16-year-old desperately trying to fit in. As I later discovered, I have a rare condition called Osteochondritis Dissecans, which occurs when a lack of blood supply causes bone and cartilage to crack and loosen. This led to two big holes (or "craters", as my surgeon described them) forming in my knees. The adolescent condition usually only affects one joint; however, I hit the jackpot and was the first patient at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital to have a stem cell transplant in both knees, albeit not at the same time. After four surgeries in my early 20s, I found myself on crutches and in a chunky knee brace for the better part of a year. However, what this story doesn't tell you, is how positive this experience was for me. For the first in my life, I was forced to slow down. I could no longer live my life on a treadmill, and as much as I tried to keep up with my old pace, my body had other plans. It had its own recovery timeline, and it demanded to be heard.
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The Inside World
Thursday, March 2, 2023 • Duration 12:15
The Balcony View Audio Article- 02/03/2023 -
The Inside World: Embracing the 'self' not as one thing but as a system unto itself
As a systemic coach, I help groups of people- teams, departments & couples- leverage the power of collective intelligence. The challenges of our contemporary world are complex and ever-changing, and no one leader can have all the answers. Increasingly, leaders are looking for ways to elevate how they collect and connect information and intelligence within their organisations.
However, I've become increasingly aware of the value of bringing a systemic lens to individuals, both in my work and personal life. Throughout this article, I will be exploring different ways we can take The Balcony View with the intention of embracing the 'self' not as one thing but as a system unto itself: the system of ‘ME’.
Working systemically with individuals isn't just a nice to have in our leadership/coaching/parent/partner tool kit: it's an essential competency for holding the complexity and breadth of the human experience.
The Gemstone Analogy
The system of 'ME' is a way of viewing an individual as one person with many sides. Faith Fuller, co-founder of coach training school CRR Global puts it eloquently in her upcoming book 'Relationship Matters: A new paradigm for an evolutionary leap in Relationships':
"None of us are a single entity. Instead, we are more like cut gemstones. We are one single, beautiful gem of a person, but with multiple facets. As we move through our day, different facets of our character pop up. All these dozens of facets make up who we are."
The gemstone analogy offers a powerful paradigm shift that supports the growth-orientated approach at the heart of coaching. We are one thing but with many parts. And every experience, interaction and relationship will shine a light on the different pieces that make up who we are. Whilst this is a coach approach, it’s a perspective that can add value to many parts of our lives.
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The Shadow Side of Self-Esteem
Thursday, February 16, 2023 • Duration 18:44
The Balcony View Audio Article- 16/02/2023 -
The Shadow Side of Self-Esteem: Is an obsession with self-esteem fuelling competition, separateness and narcissistic behaviour?
In November, I had the pleasure of attending a day-long retreat in West London. This was the first time I'd experienced a day retreat, probably because in the past, I would have assumed that I needed to 'go' somewhere and put in 'proper' time to feel 'real' benefits. Once again, the 'go hard or go home' approach had failed to appreciate the subtle ease and the compounding effects I would experience over the coming weeks. In short, the retreat was an excellent way to press pause during a busy period of life and sit in various nourishing and reflective practices.
Whilst the feel-good glow from the retreat experience faded with time, one message continued to circle, as if it had been seared onto my brain with a branding iron: society's obsession with self-esteem is contributing to a crisis of narcissism. Could a cultural obsession with self-esteem be fuelling competition, separateness and narcissistic behaviour?
Panacea or Poison?
The self-esteem movement emerged throughout the 80s and 90s. Many psychologists viewed self-esteem as a critical indicator for measuring mental health during this time. And there was a good reason for this because lots of research linked low self-esteem to various mental health problems, like this study which found that low self-esteem prospectively predicts depression in teenagers and young adults.
Yet, over the past two decades, researchers have questioned whether this hyper-focus on self-esteem has been short-sighted, inadvertently creating its own mental health hurdles and social challenges.
A Double-Edged Sword
Self-esteem refers to our sense of self-worth or how much we like ourselves. And it's a mixed blessing because whilst low self-esteem is more obviously problematic- leading to a lack of confidence or motivation- focusing onour self-esteem can create its own challenges. This is because self-esteem is usually based on how different we are from others, how much we stand out from the crowd or are unique. Fixating on this can lead to self-absorbed behaviour.
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Ep.2 We’re Wired for Story with Alexander Beiner
Friday, June 30, 2023 • Duration 01:02:06
In this episode, Katie Churchman with Alexander Beiner about the power of storytelling. Across the conversation, they discuss how to use storytelling to make sense of complicated concepts and ideas, using storytelling to weave together seemingly unrelated disciplines, story as a bridge between different systems, the darker side of storytelling, and much more.
Alexander Beiner is a writer, podcaster, and facilitator with a love for making sense of culture, hosting transformative experiences, and exploring how we can evolve and thrive in the chaotic times we live in. He is one of the founders of Rebel Wisdom, a popular alternative media platform that ran from 2017-2022 and explored cutting-edge systems change and cultural sensemaking. As well as publishing regular essays and articles on his Substack, The Bigger Picture, he is also an executive director of Breaking Convention, Europe's longest-running conference on psychedelic medicine and culture, and also co-created and co-facilitated a legal psilocybin retreat called Regenerative Stewardship. He is the author of 'The Bigger Picture: How psychedelics can help us make sense of the world,' which was released this month and is available on Audible, Amazon, and more. I would highly recommend picking up a copy- everything Ali writes is hugely thought-provoking and has me questioning my worldview.
This was a fascinating deep dive into storytelling and how it helps us make sense of the world. Enjoy!
Episode 2: We’re Wired for Story with Alexander Beiner
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I’m Pregnant. With Twins.
Friday, June 9, 2023 • Duration 13:45
The Balcony View Audio Article- 09/06/2023
I'm Pregnant. With Twins: My story, the day after I found out I was pregnant with two...
CONTEXT: This article was written when I was 11 weeks pregnant, before my husband and I shared the news. I’m now 21 weeks pregnant, and the four of us are healthy, happy and well over the halfway mark! It was lovely to re-read this article from 10 weeks ago, as I can appreciate how much I have grown on this journey so far (and no, I’m not just talking about my belly!)
Yesterday, my husband Dan and I discovered we’re pregnant with twins. Yes, we're having two. At this moment in time (11 weeks and 1 day), we haven't shared the pregnancy news with anyone, partly because of the risks in the first trimester but mostly because we liked the idea of settling into this new chapter and dreaming about what we want it to look like, before sharing it with the world and being shaped by other people's thoughtful - yet sometimes intrusive- experiences and expectations. We’ve spent the last six weeks imagining one child, and now we’ve just discovered- to our complete surprise- that we’re having two. As Dan said, seconds after seeing two babies on the ultrasound screen, “we’re going to need more space!”
So far, so good…
From a pregnancy standpoint, my experience so far has been straightforward and uncomplicated. I've been slightly tired and have napped occasionally, but other than that (and peeing more), I really can't complain. I was skiing at seven weeks (I’m a very competent skier and trust myself on skis more than I do running around my local park). At nine weeks, I led an interactive training for leaders and pilots from the US Air Force. And whilst I wisely cancelled my hot yoga membership early on, I started working out with a PT for a more personalised and pregnancy-friendly approach. So far, so good. In fact, days have gone by when I’ve barely thought about being pregnant. It was exciting and not all-consuming, which felt like a lovely space to be in.
Ignorance is Bliss
Given that this is our first and that we are relatively naïve to all things pregnancy and babies, I was confident that the playful yet curious energy that Dan and I were bringing to the process was impacting my experience. And whilst a lot of luck is involved (I haven't been sick once), I still believe there is a valuable lesson here. As I discussed with Mark Ovland on , the lenses we look through will be shaping our reality to a certain degree. Suppose I had spent many hours on Reddit, reading up on , I'm sure certain aspects of my journey wouldn't have felt quite as light and manageable. It may have caused me to view my experiences- like intermittent backache- through a 'challenges' lens instead.
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Ep.1 Ways of Looking with Mark Ovland
Friday, May 26, 2023 • Duration 55:13
In this episode, Katie Churchman talks with Mark Ovland about the Ways of Looking approach, a framework for meditation. What if your deepest happiness and freedom had less to do with what happens and more to do with how you're relating to what happens? Across this conversation, Katie & Mark explore the Ways of Looking framework as developed by the late meditation master Rob Burbea and discuss the impact that different lenses can have on our lives. They investigate the idea that the way we relate to the world affects our perception of it - for instance, bringing more ease, freedom, and joy into our experience - and, thus, how this approach can create more flexibility, expansion and empathy in our lives. In this discussion, they focus more on the everyday application of the approach than on the formal meditative training behind it all.
Mark Ovland began practising meditation in 2008 and is currently training to teach within the Buddhist Insight Meditation tradition. He has lived and worked in various monasteries and retreat centres around India and the UK and has spent around two years on intensive silent retreats himself. Mark helped to pioneer mindfulness courses within the UK prison system and was one of the co-founders of Freely Given Retreats, a charity that runs weeklong silent meditation retreats on a donation basis. In 2013 he and some friends set up DANCE (the Dharma Action Network for Climate Engagement), and in recent years, he has been particularly engaged with environmental and social justice issues. Mark was a close student of the late meditation master Rob Burbea.
If you've ever received a 360-feedback report, what did you focus on first? I estimate that 95% of the people I've worked with scroll right to the bottom and scrutinise areas for improvement. Whilst this feedback can be invaluable for understanding growth opportunities, it can also cause us to underappreciate our strengths. Our brains have evolved to prioritise negative experiences over positive ones. When our ancestors lived on savannahs (approximately 2 million years ago), this kept us safe and away from danger. However, in the present day, this outdated operating system in our brains isn't so helpful. Like when reading your 360 and learning that one of your colleagues finds you "too direct." This happened to one of my clients, who immediately took it to mean that she should bring more of the opposite to her communication style. So, she suddenly stopped speaking up in meetings and began volunteering for fewer projects.
Before long, she was receiving the opposite feedback. People wanted her to bring more directness to her work.
So, what happened? As many people do, my client read her 360 and interpreted "too direct" as bad. As a result, she marginalised the part of her that is 'direct' and focused on bringing the opposite, which in her case meant evasiveness.
Leadership Range
This approach to feedback can lead us into binary thinking or a 'this or that' approach to leadership when, in fact, what excellent leadership needs is range. It's about knowing when to dial up directness and when to dial it down. The adult development company Andiron, which founded the Key Polarity Indicators Assessment, argues:
"Many leaders, teams, and organisations innocently and unconsciously approach polarities with an Either/Or mindset — either I have to do this or that. However, those using a Both/And mindset outperform those who don't. They direct and empower, exude competence and warmth, take action and step back to reflect. The key is knowing how."
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What does it mean to be in 'Right' Relationship?
Friday, April 28, 2023 • Duration 10:04
The Balcony View Audio Article- 28/04/2023 -
What does it mean to be in 'Right' Relationship?: Exploring the world through the lens of relationship
Over the past year, I've heard the term 'Right Relationship' used more frequently. And interestingly, it's shown up in various contexts, including therapeutic, spiritual, religious, and activist spaces. People ask: What does being in Right Relationship with my partner mean? With my body? With the planet? With plant medicines? With God? Right Relationship is also used in systems coaching, where I was first introduced to the term…
Relationship Matters
CRR Global was the first company accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) as a systems coaching training provider. Twenty years later, what makes the training unique, even within team coaching and systems thinking spaces, is its focus on Relationships.
However, back in the 90s, when co-founders Marita Fridjhon and Faith Fuller started this work, organisations weren't interested in relationships; they were all about productivity. As Faith writes in her upcoming book 'Relationship Matters: A new paradigm for an evolutionary leap in Relationships':
"It was all about how do you squeeze more out of less- whether it's people, tasks, or materials? CEOs were actually confused when we talked to them about Relationship Systems. After all, what did relationships have to do with productivity? From their work perspective, relationships were messy, unprofessional, and something to be avoided if possible. Relationship brought up emotion, and emotion should be left at the office door."
The Center for Right Relationship
The CRR of CRR Global stands for The Center for Right Relationship, the company's original name. However, this created much confusion. People questioned if the name referred to the far 'right' in terms of political ideology. Or wondered, So, they simplified the company name to the more widely recognised CRR Global. Even still, Right Relationship was embedded in the company branding from the start and is central to the work. So, whilst many groups and communities have their own links to the term, I want to acknowledge Marita and Faith as pioneers in bringing Right Relationship to organisations. Back when relationships were not considered ‘relevant’ to the workplace, they stood in the fire and declared that
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How to listen effectively...but not now.
Friday, April 14, 2023 • Duration 11:13
The Balcony View Audio Article- 14/04/2023
How to listen effectively...but not now: Creating agreements and boundaries in relationship that support a need to tune out
In my last article, I discussed energy and listening. Listening is an essential skill set for fostering healthy relationships. At the same time, I also know there is a time and a place for listening to others: sometimes listening, or being listened to, isn't an accessible or wise choice. So why and when might you choose not to listen? Or not to share? And how can we hold this in a way that still serves the relationship?
I'm embarrassed to admit that the evening after sending out my last article, my husband Dan and I argued about... listening! A significant work project had landed on my plate, and I enthusiastically shared the details over dinner. By the end of our meal, I wasn't feeling listened to, and he was ready for a time-out. I've yet to mention that Dan had just returned from a long day at the office with an afternoon of back-to-back meetings. In my excitement, I had dived into sharing without even considering whether he was willing or able to listen. I went in with the expectation that I would be heard without even considering the other person's needs. 30-minutes later, when we reflected and laughed about our little tiff, Dan admitted that his capacity for listening was on the lower side. He hadn't shared this, but I also hadn't created space for him to do so hence, where we ended up
So, this article looks at ways to craft subtle agreements and time boundaries that encourage listening and letting go. How can we create spaces in our relationships that recognise the importance of tuning in and tuning out?
“Me” Time
After facilitating a 3-day coaching session, I crave 'me' time to recharge and reconnect. I love my work, AND it takes a lot out of me. I give a lot of myself to the groups of people I work with. So, the day after a workshop, I will create space for "me time", where I take time to tune in with myself.
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In the weeks following surgery on my left knee, I found myself easing into the slowdown and attuning to my body's subtle signals. And with these new insights, my yoga practice took on a whole new character. No longer was I restricting (or forcing) myself to a specific set of postures; instead, I rolled out my mat and allowed my body to dictate the flow of my practice (often accompanied by loud, upbeat music!) I adored this new-found mind-body connection which continued off the mat and into my life. Until it didn't. I remember feeling so grateful to walk again, only to take it for granted a few days later.
Six months on, I went through the same process again, this time with my right knee. Same body, same condition, same surgery- so I felt confident I knew what to expect. Yet, it was entirely different. After my left knee surgery, I had been practising yoga balances after 2 days! However, after surgery on my right knee, I was in agony for weeks, and my recovery was much slower. It was another huge lesson. My left knee taught me to listen to my body, whereas my right knee taught me to stay present to its ever-changing needs.
Meet the body where it is at
Top-down processing is when the brain draws conclusions based on past previous experiences. For example:
Yuo cna porbalby raed tihs desptie teh spellnig mitskaes.
Our brains make sense of the jumbled letters by utilising a network of stored expectations and prior knowledge. This hugely beneficial mechanism helps us quickly make sense of an environment or experience. If we focused equally on every piece of sensory data, we would likely be overwhelmed and unable to function in the world. That said, this process is so hard-wired in our brains that it can be hard to stay present with our senses and not just jump straight to the story.
In my work as a coach, I have to constantly remind myself to meet the client in front of me where they are at. Just because I've worked with a similar client before, with similar challenges, it doesn't mean that they are the same. This also applies to the body. Every day we meet a slightly different body. However, many of us assume it's exactly as it was the day before (or the year before that!) Therefore, the expectation of a fit and healthy body is precisely that: an expectation. Not a truth. In many ways, we should view waking up feeling energised and alert as a gift, not a given. To quote Deepak Chopra:
"The human body is a river of intelligence, energy and information that is constantly renewing itself in every second of its existence."
We're on each other's team
Last year, I started to interrogate my relationship with my body, and I was forced to acknowledge our ongoing battle. There was no sense of team or oneness: I was against my body, pushing it around and telling it what to do. If I were to characterise this relationship, I would describe it as a bullying boss, undermining and ignoring the intelligence of a quieter colleague. By looking through the lens of relationship, I started to appreciate that we're on the same team. When my body slows down, it's not simply doing so because it's lazy or wants me to fail. It might be trying to send me a signal to rest and recover. These signals, which I have previously viewed as signs of weakness, now seem so wise. They are channels to a deeper intelligence that I've only just started to welcome in.
Shake it off
A practice that really brought this to life for me was breathwork. On a powerful retreat last year, I experienced a version of holotropic breathwork, which involves controlling and quickening breathing patterns to influence mental, emotional, and physical states. The practice was developed by psychiatrists Stanislav and Christina Grof in the 1970s to achieve altered states of consciousness (without using drugs) as a potential therapeutic tool. I've experienced breathwork before and expected a similar cathartic reaction: sometimes, the practice can stir up strong memories and cause big emotional releases. Yet this time round was different. Somehow the breathing took my busy brain offline and replaced it with my body's intelligence, which started to come online throughout the session. I experienced shaking, trembling, and twitching throughout my body, but primarily in my legs. And it wasn't scary or painful. In fact, I felt incredibly calm and sensed that my body knew what to do. After the session, I discovered that shaking is a natural animal response for releasing stress and tension. Watch a gazelle narrowly escape a lion, and you'll see it shakes to reduce stress levels after an anxiety-ridden experience. Humans, however, have forgotten and suppressed this instinct, and thus stress can become stored or stuck in the body.
Afterward, my brain desperately tried to create meaning out of my powerful physiological experience. One theory I've come up with is that my body was remembering my surgeries. Even though I was under general anaesthetic, my body was still there and present to the stress. Still, this is my brain trying to make sense of something it doesn't yet understand. I don't know what my body was trying to release or where it came from. But I trust my body was trying to bring me back to my baseline.
I walked away from the experience feeling lighter in body and mind, and 7 months on, I still feel the effects: I haven't been ill once, and despite being pregnant with twins, my body feels strong and, for the most part, energised and well. It could be a coincidence, but it does make me curious. Did the breathwork somehow tap into my body's capacity to heal itself?
A wise old soul
Throughout my pregnancy, I've come to respect my body and its intuitive ways of working. I've never read a book or attended a training on how to do pregnancy. Yet, somehow, my amazing body is already programmed for this and knows exactly what to do (even when accommodating, not just for one, but for two growing babies!) It makes me realise how connected and wise our bodies are. Because yes, whilst I am personally going through this pregnancy, the ability to do so has developed out of millions of years of evolution. My body is not secondary to my brain; it’s part of the same intricate system, and its modest yet vitalising powers work behind the scenes to keep me- and now my two little ones- alive and well. And whilst this is science, it fills me with so much awe and wonder and connects me to the miracle of life.
So before I sign off, I have to thank my body for being there, even when I wasn't.
At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, my husband suddenly had to set up his office in our apartment living room. For the first time in our 10-year relationship, I overheard Dan's 'work voice' and was surprised to hear that he was a "let's take this offline" person (!) He wasn't entirely different; instead, other qualities were more dominant in a work context (like professional, concise, and knowledgeable) than in our marriage (where he is often funny, playful and relaxed). Other sides of Dan's 'gemstone' showed up in ways I hadn't witnessed before, which was both a humbling and hopeful realisation. Even in our most intimate relationships, there is always more to learn. This includes the one we have we have with ourselves….
The Discomfort Zone
When I hear my clients say the words "that's not me", "that's not authentic", or "I'm not that", then it's a cue to start revealing their internal system.
Instead of spiralling into binary thinking ("I am this, but not this"), we can step back and explore ourselves in terms of range. In an article for HBR, Herminia Ibarra writes:
"Career advances require all of us to move way beyond our comfort zones. At the same time, however, they trigger a strong countervailing impulse to protect our identities: When we are unsure of ourselves or our ability to perform well or measure up in a new setting, we often retreat to familiar behaviours and styles."
Outside of the comfort zone is where the learning happens. But it might also cause us to feel vulnerable, exposed and, well... uncomfortable.
A common theme that comes up in my coaching sessions is confidence around public speaking. In fact, this study found public speaking to be America's biggest phobia (followed closely by heights and bugs!)
So, let's imagine you’ve been promoted and want to feel more confident in high-stakes presentations. You feel comfortable talking to your peers but notice yourself feeling unconfident and uncertain when presenting to senior leaders. Firstly, if this feels familiar, know that this is normal. You're out of your comfort zone, so your discomfort is a good sign that you're in a growth & development space.
Secondly, ask yourself what confidence means to you. Quite often, we talk about what we want in terms of what we don't want ("I don't want to tremble" or "I don't want to lose my place.") Instead, get discerning. Get under the bonnet and ask yourself what more confidence would feel like. And what would be happening differently if you had more of it? If this is hard, think of someone you know who presents confidently. What is it that they do that makes them seem confident? Do they speak slowly? Make jokes? Interact with the audience? As opposed to generalising confidence as something we either have or don't have, we can break it down into bite-sized data that allows us to consider the specifics.
As you explore the mechanics of confidence, you might think, "but I'm not funny," or "I wouldn't feel authentic engaging with an audience like that." When limiting phrases pop up, I reframe them as familiar or unfamiliar. "It's not familiar…yet." This simple reframe acknowledges that whilst this part is unfamiliar and may feel strange and unnatural, it's not separate from who you are. Over time, the more we stretch into these secondary parts of self, the more natural and ordinary they will become.
Stretching our Range
The more comprehensive our range, the more choice we have. We all have a set of primary or default qualities that- for better or worse- have helped us to become the person we are today. Now, this isn't about giving up our primary identity (unless we choose to); it's about having more options for whatever life throws at us. Stretching our range enables us to access unfamiliar parts of ourselves that might be useful when a curve ball comes our way. In an interview I recorded with Cynthia Loy Darst, author of 'Meet Your Inside Team – How To Turn Internal Conflict Into Clarity and Move Forward With Your Life,' she shared insights around what it means to expand your range as a coach:
"We're not talking about giving up your primary. I'm not saying don't look smart and professional. I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying is have accessible to you, have in your toolkit, some other possibilities of how to work with people and how to stimulate their creativity."
Friendliness is one of the well-rehearsed qualities I show up with when I am on auto-pilot, which has its benefits and its challenges. It's great for engaging people and making them feel at ease. However, in particular training situations, I've noticed that my default 'friendly' mode isn't the most effective way of grabbing people's attention (like when trying to pause an exercise with 50 excited military personnel!) So, for the last year, I've been working on stretching into the quality of rigour. Initially, pushing into a more rigorous part of me felt unfamiliar and strange (a fear of being called "bossy" has caused me to overcompensate with niceness!) After several months of practice, I am happy to report that it's feeling more familiar. I can't imagine this quality will become a part of my primary identity. Yet, it's now a much more accessible secondary part of self, available whenever I need it.
So, what do you do?
In 2020, I gave a TEDx talk challenging people to examine their default response to that familiar networking question: "so, what do you do?" By exploring the different parts that makeup who we are, we realise that "we're not just one thing. We're not just our job title. And what we 'do' is continually changing." I finished the talk asserting that:
"Who we are is so much bigger and better than what's written on our business cards."
The same applies to how we experience ourselves in every moment. We're not just one thing. And we're also not the one emotion we're feeling at any given moment.
Like the other day when I succumbed to a wave of silent rage after a LinkedIn post reminded me of a particularly unfair work engagement that ended on a sour note. Yes, my rage was real. But it is also not all of who I am. The emotion belongs to me; I do not belong to it.
A part of you is… X
"A part of you is… sad/frustrated/overwhelmed/excited/anxious/stressed." Fill in the blank. Our chaotic, complex, contradictory minds are so much more than a single adjective. This simple phrase helps us zoom out and connect to something more expansive than the one emotion we may be feeling.
Let's say a client comes into a coaching session after a difficult call with their manager. They've returned feeling shut down and dismissed and use the check-in to vent their frustrations. As a coach, my instinct is to meet them where they are by mirroring back what I am hearing/seeing/sensing: "you're frustrated". Yet this practice of labelling only reveals a part of the story. Yes, I can see that they’re frustrated, but that doesn't mean that is all there is. That's why this simple add-on, "A part of you is…" can be so effective when heightened emotions are present, as it empowers the client/colleague/partner/friend to recognise the frustration as a part- and not the whole- of who they are.
Another strategy focuses on substituting personal pronouns (I/You/We). When we feel an intense emotion, we often identify strongly with that emotion in the moment (for example, "I am sad"). By replacing the personal pronouns with more general language (here/there), we create some distance between the emotional state and the person. For example, "there's some sadness here." It's a simple yet powerful way of emphasising to someone that the emotion belongs to them; they do not belong to it.
Both examples use language to create more objectivity around an emotional state. If we are experiencing heightened emotions, these simple reframes can help us to see the emotion without being consumed by it.
The System of ME
Inside every person is a system of selves. In our relationships, I believe it’s vital that we don't lose sight of this through generalisations, assumptions or simplifications. Because every individual is made up of a complex and intricate collection of parts which are all in a constant state of evolution. The more we can step back and hold The Balcony View, both for ourselves and others, the more we can access a greater intelligence and lean into the miracle and the mystery surrounding what it means to be human.
Thanks for reading. I want to leave you with a final question to think about...
* How can you become more aware of yours and other people’s ‘gemstones’ as you move through your day?
According to Dr Kristin Neff, author of 'Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself', self-esteem refers to "the degree to which we evaluate ourselves positively. It represents how much we like or value ourselves and is often based on comparisons with others." Neff argues that our self-esteem is primarily determined by how we measure ourselves relative to others. From this angle, self-esteem appears individualistic and insidious, with the potential to fuel competition and separateness over interconnectedness and community.
Two sides of the same self-absorbed coin
Throughout secondary school, I was weighed down by what Neff would have described as low self-esteem. It crept in through a variety of different channels: standing on the scales after my best friend and realising I was a stone heavier; at my 13th birthday party when my friends presented me with a pair of jeans that were "way too big for Chloe but should fit you just fine"; or at a camp when some of the girls remarked that my short hair made me "look like a boy." Little ways that, over time, left me stuck with a sense that the way I looked wasn't good enough. (N.B. My secondary school experience aligns with research that shows that self-perceived attractiveness, self-confidence in appearance and body esteem all significantly predicted self-esteem, more so in women than in men.)
Like many people with low self-esteem, I claimed not to judge others or hold them to such high standards: my perverse perfectionism was reserved just for me. Yet hindsight offers a humbling balcony from which I can see the paradox: when we judge ourselves, we also judge others to understand where we fit in the great comparison games of life.
Fast forward to 2012, and I'm in my second year of university. I've just had my first T.V. role as a guest star on Holby City, and I am the lead in a cheesy detergent commercial that's paid me more money than a student knows what to do with. The ad showed in practically every commercial break for a year (and this was at a time when Game of Thrones was getting big). So, whilst I would have preferred to have been on Game of Thrones over on a cringe-worthy commercial, that didn't matter because, relative to my acting peers, I felt like I was doing well. I had high self-esteem. But it was shaky and self-absorbed. As Neff writes:
“Our culture has become so competitive we need to feel special and above average to just to feel okay about ourselves (being called “average” is an insult). Most people, therefore, feel compelled to create what psychologists call a “self-enhancement bias” – puffing ourselves up and putting others down so that we can feel superior in comparison. However, this constant need to feel better than our fellow human beings leads to a sense of isolation and separation.”
When I compare these two experiences of self-esteem, I am struck by the similarities between the two: there's a sense of individualism and fragility. Whether we are talking about low or high self-esteem, it seems that, if focused on too much, they can become two sides of the same self-absorbed coin. Retrospectively I can see that no amount of self-esteem would have prepared me for the unexpected challenges that would hit me over the next few years (such as when my friend Connor died from a simple fall down the stairs while at his dorms at Oxford Uni). Self-esteem appears like a 'hanger-on': one of those friends that stick around to share in your success but disappears when you discover you've got cancer.
It also doesn't necessarily make you a nice person. In fact, research suggests that the self-esteem movement might be increasing the prevalence of narcissistic personality disorder, which the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5) describes as a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and lack of empathy.
Generation Me
In 2008, Dr Jean Twenge and her team compared samples of U.S. college students who completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) between 1979 and 2006 and found that narcissism levels in students rose by a massive 30%. Interestingly, self-esteem levels rose during this time, with more students rating themselves as 'above average.' There are many terms for this phenomenon, including illusory superiority, the above-average effect, the superiority bias or my personal favourite, the Lake Wobegon effect, named after the fictional town where all the children are above average. In this article, which discusses evidence for 'Generation Me' (the term she uses to describe millennials/gen Y, born after 1980), Twenge argues that:
"We should stop trying to boost self-esteem and stop teaching that self-belief is important to success […] When we try to increase self-esteem without basis, it leads to an inflated sense of self that can become narcissism. We might start by cutting back on grade inflation, participation trophies, and narcissistic language such as "You are special" or "You're my princess" (she's not. She's your kid, and unless you are Prince William, she is not a princess, nor do you want her to act like one). We should also do a better job of teaching the importance of empathy, perspective taking, and involvement in larger social issues."
Nevertheless, Twenge's books and published articles have received their fair share of criticism. In this article, Professor Jeffrey Arnett challenges NPI as a reliable measure of narcissism and questions the use of college students as representative of 'emerging adults.' Yet, amidst his scathing criticism, he does credit Twenge for "delivering a well-deserved skewering to the excesses of the self-esteem movement." In another article examining how narcissism changes over a lifetime, the authors paint a more optimistic picture of emerging adults, arguing that "every generation is Generation Me, as every generation of younger people are more narcissistic than their elders." The point is that every generation is a little bit narcissistic… until they grow up!
The Comparison Trap
Is the issue not so much to do with self-esteem itself but rather our obsession with getting more of it? As part of my research, I dipped my toe into the world of TikTok and discovered that #selfesteem has received over 687 million views, with posts varying from '7 habits that ruin your self-esteem' to 'self-esteem building exercises.' Even from limited TikTok experience/research, it would be fair to assume that the self-esteem movement is still gaining momentum after 3+ decades. So why are so many people still obsessed with boosting their self-esteem? It might be that many of us are addicted to the 'highs' of esteem. In fact, researchers Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs argue that narcissism could be viewed as an addiction to esteem:
"Narcissism can be considered a pattern of addiction. That is, narcissism may not be a lifelong personality trait in the usual sense but rather a pattern of yielding to inner urges in a way that proves costly and self-destructive—not unlike other, more familiar addictions."
As the paper points out, "the steady raising of self-esteem cannot continue indefinitely." At some point, reality will intrude - maybe through redundancy, a breakup, or injury—and our self-esteem will crash. Self-esteem is with us for the good times but quickly disappears when things don't go our way. As Neff writes: "once you've gotten high self-esteem, how do you keep it? It's an emotional roller-coaster ride: our sense of self-worth bounces around like a ping-pong ball, rising and falling in lock-step with our latest success or failure."
An Infinite Game
Theodore Roosevelt once said that "comparison is the thief of joy", which feels ever more apt given that we live in a moment of unprecedented social media infiltration. Social media gives us access to a vast number of people, and so naturally, the sources for comparison are extensive too. In his book 'The Infinite Game,' Simon Sinek describes finite games as having known players, fixed rules, and an agreed-upon objective. In contrast, infinite games are defined as having known and unknown players and changeable rules, and the aim is not to win but to keep playing, to continue perpetuating the game. Social media is, by this definition, an infinite game. No one's ever going to "win" at social media (except maybe the companies themselves, but that's another article!)
During the Covid-19 pandemic, I began tapering off my social medial usage with the help of an app blocker that would time me out after 10 minutes. This was driven by a strong sense that social media was making me more unhappy (as I've said on numerous occasions, "the time-to-joy ratio wasn't working out for me.”) Yet, even with this relatively short amount of scroll time, I still sensed the comparison trap and interestingly, the pull to 'puff out my chest' was even stronger. I question whether this was partly because I was half in/half out of the game, and seeing other people' play' at full speed only made me want to cave in and scroll more. In October 2021, I finally quit for good as a birthday present to myself. An unexpected consequence of leaving the social media 'game' is that I've noticed a reduction in the types of self-esteem games I end up playing (like comparing the ways I feel #blessed with everyone else's virtue signalling on my Insta feed.) I've left certain arenas, and that's okay because there are only so many things I can focus on in this one lifetime.
If self-esteem is based on how we compare ourselves to others, what are the benchmarks for comparison? Who decides what success looks like? Right now, algorithmic amplification powerfully influences what we see on our feeds and, consequently, what we believe. As Alex Olshonsky, creator of the Deep Fix, writes in his article "The great millennial predicament: The Antidote to Self-Doubt, Cosmic Insignificance, and Narcissism":
"If you do not think tremendously hard about what you value, you will default to the Machine's values—wealth, status, lip injections, The New York Times, likes and replies, light beer and football. Entire lives are built around these gods."
If you're worried that social media could be making you a self-esteem junkie, know that quitting won't magically make your addiction disappear. In fact, whilst the types of self-esteem 'games' I play have changed, I still catch myself humble bragging about being off social media as another way to stand out and feel special. Self-esteem is woven into the fabric of our society, so social media or not, it's not going away.
This is where self-compassion comes in…
In a world of constant comparison, what could be more radical than accepting yourself?
When I first came across self-compassion, it felt like a radical idea. What do you mean you're allowed to be nice to yourself? That's a thing?!? I immediately pushed back against it, seeing it as an attack on progress and potential. Self-esteem is what’s made you successful, Katie. Without it, who will you be? How will you improve?
At its core, self-compassion is about how we relate to ourselves. It's a relationship that requires turning inwards and observing how we talk to ourselves. With a practice of self-compassion, we can step out of self-esteem's yo-yo energy, which swings from self-aggrandisement to shame, and into a more resilient source that holds us through it all. Because, perhaps most importantly, self-compassion isn't reliant on extrinsic factors (like a promotion, P.B., or likes); it comes from within.
Yet, as with many vital practices (breath work and meditation come to mind), self-compassion is simple but not easy. Given that many of us spend much of our lives criticising ourselves, it can be hard (and even painful) to turn towards ourselves more compassionately. As Jack Kornfield writes in 'A Path with Heart':
"If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete."
I've worked with many coaching clients who are compassionate with everyone except themselves. One way I help these clients with self-compassion is through reframing. I ask them to imagine that they are talking to a best friend. Watching how quickly their whole manner shifts with this simple instruction is fascinating. We wouldn't talk to our worst enemies the way we speak to ourselves; however, for many of us, some version of "not good enough" is playing on constant repeat in our brains. If this pattern feels familiar, try not to criticise the criticising (!). This will only continue to perpetuate the vicious cycle. Instead, consider how you can hold this self-criticism more compassionately. I love author Elizabeth Gilbert's approach to self-compassion, which involves writing a love letter to herself every day:
"Every day I write myself a letter from love—divine, unconditional love. I ask for advice, and love always gives me kind answers, which I write down as they come to me. Even in my darkest hours, love has always shown up, saying, "I'm right here. I've got you. You're never alone.
An antidote to the volatility of self-esteem
In writing this article, I've come to view self-compassion not as the antithesis to self-esteem but as an ally for the most important relationship of all: the one we have with ourselves. Whereas self-esteem helps us to make sense of our value through continual feedback loops, an over-reliance on these metrics can generate volatility and uncertainty within our sense of self, especially when things don't go our way. Self-compassion, on the hand, helps us to connect to our intrinsic value, a sense of worth that isn’t reliant on anything or anyone. Beyond simply being a much kinder way to live, self-compassion can help us step back and gain perspective so we can witness our mental chatter without necessarily engaging in the 'sides' of self-esteem.
Whereas self-esteem seems to push us towards binary thinking (good/bad, right/wrong, positive/negative), self-compassion allows us to sit in the not knowing. From this space, it's less about who's better than who and more about what's trying to happen….
I want to leave you with these two questions to think about:
* Where are you playing self-esteem games that are no longer serving you?
* And how might you bring more self-compassion to these areas of your life?
KC: Ali. Welcome to the Balcony View Podcast. Delighted to have you on the show.
AB: Delighted to be here. Thanks for having me.
KC: I'm very excited about this discussion today, and I want to start by talking about the fact that you use a range of different mediums and platforms. So you write, you podcast, you create videos, and across all of these, I've noticed a theme around storytelling. And so, I want to start by asking you why storytelling is so integral to your work and what you do.
AB: Yeah, well, I mean, the first thing to say is that I love it, and I think many of us love a story. I have really vivid memories of sitting in school at the age of like six or seven for story time. A teacher will read, or my mum and dad actually used to read to me as well. And there's just something magical about it, I think. But aside from that quality of it, there are a few reasons I think storytelling is so important. One of them is that if we want to communicate ideas to each other, we generally do it through stories. And there’s actually a lot of neuroscience to back this up, that we learn much more through stories rather than just facts.
KC: Right.
AB: Which is, of course, why the news isn't just, this happened, this happened, this happened, this happened. And here are the statistics. We, of course, tell stories around stuff. In fact, we're just kind of completely immersed and wrapped up in stories everywhere. Our own stories, the people we're connected to, the stories we tell about our culture. So, the world is, in some way, the social sphere is made of stories. And so, if we want to communicate or make sense of it or hopefully change aspects of it, we have to do that. Not exclusively, but definitely a huge part of it is through storytelling. There's another aspect of stories which is that they are one of the most inclusive ways to communicate because it's cross-cultural; every culture has stories. It's part of how we're wired; we’re kind of like storytelling animals, in a way. And also, the stories that we tell have something more going on in them than just entertainment or even lessons. A Jungian view on storytelling would say that really what's happening in stories is that it's an external communication of a deep internal world that we all share and a kind of collective unconscious that we share as well. So people might be familiar with Joseph Campbell, who was a famous mythologist. He wrote a book called The Hero With a Thousand Faces, amongst others, and his argument was that there's a monomyth and really every story is, even though it looks like it's got different characters and different settings, it's really a way of exploring and explaining the process. We go on as human beings to grow and mature and go from a limited state of awareness and ability to a more expanded state of awareness and maturity. And Campbell’s view of it was actually fairly masculine. It was very much outward-facing adventuring. And it's criticised for that as well, I think, partly rightly because it is somewhat limited. And I did a piece during the pandemic, it was around myth and the importance of understanding, looking at the pandemic through a mythic lens. And one of the people I interviewed for it was a writer called Charlotte Du Cann. And she pointed out that there's a female initiation myth as well, which is just as prevalent all around the world. But it's almost inverted where often a character might start as a princess and then go through a process where she has to come down to the earth and a kind of connection with the ground of reality. And she said, in nature, you can be beautiful, but you can't be a princess. It's something about coming into the natural humility of being a human being and being interconnected with things, and from there, learning. And I think both men and women go through the different aspects of these types of stories that we're living in our own lives. Sometimes we are on a quest to achieve something, and our culture really values that. For example, starting a business or do this or do that. But sometimes, we have to come deep into ourselves and make a connection with the people around us, and that's our transformation. So, I think that it's really on both sides, and it's really not one or the other. That's one of the reasons I think storytelling is so important because some variation of those myths is across culture. And it's almost like as soon as you start to try and tell a story… the idea- if you buy into the monomyth- is that you are inevitably going to repeat this pattern, this deeply encoded pattern of the way we understand ourselves in the world. And so that's really beautiful because there are very few things that are that universal as a way of making sense of our lives. And so that's one of the most important aspects of storytelling.
KC: That's fascinating. And then I wonder, there are certain subjects that feel quite starved of storytelling, and so what does that do in terms of how we make sense of complicated concepts and ideas?
AB: Yeah, that's a really good point. Well, I think what you just said is part of the reason why some people have made a really great career out of writing, like popular science books or books about history. (History is a bit easier because history is kind of a story. Right, ‘story’ is in the word.) But I think what it does is it sort of alienates if we can't tell it in the form of a story. Like, I just read a book about quantum gravity, which is really out there, quantum physics, and is really confusing. But it was interesting because a big chunk of the book was… it's by Carl Rovelli… I think that’s his name.
KC: Oh, yes, I love his work.
AB: He's great. And so a big chunk of the book was really, I mean…it was a very good book. I'd say the first 80% of it was the history of physics up until where we are now. And it was like a story, and it was fascinating, and it was easy to follow and understand what had been going on and why certain theories built on other theories and what was missing and what gaps are being filled. And it also has all these characters like Einstein, these kinds of brilliant people who are different personalities. And then when he got onto the quantum gravity bit, I was also driving, so I was listening to it on Audible, but I got really lost, and I was like, “Oh God, now I'm confused”. And he does say, “You're going to get confused now because we don't really understand this either.” But it was a really striking example of what you're talking about, where he couldn't really story tell around it. He's great at using metaphors, and he’s a really great communicator of science, but really getting into the weeds of it, if you're not an expert in that area, you're inevitably going to struggle with it. And that's true of anything. And that's true of a lot of the worlds I'm in like the systems change world and the psychedelic world, there are particular aspects of those that are very nitty-gritty.
KC: Right.
AB: And it's very difficult to get people interested in that if you're not willing to set aside the nitty gritty and tell a story that's authentic and true but sacrifices some of the details because those details are just going to get people confused. And then, if they are interested, then it's like an invitation that they could go and really delve in and do their own research, et cetera.
KC: It's almost like how language can isolate and alienate. If we don't connect a story, we don't seem to connect to those wider systems. It sort of stays within that network. I have quite a lot of engineering clients, and they'll say, “Yeah, but you just won't understand this.” And I think, but what about the clients that you're working with? How do you want them to understand this? And maybe story is that bridge for us that helps us to create connections with those other systems outside of our expertise.
AB: Yeah, that's really nice. I like that idea a lot, that there's a kind of it's like translation between different systems, which is really essential because everything should or can inform everything else. And I think that really drives innovation. If the engineering world can speak to the abstract art world in a particular way where they can understand each other, then it can really improve both worlds.
KC: I love that you brought in Carlo Rovelli. I was so struck by his work because, suddenly, it was so relational, and I never thought about relationships and physics being in any way related. I think he brings into play so many disciplines (we go to university to study one or two things), and suddenly, they're so connected, and there's interdependence. And you seem to do that in your work. You seem to weave together seemingly unrelated topics, and I wonder how you do that with Story because it's not an easy task to bring together, say, psychology and philosophy.
AB: Yeah, I mean, a lot of the time, it just sort of happens rather than an intentional bringing together. I’m actually a big believer in this idea called Strategic Intuition, which is coined by William Duggan, who was at Columbia Business School. And in my early twenties, I read a review of his book that really blew my mind because his argument is that creativity or innovation has this four-part process. So part one is examples from history, so your brain, and he's drawing a lot of neuroscience in it as well. So, the idea is that your brain is basically like this gigantic library, lots of it is in your unconscious, but you have to fill that library with information. So, for example, Napoleon had read every single accounting of a military battle that he could get his hands on in military academy. So, he'd be in the library constantly. He'd read about, like, a battle from Hannibal to this to that. So he had this huge library in his head. And during his first battle- he wasn't very high-ranking- but he urgently said they had to move the cannons up to the top of the cliff. And his superiors were like, that's madness. We're not going to do that. But then they lost the battle, and then everyone realised, well, had they done what Napoleon has said, they absolutely would have won. And for him, what happened, and this is Duggan's argument, is that you have all these examples from history, and then you have a presence of mind, so you stop trying to find a solution, and you just stay receptive and open and basically mindful. And the reason it really struck me when I read it was because I was training as a mindfulness teacher, and I thought, that's mindfulness, basically. And then, from the presence of mind, you have what he calls a coup d'œil. It's a strike of the eye in French, like a eureka moment. So you have this boom, eureka moment that shoots into your conscious mind, and it's just an idea. For example, “I've got to move the cannons.” Or, in the case of Google, it was, “Why don't we combine the AltaVista database with academic citations?” So you have these two existing elements that the founders of Google knew about. They had all of AltaVista because the Internet was much smaller. So they had it all downloaded, and they had the algorithm of academic citations, which basically says the most cited thing is number one, and the least cited thing is at the bottom. They combined the two, and that was Google. That's like the best search engine. He also uses this example of Picasso. So Picasso was a fairly run-of-the-mill impressionist artist. Talented, but nothing that innovative. And then, as the story goes, he went for lunch with Matisse. And Matisse's daughter, or niece, had this African mask with her because it was a colonial France, and it was really square and angular. And Picasso apparently just had this eureka moment because what he had was impressionism, plus that kind of shape, a kind of rigid shape. And then this brand-new thing, Cubism. And then the final stage of that is that you have to have the courage to bring your idea into the world. Because, like Napoleon, or probably Picasso, early people are like, what is that? That's mad. And you have to really be committed to your own vision and your own intuition, your own strategic intuition, to be like, “No, this is the way to do it.” But you have to have those examples from history for any of it to work. And so you have to ideally not just know about the particular field you're focused on but have horizontal or lateral information as well. So, for example, if you are trying to sell computers. Instead of just knowing everything about the computer world, you might also look at retail in other areas, and you might also then look at market stalls or even the history of marketplaces or the history of trade in Southeast Asia or whatever. It might be anything tangentially linked that can be incredibly useful. And then so, coming back to your original question, usually what happens with me is that I'm interested in a few different things and with an overall sort of direction of trying to make sense of pop culture, but just also bigger social issues and political issues. And somewhere, a new combination of existing things will click together. And then the storytelling is basically the exercise of expressing to people why this makes sense and isn't just bonkers, right? Because, at the outset, it could seem kind of bonkers to combine particular things together. But if you have a sense- like a kind of pull- of there is a really interesting frame here that this gives us an interesting new perspective on a particular issue if we look at it through the lens of whatever it might be.
KC: It feels like you take a balcony view in your work, which obviously is the name of this podcast, and I think it's very easy to get stuck in our positions. For example, I might have trained in this field my entire life. So then, how does one step out of that and see with that wider lens that allows for all those different disciplines to come into play? Because we might start just telling the story from one lens, the engineering lens or the English literature lens and not see the bigger picture.
AB: Yeah, I think there are lots of different ways we can do it. I think a few practical ones are task switching (which is in the study of creativity and the neuroscience around it) which has generally been shown to be quite effective in helping us kind of get that moment of stepping back. So task switching is just going from one particular task to doing something completely different. Like the guys who make South Park, they did this documentary of how they make an episode which is absolutely brilliant, and it's made in a week. They're really topical, so they write the episode in about a week, and they sometimes are handing in the DVD to the studio 3 hours before it goes up. And in that, I can't remember if it's Matt Still or Trey Parker, but he's writing the episode, and he's stuck on something, and then he just goes and starts building some Lego, and he's got Lego all over his office, and they're really big, like the Lego Death Star and big pieces. And his explanation of it was that he's going from a mode where he has to figure out all the answers himself and has to write the story to one where he has instructions that are telling him what to do, and he doesn't have to think about it all. It's also a different task. It's like tactile, and you kind of mix stuff together, and that's a great example of task switching. So having the same attitude that we get when we switch tasks, but trying to almost embody that day-to-day, I think, could be really helpful because it means we don't get too zoomed in on a particular thing. And there's usually a feeling where we're too zoomed into a particular topic or even in our own field or world, which is a little bit like, for me, at least, constrained and a bit like everything feels a bit harder, and it's a bit dull, and I'm getting bored and frustrated by it. So that's a great opportunity, I think, to do something completely different, focus on something different, go for a run, whatever it might be, and then that also applies to the things you're reading and watching. To be honest, I mainly read Sci-Fi fantasy books. I also read nonfiction as well, but I just love those genres, and I'll often be reading that. But there's a lot in fiction that can really inform ideas, even- as in my case- writing nonfiction fiction, which helps tremendously with that because it's imagination, it's playing with ideas, it's speculative. So, yeah, I think it can help to be eclectic with your interests and just kind of challenge yourself. And I'd like to do it more, in fact. The Quantum Gravity book was partly due to a piece I was writing, but also, I was just kind of curious. I read a couple of things about quantum physics a few years ago, and I thought I’ll give it a shot. And I often find that's the things that really get me excited and interested, and it's really refreshing, and I think that kind of cognitive refreshment is good.
KC: And I love those refreshing narratives that you're bringing up, like the Picasso example and Napoleon. They sort of saw it differently. I wonder, though, do you think many of us get stuck in certain narratives that we're sold, or we inherit or and we're socialised to believe? For example, we have to do a graduate scheme, have a house and be married and have a certain number of kids by a certain age. It feels like some of us get stuck in these limiting narratives.
AB: Yeah, I mean, I would say we all do by nature of being human beings, right? In some way, we're all, I guess, in a tension between clarity and self-deception, which is something that John Vervaeke, who's a cognitive scientist and a really brilliant thinker, he speaks a lot of the philosophical practises and people like Socrates, what they were teaching were ways to become less foolish. And the same applies to mindfulness and Buddhism. A lot of these traditions are looking at how do we get over the problem of our own self-deception. Which is that you cannot be a human being and not have self-deception. So part of that self-deception comes from, of course, the stories and ways of doing things that we've received, but also, we need some kind of basic right to function, and we can't be completely untethered from our cultural and social backdrop. Right? And often, when we try... some of the baby boomers in the 60s are a great example of this. They really tried to really drop out, like Timothy Leary, drop out of society, live on a commune, and do it differently. And what they realised, almost every single commune failed. And it was because they were just recreating the same dynamics. They were trying to escape from it, just on a much smaller scale. And whilst a few of them survived. It’s really rare. And then a lot of the baby boomers became our parents (if you're in your thirties) and became much more mainstream and became the mainstream after a while. So it's not to say that doing things differently isn't possible. I guess it's harder than it looks. I just read an article earlier today, and it was about creativity and the author said, basically, you need a box to be able to think outside the box.
KC: Right.
AB: You can't just completely be like, right, we're scrapping all our social stuff, we're going to have completely change what the family looks like, completely change what work looks like completely. I love the impulse for it, and I'm really big into new ways of doing things, but I've also become increasingly-not disillusioned- but certainly cautious because it's not that easy to scrap things.
KC: Well, it makes me think of the improviser mindset. You have to know the rules of improvisation in order to improvise. Yeah, that's fascinating…that we need a box to think outside the box. And I'm curious right now about the impact of the internet on stories because, in some ways, I love that we're empowered to be the owner of our story and the narrator, and I wonder if there's a danger in that. Because are we then disconnected, perhaps, from what's really going on? And are we maybe not aware of what's really emerging in the wider stories and the social systems that we're a part of?
AB: Yeah, that's a really important question. I would say the technology itself is built from a particular belief about what it’s like to be human and what humans should strive for. And it comes from, of course, very individualist cultures originally. And it really lends itself, especially social media, to individual expression. Of course, there are sort of social movements that happen online often, quite good social movements that kind of shift the needle, but they then very quickly become a part of the individual level, they become something like a kind of identity badge that people can use, and they can become very shallow. So, any real systemic change becomes sort of like, oh yeah, but I changed my Facebook or my Instagram profile pick, and that's my contribution. But then what these deeper systemic issues- like Me Too or Black Lives Matter- are pointing to, get sort of swept away in this kind of corporatization. But now we're like, “Look, we're acting on it,” but it's kind of surface level. I mean, Starbucks is the example I always use because Starbucks are this outwardly extremely progressive company that really celebrates that and really prides itself on that. And there's a whole unionisation movement going on with Starbucks baristas in America, and Starbucks is kind of crashing down on it and closing shops that have union members. And Howard Schultz, the CEO, has said, I'll never allow a union at Starbucks. I think it's a really kind of disturbing but good example of the way in which workers are doing the actual thing which these movements are pointing to, which is a redistribution of power and wealth…and I'm fully for unions on the whole. And I think that kind of thing; it's a really healthy pushback to corporate power. But it's very interesting when a corporation really prides itself on, “Yeah, we're the most progressive ones out there,” when push comes to shove, and it actually comes to solving systemic issues, not only do they not do anything, but they actively try and work against it. And I think that often happens with, like, what you were saying. There's almost like a smokescreen around the stories we're telling about systems on the Internet and the real, deep, uncomfortable complexity of changing those systems. And it's not black and white. Obviously, they inform each other, and the social world does change. I’m not sure if you've seen Woodstock 99, the documentary on Netflix; it’s really worth checking out. It’s about when they tried to redo Woodstock in 1999, but it was a complete catastrophe, and they tried to corporate and gouge everyone for money. Like, water was $12, and they also booked Limb Biscuit and Korn and all like they didn't even know who they were. They were like, “Oh, yeah, the kids love these bands.” So it was a very dark, hardcore energy. It all went crazy. But what's really interesting about that is the oh, I've now gotten so distracted thinking about the particular scene in that I can't remember why I brought it up. It'll swing back to me. But yeah, just to wrap that point up, it's basically there's this kind of web of inauthenticity that runs through social media in particular that I think is driven by personal storytelling because that's what the medium asks you to do. And it's not really built for systems-level, deep, complex sense-making. It's not designed for that. And so, if the game doesn't allow you to do that, like Monopoly doesn't allow you to be like, “I’m going to give away my houses.” You can't. It's not part of the rules. Social media networks don't really allow you to tackle and get to the root of these deeper issues very often.
KC: There's a lot of window dressing, I think, across particularly social media. And I think from that, we're playing that virtue status game where we're sort of acting like, “Oh, yeah, I support Black Lives Matter. I put a black square up on my Instagram.” That means I'm doing something, but I’m not really willing to look in the mirror and interrogate my own biases, perhaps, or be an ally or an advocate in another space. You spoke about how power and money can potentially be redistributed into other ways of working. Are the Internet and algorithms on the Internet keeping us trapped within certain narratives that order our current social system?
AB: Yeah, that's a deep question. I think largely, yes. But I think they keep us trapped because they like Tristan Harris, who runs the Centre for Humane Technology, and there's also in the there's a Netflix documentary called The Social Dilemma. He's sort of the main person in it. And as he points out, they keep us trapped in what he calls a race at the bottom of the brainstem. So, they're kind of designed to keep us outraged, so they're not necessarily pushing a particular idea. Although it has been revealed that, certainly, social media companies aren't above being politically motivated in different ways. But it's not that necessarily algorithms, I don't think, are keeping us trapped in particular ideas that are designed. It's more like whatever gets us outraged and spending longer on the platforms gets selected, for it's like a natural selection process. And so, we get stuck… possibly also in generally the way things are right now, that doesn't get to shift because we're just arguing with each other very often. I think it's a tricky one because also, it's a big open question: how much are the algorithms and the actual social networks to blame? And how much is it our fault for being the kinds of human beings we are collectively?
KC: Yeah.
AB: And it's a tricky one. Certainly, a lot of commentators on our relationship with technology would point out that it's definitely made things worse. It's made us more polarised. It's made our mental health worse. There have been surveys where people express, “I wish it had just never been invented”. Quite large numbers of people say, “I just wish it wasn't there because it's kind of addictive and traps you, and it becomes difficult to avoid”. And so, yes, what to do about it and how to sort of inject something into social networks that does allow us to imagine new possibilities, new ways of connecting with each other. Generally, what I've noticed, and what I noticed through Rebel Wisdom, is that those conversations are happening in smaller groups on small Zoom calls, where there's much more of a live interaction. So, if you think about social media, it's not in real time. Something is posted, and there's a time delay before you see it and respond. You also don't have a human-to-human connection, I'm not suggesting Zoom is necessarily a human-to-human connection, but it's closer. So the medium…I think it was Marshall McLuhan who said that the medium is the message. And this is a pretty simple idea, but really true. It's like Twitter, Twitterfies conversation. Instagram, Instagrams connection, right? They do the thing that they're designed to do, and you can't really separate the two out from each other. Whereas I do think Zoom and small discussion groups or inquiry groups happening on Zoom are more human. And I know first hand lead to much deeper, richer conversations, even around contentious political topics.
KC: And I'm curious about the impact on the individual and then what that looks
like in society. I came off Instagram and Facebook about two years ago, and I wasn't heavily addicted. I maybe posted once every six weeks. But it was fascinating seeing the shift in my lens afterwards because you take a photo, and before it was, “Oh, this might look nice…oh, actually, that wasn’t so good.” I just don't look at the world quite through that lens anymore. And even as someone who wasn't so present and active, it still was shaping the way I saw myself and then how I curated my story, even in my own mind. Whether I shared it or not, it didn't matter. And because you've recently stepped into Instagram, I’m wondering how you're finding it so far in terms of creating your narrative.
AB: Yeah, difficult. And I've really held off; I was really reluctant for months. I've not done it, but okay, I have to for the book promotion, and I'm trying to find a way that is authentic to what I want to put out, which is mainly based on giving people something useful or entertaining. Something that's of value, rather than just, here's a picture of what I'm eating or what you should feel walking down the street. So yeah, it is difficult. And I certainly feel there's a kind of impossibility, that it feels impossible to be fully myself. Like, I can certainly be myself and bring my perspective. I find it much easier to post work, like articles I've written or post something about Breaking Convention because it’s like, “Ah, this is professional”; it's like LinkedIn but on Instagram, and with nicer images. I find that easier. But, yeah, I'm not hugely enjoying it. It's really early days, but I feel like it's kind of a necessary evil. So, I'm just in the process right now because I also want to do stuff on TikTok, and I'm working with a guy to do some TikTok videos, and that also that feels a little bit better because I don't know anyone on TikTok, so no one I know is going to see it. But I want to do something good. Like I'm trying to find, okay, how can I do something that I can stand by, that I really like? But still, TikTok has this very particular, punchy style. And the style is really not something I love. But if I can get the content I want in there, useful, educational, interesting content, then that's the sweet spot. So that's what they're trying to figure out at the moment.
KC: It's interesting you mentioned LinkedIn as well because LinkedIn is becoming weird. It's more like Facebook for professionals these days. You mentioned this, I think, in your Christmas wrap-up article- about how you're feeling a bit meh about all the stories, whether it's in the movies or on Netflix. And I really feel the same. There's just a lot of the same. And for me, what I've noticed is just a lot of focus on money. It feels like every other programme on TV is obsessed with insane amounts of wealth. I mean, firstly, I'm bored of these stories, but also, are they keeping us small and trapped in, again, a certain system and way of showing up in the world?
AB: Yeah, that's a good point. Just firstly, on that ‘meh’ feeling. I still definitely feel that, and I think a lot of people are because, for example, Disney is churning out loads of Star Wars stuff and aside from Andor, which was phenomenal in my view, was just all really crap. Even hardened Star Wars or Marvel fans agree. And looking at those kinds of franchises, which were like the biggest ones, they're the biggest stories that we tell, and we’re feeling like there's no magic in it. Right? And all of Disney's remakes, like The Lion King and The Little Mermaid…well, The Little Mermaid hasn't come out yet. I mean, it could be a big hit…but they've just redone Peter Pan, and it doesn't have a kind of edge or challenge in it. And I think that's what keeps us trapped. I think if our stories don't challenge us and make us uncomfortable like Joker was with Joaquin Phoenix a few years ago, that was probably the last film I saw- except maybe for Everything Everywhere All at Once- that was really amazing.
KC: I loved that.
AB: Fantastic film. So, I know that there are those films; I just probably haven't caught them because I watch more TV shows now than films. But there's something about art that has been very safe, certainly since 2016 or so, because of the deep fear of social justice backlash, that’s one aspect of it. So people are kind of playing it safe and then also just a change in a change in corporate culture as well. And so, everything just starts to feel sort of safe. Right? And it's like, this isn't really going to make me uncomfortable or challenge me. And in my view, art, not that it has to, but I think art should, ideally, make us feel something that we haven't felt before in some way, even if it's a variation on something we’ve felt. So that ambiguity and complexity of, like, wow, I don't quite know what to make of that. The end of The Last of US, which was just on HBO, and I was a big fan of the game, that has that ambiguity, which is really one of the best endings to something I've ever seen, where it's not quite as well done in the TV show as it was in the game. But a sense of that stays with you. And I think great art and great stories, they stay with us, and they kind of act like travel does, right? Or a psychedelic experience where we're different afterwards. Even just a little bit like you were speaking to before. You get that balcony view because you see something totally different when you go to a different culture, and you realise, oh, wow, the way I do things is just a way of doing things. And the people who live here have a completely different way of doing things, and it's equally valid, and they get on with it. And that means that you can then expand your learning, like learning another language. Then you also get a new frame to see the world. So, a lot of it comes down, I think, also to flexibility, being able to move between those different frames.
KC: Yeah, because you made me think about the idea that the story imitates life, and that terrifies me if that's true. Because I always hope that story elevates who we are and who we can be, and it gives us maybe a sense of what's possible beyond our frame. But right now, at least if you look on Netflix, it does feel like it's off imitating the values that are prevailing, which feels a bit sad. Actually, that's where our focus is primarily, and also what young people are inheriting from us.
AB: Yes, definitely. At the same time, I do think art finds a way. And what then ends up happening is that there'll be a backlash. And from that backlash on the edge of what's acceptable, on the edge of what's considered good art, you get new movements coming through, and I think that's just inevitably what happens. So, you get this when the mainstream becomes stale, then you get, like, punk…it's usually a reaction against something, new movements are kind of a reaction. And something I love about art and storytelling is that there's a pressure build-up, and then someone does something or puts out a movie or writes something or does a totally new art form, which could now be AI art, for example, as a medium, and just blows everyone away. And it's like, wow, that's crazy. We didn't even think that was possible. And then that becomes something new. I do have hope, and I think the worst was probably around, like, maybe, 2018 or so. I mean, now it just feels stale. Right now, there's a wider recognition of, oh, this is quite crap. There's so much content, but it's so hard to find something of a certain level of quality. Yeah, there is stuff. I mean, there is a lot of high-quality stuff out there as well. There is just more of everything. But there is a kind of growing recognition from many people who are scrolling Netflix or another streaming service. So, I think then that means something new will come up. Yeah, let's be hopeful.
KC: Yes. And when you said about travel and how it gives us perspective, it made me wonder because your writing holds a lot of paradox, and you deal with some quite edgy topics. How do you feel storytelling helps us to find alignment, even if we can't necessarily agree across some of these divides? Because right now, we are very divided in many different ways, and it seems like we just can't even have a conversation about that topic.
AB: Yeah, that's something I'm really interested in, is that question, how do we do that? And I'll speak to some of the ways I found useful in a moment. But when you read a novel, for example, you can read a character and be in their world right, which is different to TV and movies. So you can be in someone's world, but there's a different quality where you're almost in the mind of a character in a novel, and the character can do awful things and be terrible in some ways, but you can empathise with them because you understand why they did what they did. You might not agree with them, but you can at least empathise with them and understand in the context of their story why they did what they did. So, I think that's very powerful if we can tap into that kind of storytelling with one another and just give enough space to understand why, from another person’s perspective, why they are doing what they're doing. It doesn't mean condoning it; it doesn't mean not having boundaries to this bad behaviour, for example. But it does mean that we go, “Oh, okay, interesting, this suddenly makes sense.” It humanises us. We're like, okay, if I were them, then I might do the same thing. So that's one aspect of it I think is really important. There's the empathy, then there's also, just practically sometimes having a difficult conversation about, say, an intense topic like vaccine or no vaccine, right? Which is obviously raging less now but was raging very intensely during COVID. The story is actually not at the level where it’s going to be helpful to go into the content, the experience. Rather it helps to go deeper into an embodied sense of what you're feeling, what you're both feeling. And my friend Sarah Ness, or friends Sarah Ness and Jeff Crumb, we’re now running a course together called The Art of Difficult Conversations. And Sarah developed this model, which I love, called Content, Context and Concern, which is basically for any conflict conversation, or just any conversation. It can be really helpful to check in with, “Okay, what's the content? Which is the story, the stuff that the person is actually saying.” So they might be like, “Oh, the government's done this, and I don't trust this”. And whatever it might be. Or they might be saying, “I really don't trust it…Why haven't you gotten vaccinated?” Whatever it might be, all these are different aspects of the story. And then there's the context of the conversation, which is, well, what is this conversation? Are we having a debate, or are we having an argument? Are we trying to reach the truth together? Are we just venting? Right? That's lots of different contexts. And then there's a concern which is: what is this person, or what am I, concerned about? And that's usually the deeper emotional aspect of it. “I'm afraid about being controlled by a government. I'm afraid of not being safe because not enough people are vaccinated.” It's going to be different for each person. And the level of concern is often the place where you get to when you really delve into what's really going on in the conversation. It's not that the other stuff isn't going on, but speaking to that deeper emotional reality is much more effective than trying to argue at the level of the story where we can be like, “No, your story is wrong. My story is more right than yours because of this.” It just doesn't work. And in fact, it often has the opposite effect, something called the backlash effect, which is that if you give people information that contradicts factual information that contradicts their position, they often double down on their position and believe it more. And there are lots of ongoing studies to see when is it true? When isn't that true? Et cetera. But what it does seem to be is that it's more true when you care deeply about the topic. And it doesn't really stand you were like, “Oh, olive oil was invented in Italy”, and I was like, “Oh, actually, no. It was discovered in Greece”. Unless you really cared about olive oil, you would likely be like, “Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that.” But if it's something really close to your heart, like a political issue, then we have a kind of pushback. So it just doesn't work. So kind of getting to that deeper level is key, and in a way, that means acknowledging but not getting caught in the story.
KC: Yeah, the story can get in the way sometimes and keep us trapped in our positions. It makes me think about one of my colleagues, Jeffrey Wotherspoon, who does a lot of work in DEI, and he talks about the fact that a lot of DEI work is failing because people get stuck in their positions.
AB: What is DEI?
KC: Diversity, equity and inclusion.
AB: Okay.
KC: He criticises it, saying that, actually, a lot of the people who are delivering this work can be quite self-righteous. And his view is that no one changes through shame. No one changes through shame. And I think with the model you mentioned, it gets beyond the story, and we can connect to the human elements around it like, I'm scared/I'm worried/I'm concerned, and owning that, as opposed to, you're making me scared, you're making me worried. And I think that's huge. Just suddenly having that emotional intelligence to step into your position, I think, can shift things.
AB: Absolutely. Yeah. And there’s a lot of stuff in the personal growth world and inner work space that is kind of taken for granted, like speaking from the ‘I’, owning what's yours to own. It's very complicated, though, because it's also very easy to hijack those techniques. So if someone gets sophisticated at it, you can kind of hijack that language to get your needs met or get your point across as well. So this is one of the reasons I love difficult conversations is that it's so difficult. It's really hard, but it definitely requires exactly what you're talking about, a certain baseline level of emotional awareness that everyone can cultivate and then also a sort of a languaging around it and an understanding of, simultaneously, our own individuality agency and how deeply interconnected we are. So there's a lot to be simultaneously aware of in difficult conversations.
KC: I'm with you. I really think we need to support difficult conversations. I was working with a team the other day, and it got very edgy around gender equity. And what made it safe was that we designed beforehand how do we want to be together, and things like respect and lightness had come up. And all of that helps to create that box that you mentioned, within which then we can start to be outside of the box. But you realise that so many conversations are happening on Twitter without any kind of box, there are no rules for engagement, and then suddenly everyone's getting offended and holding their ground.
AB: Yeah, absolutely. That's a great example there. And, yeah, I think that's so well said because it really makes a difference when we've had a prior agreement on the rules for engagement. It also creates safety, which is absolutely key to it. It's a weird one because, in a way, we do want to feel uncomfortable, but once we feel unsafe, then we naturally go into defensive mode. But often, those two things get confused. I think, especially in a lot of the conversations around cultural issues. Feeling safe doesn't mean you're not feeling uncomfortable; it means you're feeling able to be uncomfortable. You feel safe enough to be uncomfortable. And that's really the kind of space that's conducive to a difficult conversation. But if we can't ever feel uncomfortable, then everything just goes into the shadows. Or to your point about shame earlier as well. It becomes like, “Oh, it's shameful to express what I want to express; therefore, I'm not going to express it.” But it doesn't mean you're not feeling it. And then the conversations just go underground, with people talking to each other privately about issues that could be talked about collectively. But no one feels safe to do so.
KC: Yeah, there's this model I use. I love it. It comes from CRR Global, and it's a really simple model for change. Essentially there's a triangle. On one side, you've got the primary; on the other side is the secondary, and then you've got this edge. The primary is where we are now. The secondary is everything in the future. So, you could think about it in terms of your primary identity and then a secondary identity that you want to bring more of to your life. Or your primary location, and then secondary because you’re moving house. And we're always crossing these edges. But it's such useful language, I find, because when you're working with a client, and things get edgy, suddenly it's a different kind of way of holding it. It doesn't mean it's bad; it doesn't mean it's wrong. And I think, unfortunately, a lot of the way we're working right now is trying to sweep things under the rug and make things nice. And I don't think we're actually getting to the grittiness that we need.
AB: Yeah, I love that model. That sounds really useful. I love the simplicity of it as well. It just strikes me as you're talking that it's very difficult to bring this kind of stuff into workplaces because that container already has a very clear goal, which is to make as much money as possible. Right? Even if it's explicitly not saying so unless it's perhaps a charity. But everything is in a particular system that is growth-focused. And so, if those conversations might threaten growth, then the system itself can't tolerate them. And then I think it gets in this tension because it's like we have to talk about these issues, but we don't want to talk about them so much that it actually affects our bottom line. So that means that it's like a family system where something just cannot be discussed. And so it's very, very tricky. Some workplaces do it better than others, definitely, and some teams do it better than others. But there is a philosopher called C Thi Nguyen. (I hope I pronounced his name right. I had to read it when I did the audiobook for the Bigger Picture. I quoted him a few times, and we kept having to stop, and I kept having to ask the engineer to read it back to me, playing the YouTube pronunciation many times!) But he's brilliant, and he's written a book called Agency as Art, I believe it's called. It's about games. And his idea is that games are an art form where we get to practise different types of agency. Whereas painting, we get to play with sight, and music, we get to play with sound. Games are like, who do you want to pretend to be, basically? And he points out that with different games… he sees social media as basically a kind of game, Twitter is a game… it's like you win by getting likes or retweets, and you do that by saying the things that are controversial or things that your audience like, so you just get trapped in. So basically, he calls that value capture. So, the values of the game you're playing, like the values of your company or whatever it might be, capture your own individual values. And so, you might have an individual value in a workplace, for example, if I really want to have a really honest, uncomfortable conversation about equity and inclusion, and I want to be able to do that completely unfettered in a way that could really have a big impact on perhaps what we do as a company right now. You might have that value, but the value of the system and of the company is like, no, we're going to keep selling widgets and digits, and we recognise that, yes, part of the game has now become, we have to have these conversations. But the values of the company will capture your values because you are just one person, and you're an individual. So that makes it very, very difficult to enact change in any system. It could be a family, but it's even harder with an embedded institution like a company. And I see people coming up against that. All of us come up against that tension. Academics have it with publisher perish. You, as an academic, might want to spend five years deeply diving into something, but what the system is asking you to do is publish as much as possible, as frequently as possible. And that's how you get status, and that's how the institution gets status and gets more funding. So, you then have this pressure captured by the system, and that happens to all of us. Perhaps one of the biggest problems that we face right now, and perhaps always.
KC: And the bigger the system, the slower the change. I often talk about this. I've worked with couples, but I work mostly with teams now, and couples are like dinghies; they do move pretty fast, whereas a team is more like a cruise liner. It takes longer to turn. And so that is something I think we're working against. It's that tension. We are very fast. Our pace is moving quicker and quicker, and so I don't know how our stories can hold that, that need to go slow in order to really enact change.
AB: Yeah, it's a lovely metaphor. I love that. The cruise ship and the dinghy, or the big ship and the dinghy. I've also just remembered why I brought up Woodstock 99. That is related to the game part. (It's a shout-out, a call-back!) Watching that, which is obviously 1999, part of what they talk about in the documentary is the social beliefs and the misogyny that was just normal at that time. So, there was a lot of sexual assault, a lot of groping, and there were very American frat boy vibes. And that was the year American Pie came out. I was like 13 at the time in 1999, and when I was watching, I was like, oh, my God. These are the kind of values that I was picking up as a teenager. And the world has changed for the better since then. And that's a really short amount of time. Right? Certainly, there's still lots, lots more work to be done. For example, equity and gender, but compared to 1999, where this kind of rapid misogyny was just like, “Oh, yeah, what a dude.” It's really, really different. And so I remember being struck by, oh, stuff does change on a social level. A positive aspect of social media is how rapidly things change, and it's chaotic and mad, but perhaps there's a kind of supercharged order to it as well. It's an evolutionary process. But equally, some things, I think, do have to change slowly, and we do find it really, really difficult to do that because, well, I mean, it's competition, right? So, one organisation or group might want to have that real slow change, but then their competitors are going to sacrifice that depth for speed. And so, then you're in this multipolar trap where you either have to lose and get out of the game, or you have to play the game. Unless people can start showing that a slow, deliberate kind of process is valuable, which it is, for sure. It makes people more resilient. But maybe it's partly just a mindset shift of timescales as well.
KC: Because there's just a lot of broad-brush stroke storytelling around, particularly some of these bigger issues. And one of my clients mentioned his company gave every woman in the company a pay rise, and some of the women were like, well, “Michelle definitely doesn't deserve a pay rise; she's rubbish”. And going back to that term window dressing, it's lazy storytelling. It's not really dealing with it.
AB: How is that even legal? I mean, that's mad. I love how blasé and insensitive that is. It's mad. It's like, “Oh, here's an issue. No time. Not going to actually get into the concern; just make it go away.” Yeah. Wow.
KC: And we want to appeal to people to pretend like we're actually doing something because we want to create that retention, but we're not really going to do the thing. And I think many of us are at fault in that we're not willing to do the work. We just do the surface-level stuff, and we show it on our Instagram or whatever and I wonder how we get that depth into ourselves through our stories again.
AB: Yeah, well, I mean, one of the things I am interested in and talk about in the book is the need for understanding the difference between something that's complex and something that's complicated. Daniel Schmachtenberger is a mathematician and systems theorist. He has talked about this quite a lot. And a big part of the issue when we're trying to change things anywhere is that we confuse complex problems with complicated problems. So, a complicated system is like a car engine where everything is connected to each other. It doesn't interact with anything around it. It's wrapped up in a hood, and if something goes wrong, you just have to figure out which bit went wrong. So this company, in the example you gave, they were looking at the problem as a complicated problem. They were like, “Oh, what's wrong? Women don't earn as much money as men for doing the same job. Okay, well, we'll just give all the women more money. That should solve the problem.” But actually, they're dealing with a complex system, and the complex system has many different individual parts that interact but then create something more than the sum of its parts and also is constantly shifting and changing. So actually, there's so much depth and movement and change in those bigger questions, like equity questions, and there are so many moving parts that, in a way, if we can embody complexity, then we're much better positioned to start solving those complex problems and interact with them in a really different way. And storytelling-wise, I think that also means telling stories that honour complexity. And often, like a lot of good stories do, there's no good guy or bad guy. Someone's motivations are complex. Where they're coming from, you have these real characters, and the way the story moves isn't a linear kind of progression. It's got a direction; it's fluid and shifting, and that feels real and authentic.
KC: Yeah. I mean, I crave that kind of storytelling. I think we need more of it, but also for paradox, like the fact there's not a right or wrong or good or bad, and I think we've got too much of that. In terms of complex stories. What are you most interested in right now? What are you curious about?
AB: Well, I'm watching Succession at the moment, which I think is really great.
KC: How is it? Everyone's told me I need to watch it, so I’m curious.
AB: Until about a month ago, I had only watched a few episodes, and I caught up on it, and I'm writing a piece on it, so I really delved in. It’s very, very good. And I think it has that complexity to it, which is one of the reasons I think it's been so successful. And what else? Just on a personal level, I'm really interested in creative nonfiction. Basically, trying to really explain- not explain complexity, but it hasn't really been possible to do- but trying to, let's say, honour a complexity and trying and find different ways of going as deep as possible into particular topics and trying to find new ways to see them while at the same time keeping it accessible and interesting. And trying to hone that craft more and more. That, for me, is a lot of fun and something that I find personally, professionally, deeply meaningful. I've sort of become, I guess, an accidental essay writer, an essayist, when I was writing novels- or trying to write novels- for a long time. And so, I'm embracing that more and more, and now I'm really fascinated about, okay, well, that as an art form rather than just a way of explaining ideas, where could I, or anyone else who's writing essays, really push the medium? I've tried new ways so that really excites me as well.
KC: Well, thank you so much for this glorious conversation today, Ali. It's fascinating. Thank you again.
There are many things that could go wrong. But I don’t believe that means we necessarily should know about all these potential issues. Just in case.
I must admit that being a complete beginner has been a blessing up until now, as I don’t know what I don’t know. (A friend, on the other hand, who specialises in paediatrics, was worried sick at every stage of her pregnancy because, to use her words, “I know too much.”) After spending most of my life trying- and sometimes pretending- to be an expert, there’s a great relief in not having to know. Instead, I figure if and when things show up, I will learn and work it out along the way. As one twin specialist shared with us, “If it’s your first and it’s twins, then you’re lucky; ignorance really is bliss!”
Comparison vs Trusting the Gut
I also appreciated the space to ask questions without finding answers immediately. Our phones give us access to so much information, often at the expense of our own wisdom. We seek to understand through other people's experiences or from the advice of experts- neither of which is wrong- but when they become primary, can cause us to ignore the signals from within. So, throughout my first trimester, I have restricted my 'Google time', and often it would be something Dan and I would do together. This was essential for preventing information overload and the wormhole effect, where you suddenly realise you've lost 30 minutes on a Sunday scrolling on Mumsnet!
One area where I haven't been so positive relates to my changing body. I tried to stay upbeat and optimistic, but I couldn't help worrying about my expanding waistline: why was I gaining weight faster than expected at this stage? By week 10, my belly had 'popped', and I traded my skinny jeans for leggings. On several occasions, the thought slipped into my mind: what if I'm having twins? But I quickly pushed it to the side, knowing that it was unlikely without any twins on either side of our family.
As I reflect on those early days of pregnancy, I wonder whether, on some subconscious level, I already knew I was growing two little people inside me. That knowing voice was there but was often drowned out by my brain’s comparisons to the experiences of others. So, as we begin to share our news (from around 13 weeks) and meet the team of twin specialists who will be looking after us, I hope I can also stay connected to my gut instinct. That quiet little voice inside of me that can ground and guide me, particularly when navigating considerable change.
Life is a dance
Let me explain a little bit about where our headspace was around having kids. Whilst we loved the idea of growing our family, Dan and I have, for many years, felt like a complete family, just as the two of us. There wasn't anything missing or in need. We've been together for over a decade and love the life we're building. And having kids- if the option was on the cards for us- felt like an incredible adventure, but not the only path in front of us. So, from about July last year, we decided to give it a go without too many expectations.
This somewhat stoic approach to having children was additionally stimulated after receiving a PCOS diagnosis, which was causing me to have very irregular or non-existent cycles. So, whilst not impossible, kids didn’t necessarily feel like a sure-fire thing. During this time, we switched our story (which was really just for us) from "we want a child" to "we're open to receiving the gift of a child" (kudos to coach Henk Doller for the inspiration).This felt like a more accepting way of leaning into the ambiguity surrounding a decision like this. It also helped us to balance our dreams with uncertainty: life is a dance, and we're not always the ones leading. Sometimes life has other plans in store...
Fast forward to 4th April 2023. It's the morning of our ultrasound, and the thought popped into my head again: what if we're having twins? But once again, the idea quickly drifted away. Lying on the hospital bed, the sonographer asks: "Have you got a history of multiples in your family?" After responding, "No", I turned to Dan and said, "Oh my god, just imagine if we're having triplets!?" and then laughed to cover up my nerves. (I've watched 'This is Us’ and raising 3 little people does not look like a walk in the park!) So, a moment later, when the screen is turned around and the sonographer explains that we're having twins, I felt a rush of excitement (and also relief that it's not 3!!) In 6 months, the two of us will become a four. Almost automatically, we both teared up, amazed at the two tiny heartbeats that flickered on the screen. Welcome to this world, little ones.
Sometimes the best things in life are unexpected surprises
If I'm candid, I'm surprised that my first reaction was pure excitement, as opposed to fear or overwhelm, both of which are very normal and expected when receiving the news that you're now expecting two children, not just one! (When we met our twin specialist midwife, she remarked that “It’s nice to see you’re smiling, it’s not always the case!”) I say this because I run my own business, and I love what I do, and the thought of one child and what pregnancy and beyond might look like for my work has concerned me a little bit. Dan is fantastic at reigning me back to a one-step-at-a-time mindset, but still, the thoughts have crept in. Should I book a colleague to run my overseas workshops? When will I have to taper off my in-person work? When is going back to work realistic? Yet, for some reason, the idea of twins felt so right. I love the magic of the universe sometimes. It gives you the gifts you didn't even realise you needed. And this, more than anything else, felt like one of those moments. As Arianna Huffington said: “Life is a dance between making it happen and letting it happen”.
It makes me think of another example where life threw us a surprise curve ball. In June 2021, Dan and I were living in Charlotte, North Carolina. We'd been there for 3 years and felt a sense of home and community. We'd just signed another year-long lease on our apartment and were looking forward to trips with friends over the coming months. So, when we received the news that our visa had been unexpectedly rejected and we had 30 days to leave the country, we were stunned. Initially, we fell into a spiral of panic and problem-solving.
Thankfully, a retreat to the mountains provided us with perspective and helped us appreciate that leaving somewhere you love is always going to be hard, whether it’s now or in 2-years' time (as we had originally planned). So, in many ways, the situation made the decision for us. It was a curve ball. It wasn't what we expected. But it was also an offer. And instead of fighting and pushing back against the decision, we danced with it. We left the USA by the end of July and returned to London. 20 months on, and I'm happy to report that we think of it as one of the best things that has ever happened to us. Whilst we adored our time in Charlotte and try to return every year, we have appreciated living closer to our families and being home for important milestones like weddings, babies, and big birthdays.
Many things in life are out of our control- like the Covid-19 pandemic, having your visa rejected, or getting pregnant (with one baby or two!) I believe curveballs are life's way of keeping us on our toes. And often, these moments can be the most excellent teachers we didn't even know we needed. Now, of course, the curveball of having twins has been the most wonderful surprise. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy. But if my circumstances were different (for example, if I was dealing with relationship, financial or emotional challenges), embracing this new narrative with open arms might not have been so easy. So, I want to acknowledge both the gift and challenge in curveballs. They come into our life- often unexpectedly- and it’s up to us to choose what to do with them. To quote Pema Chödrön: “What we call obstacles are really the way the world and our entire experience teach us where we’re stuck.”
Just enjoy the show
At this moment, I’m anticipating sharing the news. We both have parents who have been dreaming up the grandparent stage for some time, so we can’t wait to drop the bombshell that two grandchildren are on the way! That said, I’m mindful of letting the wider world in. This place we are in right now feels sacred. It’s a private bubble that has allowed us to percolate and dream into these changes together. And whilst I will- I know- welcome the advice and expertise of others, I don’t want to lose the way we’ve been able to design how we want this to look, without boundaries or borders set by other people’s experiences or expectations. I also want to keep listening to my body's signals and trusting my narrative- my version of events- instead of the stories others might assume or put on me.
So, Twin A and Twin B (as you've been named by the hospital), I know there's a lot of change to come. I'm likely to get big. And I will have to manage some of my prenatal and post-natal expectations. But that's okay. Because this is what life is about. We don't get a rehearsal. This is the show. And whilst I'd be lying if I told you that I haven't thought about the cost of buying two of everything (!) or wondered how twin pushchairs ever get through doorways, my overriding emotion is excitement. That was my first instinct. And that is the emotion I want to continue to guide me until we meet.
As the company explains in a video discussing the power of a Both/And mindset:
"Polarities are seemingly opposite states that must co-exist over time if we are to be successful. They require a Both/And mindset, because leaning too heavily in one direction or the other will likely lead us into trouble."
Both/And is an integrated approach that allows us to zoom out and hold all qualities- even the so-called 'negative ones' - more neutrally. From this perspective, it's less about right or wrong, but rather, what does this situation call for? When we can value all qualities- even the ones we have marginalised within ourselves- we find great opportunities to stretch our leadership range.
The Best of Both
In my own life, this approach has helped me to lean into parts of myself that I had previously marginalised. Fearful of being labelled bossy, I have spent much of my adult life defaulting to friendliness. This wasn't an intentional choice but rather an unconscious reaction to some early life experiences. I was confident as a young child and was often called bossy by teachers and other kids. This culminated in me playing the lead in the aptly named school Christmas production, 'The Bossy Christmas Fairy'. That role- more than anything else- cemented my status as bossy throughout primary school.
So, as I moved into secondary school and into the awkward teenage years, I came to over-rely on friendliness. I wasn't even aware of this pattern until my early 20s when an acting coach asked me why I was smiling in a scene where my Grandma had just died. This feedback absolutely dumbstruck me because I hadn't even realised I was smiling (!) It was just my default facial expression by that point.
This is not unique to me. Numerous women have reported being labelled ‘bossy’ or ‘feisty’ whilst their male counterparts were called ‘assertive’ or ‘decisive.’ Data from The Centre for Creative Leadership backs this up, revealing that 33% of women and 17% of men reported receiving feedback that they're "bossy" at work. Yet, when leaders were asked to think about a colleague they considered bossy, they were equally likely to describe a man.Simply put, women were twice as likely to be branded bossy in the workplace, even though they're no bossier. Over time, this stigmatising can discourage girls and women from owning their authority in the workplace and seeking leadership positions.
So given the unflattering gender stereotyping, I moved away from categorising all forms of assertiveness and confidence as 'bossy.' Instead, I've been working towards bringing more rigour into my work. Because sometimes a smile just isn't going to cut it! This brings me back to my point about leadership range. Friendliness is an excellent quality. However, as with all of our default qualities, there's a danger that it will become over-relied upon. And different circumstances require different parts of our leadership range to show up. So I began experimenting with bringing more rigour to my leadership style (something I discuss in this article). Yet, all too soon, the opposite began to show up. I became hyper-critical when my friendly, pleasing side appeared when facilitating workshops. I stopped seeing this quality as an ally for positive communication.
Synthesise Polarities
This is why a Both/And mindset can be so helpful because it encourages us to honour both the primary quality (which in my case was friendliness) AND its opposite (which, for me, was rigour) and stops us from see-sawing from one extreme to the other. It's not an either/or approach; it's creating something new and embracing that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A hybrid quality that allows for the best of both to co-exist. In my case, the hybrid quality that has emerged out of this blended approach is 'easy command': it is a stance that helps me to celebrate strength and grace in my leadership.
So where might a Both/And mindset help you in your life? Take a moment to think about the following:
* What quality, however positive, do you overly upon?
* What is the opposite of this quality? How might it be useful?
* And how might you bring a blend of these qualities into your life?
if there is 'right' relationship, what does ‘wrong’ relationship look like?
"from the living room to the boardroom, we believe relationship matters."
Full disclosure, I am both a faculty member and host of the CRR Global podcast Relationship Matters. But I came to these positions because of a deep fascination with the work. My first course with CRR Global was a real 'red pill, blue pill' matrix moment; once I started seeing the world through the lens of relationship, I couldn't go back! I can personally testify to the fact that Right Relationship has completely transformed the way I live my life. It's a paradigm shift that continues to change how I interact with the world.
So, what even is 'Right' Relationship?
CRR Global defines Right Relationship as the following:
* According to what is correct for a particular relationship situation.
* The best or most suitable of several possible behaviours for a particular relationship event.
By this definition, there is no 'Right' Relationship. It is an ongoing enquiry that requires constant attention and discernment. I appreciate this interpretation as it keeps us on our toes. We never arrive at Right Relationship; it is a continual dance that requires intention and attention. What might feel like Right Relationship in one moment might look completely different in the next.
For example, Right Relationship with your work when on a family holiday might mean switching off your work phone and requesting that your team reach out on your personal phone if something urgent arises. Doing this prevents you from regularly checking your e-mails and bringing unnecessary work stress to the beach! A beneficial and healthy strategy if you struggle to disconnect. However, as the director of a leadership development company, switching off entirely for a whole week isn't an option. While I value work-life balance and support a 4-day work week, I know that some responsibilities fall on my shoulders as the owner of a small, busy business. So at the moment, when I am on holiday, I will ring-fence a particular time of day to check my e-mails and will only respond to urgent messages. This is what Right Relationship looks like for me right now. But, like the weather, it's continually changing.
A constant state of emergence
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus declared, "The only constant in life is change." Yet here we are 2,500 years on, trying to pinpoint what Right Relationship might look like. We do this in many ways using different terminology: What's the secret to a strong relationship? What does a healthy work/life balance look like? What are the critical ingredients for a happy life? We can think of all of these enquiries as matters of Right Relationship. Everything in life is a relationship, whether that be with another person, project, place or power. To quote Carlo Rovelli, author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics:
"The world seems to be less about objects than about interactive relationships."
We can use the principle of relationship to understand how we interact with the world. And whilst the principle of relationship might seem more obvious to apply to people, like your relationship with your father, it can also provide great insight for inanimate things, like your relationship with money. What does Right Relationship with money look like for me? Whilst the enquiry doesn't lead to a definitive answer, the act of asking raises our awareness of the relationship. When we see the relationship, we are forced to acknowledge our agency in the interdependent nature of all things.
Conversations on Cancer
Right Relationship can also offer us a gateway to exploring challenging situations like divorce, illness or even death. In 2021, Faith Fuller was diagnosed with stage four uterine cancer. I began conversing with Faith about what she was learning after such a life-shaking diagnosis. This quickly became a podcast series on Conversations on Cancer: Finding Right Relationship with Life-Threatening Illness. Across the mini-series, we interviewed cancer patients and their caretakers about what Right Relationship looked like for them after being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Topics included: Right Relationship with the body during the journey of Cancer & Right Relationship with Prostate Cancer & Male Identity. Speaking on Right Relationship with Death in Episode 3, Sally Waters shared the following: "Maybe I'll just say yes, just go ahead and die, because even though I have little kids, I was so… I didn't do menopause well. I thought, well, maybe I can do death well. You know, I can be this gorgeous earth mother, and yeah, that would have been really cool. […] I don't remember my birth, but I think I slipped in very easily, and I hope I slip out with grace." Sally slipped away peacefully earlier this year.
These conversations on cancer weren’t about treatment plans, symptoms, or side effects. Instead, they focused on how people related to challenging diagnoses; the illness offered them a mirror that reflected parts of themselves that weren’t always comfortable or easy to see. Yet, without the mirror of cancer, they wouldn’t be who they were at that moment. Interestingly, every guest, in their own words, shared that whilst they wouldn’t wish their diagnosis on anyone, they wouldn’t undo that chapter in their life. Their relationship with cancer profoundly impacted their whole experience of life.
The journey is the destination
So, what does Right Relationship mean? By simply asking the question, we shine a light on the relationship, which does something. It feels similar to a gratitude practice. Even if you can't immediately think of anything, the simple act of looking for something to be grateful for boosts the feel-good chemistry in the brain. I wonder if looking for Right Relationship is similar in that it is both the journey and the destination. A question that refreshes presence and intention and helps us to look deep within ourselves, not so much for answers, but a moment-to-moment truth.
So, where are you challenged right now? Perhaps you're struggling to finish a writing project, feeling stressed with work, arguing with your partner, or facing illness. Try exploring the challenge through the lens of relationship and see what insight it provides. What might Right Relationship with [fill in the blank] look like for you?
"At one level, there's this silence that's the absence of noise. It's the space where nothing is making claims on our consciousness. But then there's also this deeper level of silence which is not just the absence of noise, in our view, but also this presence unto itself. And it's not something we can easily define for you […] because it's subjective. It's something that each of us knows and can explore in our lives, but we can say that this silence as a presence is a place of humility. It's a place of not having to know the answers, of not having to know what to say, of not having to show up in just the right way; it's a place of expansion and rest and renewal."
When I tune into an internal silence that, as Marz and Zorn describe, is not just the absence of noise but the presence of something else, I find I can return to myself. From this presence, I feel more at peace in myself and more available for the people in my life.
So, after a big delivery, I will try to take time off the next day. If that's not feasible, I will aim to go for a long walk, preferably through nature. This might seem indulgent, but I know from experience that I am a much better partner/friend/coach when I've taken the space to check in with myself. It appears that listening to oneself is critical in listening deeply to others.
Transparency around capacity
When I've been working away, the first evening at home is not the best time to have a DMC (deep, meaningful conversation)! Whilst I can avoid scheduling dinners with friends during these times, there are relationships in my life that require regular tending to. So how can we balance a need for "me" time alongside these primary relationships? We can start by acknowledging our needs and capacity.
Take, for example, my wonderfully supportive family. They love hearing about my business successes and are keen to learn how an event or keynote went. I used to download everything straight after an event before I'd even taken a moment to stop and reflect. I'd come away from these calls feeling more drained and disconnected.
Now, I will ring-fence time to connect a few days later. I might text my family to say, "Everything went well. Looking forward to telling you all about it in a few days." And if they do proceed to call me (out of much love and enthusiasm), I might say something like: "Thanks so much for calling. It went well, and we received some useful feedback. I'm not quite in the headspace to talk about it all yet, and I'd love to share more in the coming days." A statement like this acknowledges the other person's interest and enthusiasm while accommodating your need for quiet time (or a Netflix binge!) Of course, this only works if the conversation is one-sided. If the other person has lots to share about their week, you may need to consider creating a time box…
Time Boxing
A time box is a simple approach that limits listening time. By confining a specific topic to 5 or 10 minutes, you can honour your own or someone else's capacity to listen at that moment. And it can actually improve the quality of the listening that occurs.
Returning to the argument I had with Dan. If I were to a re-do, I would hope the conversation would go more like this:
Me: Hey, how was your day?
Dan: Busy. I had a lot of back-to-back calls in the afternoon.
Me: Oh, back-to-backs are the worst! When are you expected to eat? Pee?
[Laughs]
Me: I have some work news I'd like to share, and I'd like to know if now is a good time?
Dan: I'd love to hear about it, and I'm mindful I'm pretty frazzled from today. Could we timebox it for 10 minutes?
Me: Absolutely, I'll give you the headlines now, and then maybe you can help me brainstorm over the weekend.
Time boxing is an effective strategy for two reasons. Firstly, it creates clarity around when we should be actively listening. Sometimes it's hard to know how long we're supposed to be listening for. Is it for the whole meal? The whole day? This lack of clarity can lead to half-assed listening, where we nod to our partner while simultaneously checking BBC Sport (naming no names!)
Secondly, timeboxing is a helpful strategy for creating boundaries around specific topics. For example, "Let's set aside 15 minutes to discuss some of the challenges we're having with our landlord this week." This is a real example from my life; if left uncontained, it's something I could effortlessly rant about for an hour. Timeboxing creates an outlet with borders to contain the conversation.
Another excellent place for timeboxing is when discussing topics you've been avoiding or don't enjoy discussing. When we know there's a finite amount of time, perhaps dictated by an alarm on someone's phone, we don't have to feel intimidated about tackling a subject. Because we know that we will eventually come up for air when the alarm rings!
Put a pin in it
Finally, don't be afraid to put a pin in it. If you or your partner don't have the capacity to listen, then placing a pin in a conversation can be a very effective strategy. However, this does not mean putting a pin in the conversation and forgetting about it. It's an active strategy for postponing a discussion that wants/needs to happen.
Doctors John and Julie Gottman have been studying couples for 50 years at their research centre, "The Love Lab." In their studies on newlyweds, which followed couples after getting married and then six years later, they followed up with the couples and discovered that many stayed together and many divorced. The couples that stayed married were much better at one thing: they turned towards each other in their relationships. The research found that after six years, the couples that stayed married turned towards each other on average 86% of the time, whereas couples that divorced averaged 33% of the time.
Putting a pin in a conversation isn't turning away; it's not what the Gottman's describe as stonewalling, one of the four toxic relationship behaviour patterns (along with blaming, defensiveness, and contempt.) Stonewalling is shutting down and, in many ways, is the opposite of turning towards in relationship. But it is a protective mechanism that shows up when we feel overwhelmed or psychologically flooded. Stonewalling can show up in a variety of ways. We might walk away, disengage from the conversation or zone out entirely by scrolling on our phones or ignoring the other person. Or we might say: "Can we talk about this later?" and never do. These behaviours build a wall between you and the other person.
Putting a pin in it is an example of turning towards in relationship because it expresses the needs of both sides. For example, "I know you want to share your work news, and I'm excited to hear about it, and right now, my brain is exhausted. Could we put a pin in this for tomorrow morning and grab a coffee together on the way to the train station?" Something like this honours the relationship by acknowledging the needs of both parties. It is a turn towards the relationship because it embraces an attitude of "yes and": "I want to listen, AND would tomorrow lunchtime work?" The key is to ensure a clear desire to reschedule and an effort to remember it. Otherwise, we can quickly forget about those pins!
Turning Towards in Relationship
When we talk about relationships, we often focus on the other person or people, yet we are also a part of that dynamic. So, to properly honour the relationship, we must also acknowledge and care for our needs. By owning what we require through clear communication, we can become better listeners, sometimes by not listening at all! Turning towards in relationship also means turning towards ourselves. So that we can better listen, understand and, as a result, be more transparent and present with the people in our lives.
