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Archives for April 2018

Playful Conflict

April 28, 2018 By Julia Menard Leave a Comment

 

“Life without play is a grinding, mechanical existence organized around doing the things necessary for survival. Play is the stick that stirs the drink. It is the basis of all art, games, books, sports, movies, fashion, fun, and wonder—in short, the basis of what we think of as civilization. Play is the vital essence of life. It is what makes life lively.”   …. Stuart Brown

Over the years, I’ve noticed my mediation practice become, well, more playful.  For those of you who don’t know what mediation is, it is when someone steps in to help others stuck in their differences become unstuck. The ingredients for how a mediation works can apply to anyone sitting down with another person to have a difficult conversation.

Being playful in a conflicted context is a challenge, given that the work is shifting from a place of anger, shut down and hatred to a place of willingness, openness and, ultimately, curiosity.  However, playfulness seems an important part of setting the container for creating a new way of being together.

Playfulness can start before entering the conversation.  Set the intention to hold things lightly.  I first heard this quote decades ago and it can apply to our difficult conversations: “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”  G.K. Chesterton.  Don’t enter the conversation expecting it to go badly or to be negative.  Enter with a light heart and a hope that things can be different.

In my mediation context, I then set the stage for there to be lightness.  I will bring chocolate to a mediation, perhaps candies, tea, tea cups, a kettle, sometimes a sponge brain and some rocks to hold.  These props are there to say:  “relax”  “it won’t be so bad”  “perhaps there is normalcy here.”

What we know about the brain these days, and presumably from our own experience, is that when we are relaxed, we can access more aspects of our brain and be more resourced for problem-solving.  So, coming to, and staying in, a playful state becomes a crucial step and skill-set for conflict engagement.

My colleagues who created Mediator in a Box have also spoken to me about how they designed the feel of play into their Box.  They chose colours and images that they wanted to convey a lightness of play.

In Stuart Brown’s science-based book: Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, he calls play: “the single most significant factor in determining our success and happiness.” He posits that play is a lifelong biological necessity to keep our brains and spirits engaged and our relationships vital.  Most important for conflict, he outlines how play juices our problem-solving abilities.

Throughout my mediations, if there are opportunities to make a light comment or even a pun, I will.  This approach is obviously fraught with danger and risk in offending others.  People expect difficult conversations to be “serious.”   There are definitely serious moments, tough moments – sometimes angry moments or sad moments.  There is room for it all.

Can we make our context or container for our difficult conversations, one of play? Is there a way for you to bring more play into your difficult conversations?

The Power of Calm Energy

April 28, 2018 By Julia Menard Leave a Comment

“Remain calm, serene, always in command of yourself. You will then find out how easy it is to get along”  …  Paramahansa Yogananda

There’s a youtube clip going around of the African trail guide, Alan McSmith, remaining calm while an elephant charges at him.

Although as a experienced guide McSmith would be familiar with the signs about whether the elephant was aggressive or just threatening him, it is still a 15,000 pound animal coming at you.  What is most noteworthy to me, is the way the guide stands there.  I can feel the calm, grounded energy as he stands in the face of the charge.

The video is worth a thousand words in terms of how to stay calm through tough situations. Of course, this principle applies to tough conversations. How to stay calm in the face of difficult conversations was the basis of the book Judy Zehr and I wrote on this very topic. What that capacity requires is a practice of calmness.  Do you move through your day with pauses to ensure you are calm or to bring yourself back to “yourself” if you are not calm?  Such a practice could be as simple as setting your timer five times a day to remind yourself to put both feet on the floor, one hand on your belly and breathe a few times consciously.

I have done such a practice for months at a time, and it makes a measurable difference to one’s capacity to remain calm when a crisis occurs.

I’d love to hear your tips about how to continue to remain calm in the face of difficult situations (and in particular, in the face of conflict).

Dream Our Story to Life

April 28, 2018 By Julia Menard 1 Comment

“The stories we tell literally make the world. If you want to change the world, you need to change your story. This truth applies both to individuals and institutions.” … Michael Margolis, Educator, Anthropologist.

I met someone at a networking function recently who was telling me about a tribe she is familiar with in the Amazon, the Achuar people.  The Achuar believe you can dream your future to life. Furthermore, on a nightly basis during dreaming, they believe the soul departs the body and enters a multiverse where anything is possible and anything can be learned.

This idea of dreaming a new future is important in conflict too.  As humans, we are storytellers and the stories we tell have a role in dreaming our future into being as well.

I saw this illustrated myself in a Theatre for Living play I saw a few months ago on reconciliation called Home.  In the play, audience members are asked to come up to re-enact certain scenes on stage.  The audience member would choose one character from the scene to portray, and the rest of the actors in the scene remain on stage.  The audience member would try something new – they would attempt to tell a new story.

An affecting scene I remember was about a mom apologizing to her son for something she had done.  In the re-enactment, the audience member chose to be the “mom” and redid the scene.  In the debrief afterward, the audience member said she realized when she was in the middle of the re-enactment, that she was living in a different re-enactment.  She realized she was recalling an apology scene she had witnessed her grandmother delivering to her own mother on her mother’s deathbed.  In playing the role of a mother apologizing that night on stage, the audience member was living in her grandmother’s story – her grandmother’s apology.

Such is the power of dreaming a new future and the power, at times, of the past showing up as our present.  We are living in our stories about ourselves, and the stories we make up about each other.

What stories are you stuck in and how can you dream a new future?

If you have an interest in the Achuar, check out this article (thank you Andrea Langlois).

Free Conflict Tips Here!

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