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Archives for November 2017

Let Grief Surprise You!

November 3, 2017 By Julia Menard Leave a Comment

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“In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: “When did you stop dancing?  When did you stop singing?  When did you stop being enchanted by stories?  When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?”  … Angeles Arrien

This weekend, I went through an incredibly healing grief ritual over two days, involving singing, dancing, telling stories and silence – with 18 other brave souls, led by Laurence Cole.  Together, we dived deep into our individual, collective and ancestral pain and it was our imperfect offering.  As Leonard Cohen sings: “There is a crack, a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.”

That’s a fitting explanation for grief.

For most of us, grief is a contained activity, to be “done” when it is “time.”  The time is often when someone close to us dies.   We “do” grief:  we go to the funeral, we visit the grave, perhaps probate a will  – but then we get back to living.

This weekend I learned more about the complex nature of grief. I learned that grief is a process waiting to unfold its gifts to us, in response to our attention to it.   This weekend’s focus for me, wasn’t to grieve for someone who had already passed.  I was thinking about my mother, who is still alive but suffering from dementia.  She is here, but yet she is not here.  I began the weekend with holding her in my mind – but near the end of the weekend, grief snuck up on me in a surprising way.

I found myself thinking about her father, my grandfather.  I never even met my grandfather – so how could I have feelings of grief for him?  He died decades before I was even born.  The little I know of him is that he was killed during World War Two in the Ukraine. His wartime killing is the reason my mother had to flee her country and come to Canada.  He is the reason, at least indirectly, that my country is Canada.

This weekend, in the comfort of a community gathered to support each other’s grief, I landed in my grandfather’s territory.  I landed in the forest, where I’ve been told my grandfather died, pitchforked to death and never to be seen again.

To actually find myself able to imagine and feel his fear and to feel his sorrow and his confusion leaving this world and his five children and wife behind, is almost unbearable to feel.

But in the comfort of these other brave, grieving souls, in the comfort of a community gathering with the intention of doing “grief work” – I could touch that grief.  It was hard work.  Messy work.  But through me courses my grandfather’s veins, through me courses his gift of life.  What better tribute than to carry his pain for a small while in the desire to honour him, and thank him for my life.  For my mother’s life.  For his bravery in not running away when he first heard his life might be in danger.  He stayed.  An honourable man.

To hold these stories in my heart and to feel these stories of a people I never met is a gift.  It’s a gift to me and to their memory.

This is the darkest time of year, each day darker than the next until December 21.  Now is the time to open up our hearts and feel these loved ones.  Their stories and their memories are calling to us to be felt, to be expressed, to be shared.

What are those ancestral stories you carry with sorrow and want to speak of, dance of, sing of, sit in silence with?

Frances Weller speaks of the Gift of Grief.  He quotes William Blake in this video when he says: “The deeper the sorrow, the greater the joy.”

How Can Optimism and Realism Help You?

November 3, 2017 By Julia Menard 2 Comments

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“Never give in. Never give in.  Never, never, never. In nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”  …Winston Churchill

I had the opportunity recently to speak with Bernie Mayer. Mayer is a Professor of Dispute Resolution at Creighton University, an author of multiple books and a leader in the field of conflict engagement.

In the course of our conversation, I mentioned my ongoing struggle with the tremendous environmental challenges facing our species at this time: overpopulation, climate change, the sixth extinction.  He spoke eloquently about a concept that helped me greatly as he spoke about it.  I’ve outline it below – it’s from his latest book The Conflict Paradox, Seven Dilemmas at the Core of Disputes.

In response to my hand-wringing, he spoke about one of the paradoxes he outlines in his book: the paradox of Optimism and Realism.  He talked about how if you are solely “optimistic” in the face of suffering, you are not credible. If you are realistic, you can be paralyzed into inaction by your own hopelessness.  The hopelessness, he says, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Optimism gives us the strength to believe that we can do something – that we can and should take action, because our efforts matter. Realism allows us to face the “brutal facts” such that we take all the information into account as we move forward.  These are “co-dependent” variables – not extremes on an axis.

This also reminded me of the Stockdale Paradox, named after Admiral Jim Stockdale, the highest ranking American military officer to be held as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. He was held for almost 8 years in horrendous conditions, full of torture both physical and mental.  When asked how he dealt with his imprisonment and bleak future, Stockdale replied:

“I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

When asked who didn’t make it out, Stockdale said:  “The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

He then said, “This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

Thank you Mayer for renewing my faith and for reminding me of another paradox I’d come across years before.  I hope you too find yourself replenished with this spirit of embracing what truly is – while holding a vision of a better tomorrow for all our children, grandchildren and seven generations forward.

Can you Hear the Pain Behind all Blame?

November 3, 2017 By Julia Menard 4 Comments

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“Blame is simply the discharging of discomfort and pain.” … Brene Brown

As a workplace mediator and leadership coach, I often hear a lot of blaming:
“It’s your fault that we didn’t do this.”
“It’s your fault because you did that.”
“It’s your fault we are in this mess!”

Blaming someone for our own pain is a natural thing to do.  It’s absolutely normal to blame when we are in conflict. Sometimes we blame others; other times we can blame ourselves.

Whether blaming someone else or blaming oneself for the current unattractive view, both of those stances serve an important purpose.  They stop the pain.  If I can believe it’s your fault (or my fault), then I have an explanation.  I can stop searching for what is going on here and put a lid on the whole thing.  If it’s your fault, or my fault, I can resign myself to no-action-required-from-me going forward.  Any action required, when I’m in blaming mode, is in someone else’s hands.  If I blame you, then you are the one that has to do something differently, not me.  So I can almost relax – this is your problem now, not mine.  All I need to do is monitor you – you need to change and I am going to wait to see when you will change.

Are you changing yet?

Conversely, if I am blaming myself in a conflict dynamic, I still can resign myself to no-action-required-from-me-going-forward because blame is not the same as taking responsibility.  Blame is linked to shame.  If I blame myself, I am going to feel ashamed of myself.  Shame is crippling.  Shame is not empowering.  Shame stops me from standing in my power and taking charge. Shame stops me from looking at my part and making choices about what I want to change.  Blaming myself keeps me frozen.

There is also a symbiotic relationship with blame.  If I blame you for my pain, there is a chance you might blame yourself too.  If you blame yourself for my pain, then everyone is frozen.  The blamer is waiting for the “evil one” to change and the “evil one” is waiting for the persecutor to leave.

No movement.  No one is changing in that dynamic!

Whether I blame myself or blame someone else – blame stops us from going forward.

Blame says: “This is the End of the story.”

Blame says:  “The conflict is due to you (or me).”

The thing is, in conflict, we need to keep going forward.  Conflict is no one person’s fault.  That’s much too simple of an explanation for conflict.  Conflict is a symptom.  It’s a symptom of complexity. It’s a symptom of a systems issue.  It’s a symptom of change required, for sure.  It’s just often not as easy as you change.

What I notice every time I work with parties to bring down the heat and move toward constructive dialogue, is that there is a lot going on.  Most recently, a few people who were stuck in blaming each other, stood back and realized their division had doubled in growth in just over a year.  They had multiple changes and chaos brewing and new needs emerging as a result of the rapid growth.  Everyone knew that was going on, but no one had linked it to the “interpersonal conflict.”  Up until I got involved, people were narrowly focused on blaming one person or the other.

After a conversational space for dialogue was opened up, parties started to make links to ongoing frustrations and factors that had led to their “blow out.”  Of course, having a “crunch” happen in the workplace is never wanted or warranted.  No one sets out in the morning to shout, slam a door, or cry.  These are often a result of a series of smaller incidents that had not been explored well.  The dynamic of blame can be laid over these factors early on, and can get fossilized.  Staying in blame almost predicts a crunch incident.

Some research indicates that we even process blame in a different part of our brains than we process positive comments.  When we see someone do something we believe is “bad” in some way, this perception goes through our amygdala – the alarm parts of our brain, whereas praise happens in the more logical areas of our brain.

This piece of research points to how to turn blame around – whether it’s us blaming others, others blaming us, or us blaming ourselves.  If our amygdala has been awakened, there are going to be alarm bells going off shouting:

“This situation is not safe.  Abort mission!  Run!  Fight!  Freeze!  Give in!”

To help shift the blame dynamic, let’s start with emotional triaging.  We need to acknowledge the pain under the blame.  If someone is blaming you, stop and acknowledge their pain. Speak to their amygdala.  Acknowledge their reality, especially the feelings they might be feeling and what they are wanting instead.

If you are blaming yourself, step back and acknowledge the pain you are feeling in that blame.  What are you feeling?  Sad? Mad? Afraid?  And why?  Just listen to yourself.  You want to be heard.

Listening is an underrated tool in conflict.  Truly listening – in a way that generates an experience of being understood, has the power to melt the hardest hearts.

Free Conflict Tips Here!

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