Resources

Fear loves stories; it thrives on them. The more fearful the stories you can tell, the more your fears grow. Stories expand your fear, and they distract you from the feeling, disconnecting the thought about the story from the emotion it triggers. You tell yourself this discomfort you’re feeling has nothing to do with the fear you are experiencing, as long as you tell the right stories. I have many stories around my fear of water. I tell myself it's not really fear, because I know how to float and can move myself with basic strokes. But the truth is, even if I'm maneuvering in water, I'm experiencing stress. I'm not able to relax in the water. I feel fear.

“It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a facade of order - and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks an even eerier type of order.” The Butterfly Effect is one signature of a system in chaos. This chaos isn’t your garden variety chaos, and you won’t find this butterfly in your garden, either. I feel some urgency to clarify these distinctions when I watch the chaos that lies behind the façade of order, and the order in the chaos, of this election season in the US. I think it might help us to see the patterns of our “civil” society, to understand those patterns for what they are, and to take action to create the ones we want to create and to leave to our children.

Have you ever sat in a meeting that you knew was going nowhere? The conversation continued to swirl around questions no one in the room could answer. You all bemoaned the uncertainty of it all. Or you were convinced that this time, one more conversation would get the answers you knew were out there. Or you were just stuck and didn’t know what to do, other than explore the question again. At best those conversations are frustrating. Often the unanswered questions just suck your energy and leave you tired and defeated. At worst, they are dangerous. They can trigger desperation that leaves you open to magical thinking.

Dealing with a performance issue is a bit like dealing with a hip injury: it can feel like a real pain in the gluteus maximus. It can also change your perspective on managing people, particularly when you ask the question, “Am I dealing with a problem or a pattern?” One of my clients—let’s call him Bob—met with me to talk about a performance problem he faced. He called it a “problem employee.” This employee was behind on work assignments, increasingly absent, and causing frustration within the team.

At times, it seems like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together. Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates too quickly into dehumanization.

Not too long ago, I was disgruntled with the company that does some work around our house. From my perspective, they had not lived up to their promises, and as a customer I was not happy. Then when I tried to talk with them about the difference between what I expected and what I believed I was getting, they did not respond as I wanted them to.

We all deal with conflict, whether we like it or not. There are many ways to work through a difficult conversation, or find a settlement in negotiation. Some outcomes are more sustainable and satisfactory than others. The difference is in how you approach each conversation, and how you present yourself and the situation to others involved.