Category Archives: NaBloPoMo

Holding Strengths

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What’s already good? How can we protect and strengthen that?
What could be better? How will we make it so?

I centered NaBloPoMo 2023 on these questions and set all 30 prompts/topics in advance. The idea was to take an Appreciative Inquiry approach to habit change at both the personal and collective levels. I wanted to shift focus from threats, failures, deficiencies, and shadow to people, places, and practices that thrive, uplift, and inspire. How could this mindset help us all in our current state?

From the Center for Appreciative Inquiry:

WHAT IS APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY?
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an energizing and inclusive process that fosters creativity through the art of positive inquiry. It builds new skills in individuals and groups, develops new leaders, encourages a culture of inquiry, and helps create shared vision and purpose by building on an organization’s core values and strengths. Perhaps, most importantly, are the outcomes that emerge during the process which provoke action, inspire commitment, and lead to results.

WHY APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY WORKS
Building upon the framework of positive psychology and human sciences, Appreciative Inquiry builds self-awareness and emotional intelligence to shift our focus, attention, and energy into exploration into opportunities and possibilities. AI does not focus on changing people, rather it invites individuals to engage in building a future they want to live in.

Appreciative Inquiry’s assumption is simple: Every human system has something that works right–things that give it life when it is vital, effective, and successful.

What I like about this approach to problem solving is the concreteness. Asking what already works, what’s not wrong or broken, requires practical, operational answers. It forces us to think and talk objectively about what is, rather than cogitate, theorize, and catastrophize about what could be. It starts from a place of strength and looks to build; it’s about what we’re for more than and before what we are against, so we can dream and design what could be instead.

At first I imagine applying this method to policy and systems collaboration. That would be great, but I don’t see it happening; people are still too negative, polarized, and adversarial for that, at least on large scales. I bet there are small organizations and groups where this strengths based approach to change actually already happens. I’d love to see more of them highlighted in the media.

For now, I think some of us may be ready and willing to apply appreciative inquiry to our existing relationships. I imagine a Blue friend and a Red friend, both wishing to connect across their differences and get closer. Both harbor curiosity about the other, even if it’s repressed. Each senses an intuitive possibility for deeper connection, and also feels stymied at how to achieve it. What if they started by considering the strengths of their relationship? Maybe those include honesty, non-judgment, good humor, and shared experiences. What if they imagined and envisioned together what an even stronger friendship would look, sound, and feel like? I get goosebumps envisioning those conversations.

What other domains of relationship would benefit from this approach to disagreement, challenge, conflict, and growth? I can think of at least a few in my life–she writes sheepishly–hello, walk the talk much? How fascinating! And here I thought this post would be boring and bland–HA!

I Hold Strengths for Us tonight, my friends: Strengths in relationship, in connection, in bond and union. Our relationships save us. I am convicted to this assertion, and I firmly believe it’s our strong relationships, especially across difference and disagreement, that will save our republic.

Holding Honesty

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“If I’m honest…”

What comes after these words for you lately?
What do we lie to ourselves about?
What do we simply rationalize and believe, which is not exactly lying, but still not exactly honest?
Why is honesty so difficult?

“I’m not stressed.”
When Son was leaving for college, I probably would have said I was not stressed. He was prepared, an independent kid for years already. Everything went smoothly, and I was excited for him to start that big life adventure. I remember feeling 舍不得, ‘hate to part with’. Oh yes, lots of that. But it was muted, maybe? Because it never overwhelmed me and I honestly felt fine. Looking back now, however, I realized only recently and suddenly (like a bolt of lightening hit me) that my stress manifested in at least two ways that I absolutely did not recognize, one of which I had already known was a typical stress response for me.
How fascinating! I wonder what people around me observed at the time? I need to ask.

I think the vast majority of us are very honest. We try hard to always tell the truth. I also think there are multiple levels of honesty. Deeper layers of honesty touch values, beliefs, circumstances, and relationships that get complex, and often involve paradox. I’m so happy for Son to be grown and flown, and I’m so sad that he’s leaving home. I advocate for or reject this ideal or position, and I also see the value of an opposing view. This relationship serves and fulfills me in this way, and absolutely does not in other ways.

Denial. We judge it, yes? We think of it as something we should be able to recognize, reverse, and control. And yet it’s a natural response to stress, a self-protective reaction to the severe discomfort of dissonance. We unconsciously deny what we cannot consciously tolerate.

I stay in this relationship because…
I stay in this job because…
I voted this way because…

We rationalize our feelings and honestly believe our rationalizations.

We need to get better at tolerating the discomfort of reality–the reality that our own values and beliefs may sometimes clash with themselves because life and human relations are incredibly complex. Context matters. We can honestly hold certain beliefs and values and necessarily apply them differently in various conditions. This does not make us hypocrites, necessarily. The risk to our integrity and thus our relationships lies in the unwillingness to get honest about our inconsistencies, to actively deny and disavow our apparently conflicting words and actions.

When others’ behaviors seem apparently self-conflicting, can we withhold judgment for a moment and make the more generous assumption that they, like we, are generally honest people? Can we put down the hypocrite label and get curious about why we all sometimes act in ways that appear to counter our professed values and beliefs?

If we all get a little more honest with ourselves, I think we will be a lot slower to judge others for their apparent lack of honesty. In the best cases, honesty makes us more curious, more understanding, more willing to connect.

I Hold Honesty for Us because it gives us space to consider things from different perspectives. Honesty makes us humble. Humility invites connection. We need all of these things now more than ever.

Holding the Activist Heart

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What are you an activist for?

What does it cost you? What does it cost others?
How does it affect your relationships with them?

At the end of your life, how do you want your activism to be remembered? What are you willing to give up for that legacy? What do you need to do to make it more likely?

Crusader
Warrior
Champion
Advocate

How do you describe your role, your leadership, and the work?

I recommended Simon Sinek’s Start With Why to someone again today.
Meaning. Purpose. Mission. Vision.
Once we find these for ourselves, we settle. We sense direction and movement, that low rumbling purr of motivated inspiration.
Optimism. Patience. Inspiration. Perseverance. Faith.
These energies flow and propel, provide momentum to overcome obstacles and setbacks. We commit. Through persistence we gain confidence, flexibility, agility, resilience. We become veteran master players of The Infinite Game. The work is endless; there will always be more to do; the ultimate goal will not be achieved in our lifetime.
And still, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

I know my Why, have for a while now. I root down deeply in it. I feel stable and strong, grounded and powerful. I also feel light and supple, mobile and elastic. As Sinek says, when we know our Why, we can be flexible with the How and the What. Starting with Why gives rise to creativity, connection, synergy, and possibility. To be an activist with an unassailable and still limber Why makes me more effective.

Tonight I wonder how to do activist work without an adversarial approach, without burning out, and without burning bridges. My Why is that our relationships save us. The best relationships elevate us, integrate divergence and even conflict into a fluid, complementary movement of tension and slackness, push and pull, give and take–yin and yang. What happens when my yin activism meets your yang?

I wish for all activists to express what they are For more than what they are against. I know that’s not always feasible or realistic to expect from emotional and empassioned humans. Conflict is inevitable and not inherently bad. Yet, I know we can do it better. I know activists who vehemently, even spitefully oppose others. It makes me sad and a little desperate. I know it’s not my work to oppose the adversarial activist. I must find that way of integrative flow, that relationship that allows us all to do our work side by side, respectful of one another’s humanity, holding and sharing space.

We may advocate for divergent, opposing, and conflicting causes. That is nature, and human nature risks mortal sacrifices for the ideals and values we hold most dearly. Energy, power, and forces collide. We get to decide how and whether the results are destructive or constructive. It’s never too late to change course.

Tonight I Hold Our Activist Hearts–all of them. May we choose our words, actions, and relationships from a place of humane love and connection more than anything else, and may we be at peace with our choices at the ends of our lives.