Microdosing relationality
“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.” - Margaret Wheatley
When was the last time you let yourself pause, take a breath and notice?
Has it been awhile?
What are your default, go-to patterns, when the stakes get high? When your nervous system registers something awry?
Where do you go, what do you do? [pause. reflect.]
Do you reach out for contact?
Hunker down and withdraw?
Run away and distract?
Consume lots of information, follow thought leaders, track mystic soothesayers?
Consult your birth chart or stock portfolio?
Walk the beach?
Haunt Etsy for crafts?
Book a planet medicine journey?
Clean your house, rake your leaves?
Cuddle your kids?
Commune with your beloved pets?
Do you reach for elixirs to blur the gaze, quiet your inner fear, and kaleidoscope it all out?
What are those self-soothing comforts, grafted into your being from your earliest days of life, that animate your nervous system and thoughts, even before you are aware?
I’ll share mine, as a measure of fairness. When my system registers threat and alarm, I retreat into words, language and poetry. Not only literal poems; a poetic mode of operating. I slow down, I reach for language that has helped tether me to a bewildering and often overwhelming world. I surround myself with books and notebooks, pens that inspire me, paper with texture, taking solace entering into conversations with those who lived well before me, whose words transmit a sort of felt knowing, a kinship. I reach for the few people in my life who know me and get me, even if it’s a brief text or DM exchange. I write. I speak. I text. This is my survival mechanism. This communication with you, dear reader. This is how I stay tethered.
I seek out nature, gaze at the leaves, watch the clouds.
I reach for my care, beating in my body, and know it is hurt right now. I allow space for this. I care for my care, knowing it’s the only real thing I know.
I slow down.
As the shockwaves continue to cycle through our collective psyche, we move through layers of perspective, awareness, anger, shock, all of it. Rather than a cycle, circle or framework, a neat powerpoint graphic of grief or despair—we all know it’s far messier and more tangled than that. We know we can cycle through simultaneous feelings and affect, without having words. We know the language of trauma. It is felt, somatic, sensed, and can short circuit our care. If we’re not care-ful.
So what do we do now?
We feel and we keep our wits about us.
We invoke a (micro) pause.
Reflection is the precursor for skillful action.
I work mostly in corporate and business settings. I teach and lead trainings, run workshops globally with people from all sectors, many of whom are dedicated to the remarkable undertaking of "getting stuff done.” I partner with and serve the doers and the managers, those who oversee budgets and contracts, who execute on roadmaps and plans. They run tight meetings, deliver on deadlines, and manage up, and down. Yes, I work with operators, strategists and all in-between.
Over the years and literally around the world, I’m asked the same question:
How do we slow down, when the world is speeding up?
I remind people of this simple truth: Reflection is the precursor of skillful action.
Why and how do I know this? Because, science. Because, thousands of years of contemplative practice and now research. Because, your own self is the primary data point of your path to understanding the conditions that enable and support your being in the world.
Microdosing relationality
Some of you know when I open any kind of event, meeting or coming-together, I invite a pause. Let’s take one moment, literally a minute. To breathe, arrive and land. Then, notice. What changed?
I stand firm on this ground of advocating for injecting reflection, pause and contemplation into the speeding up. I liken this to oxygenation. Or microdosing.
You don’t need much to completely shift your neurochemistry and turn a deadly dull and unproductive meeting or session, into one where everyone is switched on, present and ready to take on the complex turbulence swirling around and inside of us.
Five reflections in favor of relationality
Take a risk - start a meeting with a few moments of silence.
Watch your resistance to pausing and reflection.
Watch your bias to action, to how moving to act is often your own defense mechanism against feeling. (See above: compassionate inquiry, no judging or evaluating your experience.)
Pause and ask: Am I moving fast to avoid feeling? To appease to my bosses or leader’s own urgency and pacing, that may in fact be his/her own coping?
Admit when you don’t know the answers. Tolerate blank space.
There are many wise leadership and organizational visionaries who have skillfully imported contemplative practice into the business world. We know who they are. They are the Senge’s and Scharmer’s, Wheatley’s and Garvey Berger’s, Conley’s and Edmondson’s and so many more. We are building on their work. We are grounded in human ancient wisdom practices.
Councils are not new
We think that somehow we are now inventing the concept of gathering, convening and impact salons. We feel the need to put our stamp on the good stuff when we know it’s good. In any case, humans know how to deal with really hard, scary and dangerous times. They form islands and enclaves of stability, sanity and health. They may be tiny pockets, but sometimes all we need are a few oxygen bubbles.
I think of this as the SodaStream approach to changemaking.
Think of coherence, moments to gather and reflect, ground and pause, as oxygenating the relational field. Sometimes, all you can do is press the button a few moments. Other times, in what are called “retreats” and “offsites” we can take a few more rounds. Each time we inject reflection into our practices and work worlds, we provide resourcing and energy. We choose reflection over unconscious defaults and bias to action, for the sake of acting.
We choose to honor what humans have known for thousands of years, and has always been available to us.
We can do this. Your homework for the week: Inject some oxygen into your system. Listen to someone. Take a break. Create moments of rest. Start your meetings with some silence. Build in space in the morning to be.
Tolerate the discomfort, and know you are building the conditions for skillful action.
With care,
Renée
How did this land for you?
Did you learn something new?
Leave a comment ~
As a "doer", it's essential to remember to pause and reflect. Thanks for the reminder.
As someone prone to action, I was reminded to avoid action for the sake of action. Thanks for the reminder to slow down.