A question we each face
Life is a question without an answer—and we are asked—in our faces asked.
:- Doug.
Archive for the 'Conversations' Category
Questions are central
Questions are central: for one they challenge us to engage outside our skins. Two, they challenge us to do so together.
:- Doug.
Ask for bigger eyes
It is difficult in family long term care settings to see any larger truth, let alone make sense of it. What to do when we are blind?
Maybe we can ask of one another:
What else do you notice?
What is possible now?
Tell me if I have heard you right….
Tell me a story about why this is important….
Have there been times when you saw things differently, saw hope?
What do we believe is true in this situation?
What are our assumptions?
Essentially: 1. call a time out and 2. ask for bigger eyes.
:- Doug.
Our maladies last longer
Our modern medicine has not made our maladies disappear; it has only made them last longer: made chronic what used to be acute.
:- Doug.
profoundly, strategically, madly letting go in our family?
So how do we profoundly, strategically, madly let to in a family system? We get hung up over what without question we believe is true. It is not true. What is true? I do not know. You do not know. We’re all, every one of us, every day making it up, guessing, testing what might work. So what if we throw out what’s not working and test out something? Even that we ought to discard.
:- Doug.
So small! So small!
Solutions
People are selling
Solutions
So small!
So small!
Can we not think larger
What is good among us
What might be?
If you spend all your time
Making something smaller
Making problems
So small!
So small
Are you
We could be
Growing, growing
:- Doug.
For the greater part of my life I’ve fought myself.
For the greater part of my life I’ve fought myself.
:- Doug.
turn our heads when lost
We often get stuck in what’s not working, what’s the problem. Let us resolve to turn our heads when lost and see what is working.
In our families, when we are hurt or afraid and want to pull away, we may help this way.
:- Doug.
Holy, holy, holy
Holy, holy, holy
Other, other, other
As in
Larger, larger, larger
Expand, include, love
:- Doug.
To take the world as it comes
I want to relax
To take the world as it comes
To give my all
(I’ll give it all in the end)
To engage all you
:- Doug.
Skies are solid grey and we feel….
The skies are a solid grey and we feel closed in. The skies are a solid deep blue and we feel opened out. We cannot see anything more in one sky or the other; in fact there might be more texture in the grey. So why?
:- Doug.
Untangling the emotions
Yesterday I met with two sisters to converse about care for Mom. The meeting grew heated; one was dog tired.
The sisters have a need to continue as family. Both need to find a way to deal with their emotions.
To do that, they need to see what the emotions are and untangle them, so they can address them. The emotions are serving us, giving us something valuable. The emotions are telling us something needs attention. So we need to bring that attention. But not on the emotion, on what the emotion is telling us: what is important here?
:- Doug.
Never just us speaking
We are never just ourselves speaking. We are all whom we have met, have read, have watched. We are our cultures, society, country, neighborhood. We are our parents, siblings, grandparents, teachers, bullies from school or work, the kind hand which nursed us to health.
:- Doug.
Setting more to work in our meeting
When we enter an alien setting, a room where we don’t feel comfortable—say a courtroom—some part of us stays outside, or hidden behind a careful mask. Consequently we we cannot engage with our whole selves. If we enter a more safe space—say our grandchildren’s play room—more of us can come out to play. In preparing for a meeting and its place, if we attend to welcome, safety, comfort and inviting qualities we attend to bringing more to work in our meeting.
:- Doug.
Birds must be curious, else how did they find my bird feeder?
Birds must be curious, else how did they find my bird feeder?
:- Doug.
Do trees walk?
Do trees walk?
Do trees fly?
Of course they do!
If you watch over centuries
See their seeds
Their generations
Growing inches away
Miles away
Where do our seeds go?
:- Doug.
The world runs from conversation
The world runs from conversation
Yet
The world runs on conversation
:- Doug.
