Human to Human: Blog and Podcast • Tenneson Woolf

June 4, 2019

Perseverance — Thanks Meg Wheatley

My friend Meg wrote this book, Perseverance, in 2010. She was offering it as a way to help people stay in their awareness and awakeness. She wrote it to help people not collapse into a more alluring and comforting superficiality.

There are so many layers of persevering that are required in these times. For some of us, it is physical. I’m doing my best with a rather challenging neck injury that has me with very little mobility. It takes a discipline to not cave to fears of all that is or will be lost. For some of us, our perseverance is emotional. It is continuing to offer an open heart, even when there is full reason to protect and hunker down. For some of us, our perseverance is intellectual, testing the edges of the known, and knowing that those tests often start alone. For some of us our perseverance is all of the above — so many of us can’t let go of our causes that seek to both interrupt current pattern and to evolve forward in new ways of being and seeing.

I appreciate these words from Meg. I appreciate here openness about staying in the questions. I suppose because, it’s so easy to get caught in a downward spiral of despair. I also appreciate friends and colleagues who are willing to lean in together to get to more of what we are all trying to persevere within.

Questions and Answers

How is it that some people devote their lives to a cause, to a person, to a place?

And how is it that even in the midst of failures, betrayals, reversals, they can still remain focused and dedicated to their cause?

What enables a person to stay, to not be dissuaded, to not lose focus? How to people not become overwhelmed, or succumb to exhaustion and despair?

How do such people sustain themselves over long periods of time? How do they reserve their health and well-being?

How do they preserve their faith?

I want to be one who perseveres, so these are all real questions for me.

Meg’s book is a good one to pick up and read in little snippets. It’s a collection of short writings meant to provide — I want to say hope, but it’s really providing context for what are persevering means these days.

Enjoy the read.

June 3, 2019

Locked and Blocked — Um…, Time For Self Care

Where I’d planned on being today is in Portland, Oregon. I was to be working with Kevin Hiebert, Sara Rosenau, and Jessica Riehl preparing for an Art of Hosting that starts tomorrow. I was to be thick in the questions, adding to our anticipated field. It matters that people come together. Over 50 in this case. To learn. To be in practice together. To be in connection together.

And then, a few medical urgencies surfaced over the last five days. Number one, my neck locked into position atop my head with virtually zero rotation left / right and up / down. What! Wait! A lot of pain. No, it’s not from any particular incident or injury. Just real. Can’t drive real. Can’t see to the sides real. Stinging shoots of pain whenever I moved my head. Locked.

And then, well, actually before that, a number two urgency. A kidney stone moving and creating a lot of pain. I remember that kind of pain from 10 years ago when I had a kidney stone. Lot’s of lower back pain. It’s got “Oh Oh” written all over it. Blocked.

I’m the kind of human that comes from other humans that generally tough it out and play through it. I wrestled a lot with this decision to just go to Portland and make the most of it, or to give myself permission for self care. I’m glad for my team and friends that encouraged the latter, self care. And, well, toughing it out was a rather slim option with this severity. Getting my body in the room isn’t enough for this kind of work. It takes much more heart and soul.

So…, I got the X-rays that show an odd curve in the top of my spine. Got the meds to help with muscle relaxing, pain relief, and removing the swelling. Got the meds to help with kidney stone. Got the appointment with the physical therapist for this morning. I’m glad that such things are available.

So…, longer story that is unfolding made short, I’m in Utah. Glad for these roses in full bloom in my back yard. I’m in self care, which I know is what many of us are learning. Hosting self. Still not through my grumbles, but there are some things you can’t argue with. Body is one of them.

I participated in a call with the team yesterday. To hear and see the design for the coming days. It looks delicious. It includes questions about uncertainty (when have you experienced…), which I find so valuable. Being able to be in your own uncertainty is one of the key potencies for people to learn these days. I got to hear some overarching themes that I loved. One, awaken to presence. Two, attune too emergence. Three, lean into experiments. That’s good stuff.

I’ll be cheering from the roses on this one for those gathered in Portland, “The City of Roses.” A bit sad. Actually a lot sad. But also grateful for colleagues and friends that rally around principle and friendship.

May 29, 2019

On Operating Systems in Groups — Try Thinking Less

[Also available on Human to Human, The Podcast, 3.5 minutes]

I suppose I like the intent of the language that is operating system. It’s rather mechanical, like cogs in an old clock. Or it’s rather electronic, like the needed infrastructure for your computer to run. Both of these directions are a bit outside of the living systems images that many of us are conjuring and growing.

It’s a mixing of common use of language, but I’m guessing that there is an operating system involved with the sunflowers growing along the nearby trail. Or in the green vines that wildly grow in my back yard. 1. Reach for the sun. 2. Rest on what is near you, including a neighbor vine. 3. Then reach again.

Or I remember the rule of Boids from many years ago that were three simple rules that created simulated flocking. 1. Fly to the perceived center of mass of the group of boids. 2. Maintain the same small distance from other objects, including other boids. 3. Match the perceived speed of nearby boids.

I’m the kind of human that likes to explore the operating systems for working with groups. I suppose I’ve been searching for and experimenting with improvements most of my life. So as to add more consciousness. Or kindness. Or brilliance accessed through the whole of it.

Below is a version of “operating system” that I’ve been working on, also for most of my life. But the words for this have come more recently.

Enjoy.

Think Less

Think less.
Feel more.

Plan less.
Presence more.

Doubt less.
Trust more.

Release.
Give to.

Tumble forward.
Surrender.

May 28, 2019

Psychological Maturity and The Words That Come From Our Mouths

[Also available on Human to Human, The Podcast, 6 minutes]

I have learned over the years that one of the key aspects of psychological maturity is the ability to hold as valid, opposing thoughts, or simultaneous but different truths, at the same time. Let’s over simplify what plays out in millions of moments every day.

Imagine a partially sunny / cloudy day.
“It’s sunny today,” says one person.
“No it’s not. It’s cloudy today,” a second person responds.

Now, yes, there is some technical measuring that can happen here. There appears to be more blue sky than cloud. Therefore, it is sunny. OK. This simplicity relies on data to establish a “right” answer.

I would suggest we live in a culture
that so favors data and the convenience of certainty
over nuanced context and subjectivity
and the discipline required in complexity,
be it in the emotional, and / or in intellectual.

A little less oversimplified.

Maybe, just maybe, the partially sunny / cloudy day is sunny because person one lives in a climate that very seldom sees cloud-free days. Person two comes from a climate that has 330 days of sunshine, most frequently cloud-free, and thus claims cloudy.

Is it worth arguing about? I suppose if that is what you like. Is there an answer? No, never definitively if you welcome context and complexity of inner worlds. And it’s just an oversimplified weather report.

Psychological maturity implies
an ability to be aware that nuanced context
dethrones the convenience of certainty.
I would suggest that most of us, individually and collectively,
need to grow ability and practice to evolve ourselves into more of that kind of maturity.

Yup, that’s a big narrative. Yup, that is some of the work of our times that I’m rather oriented toward. Inner has everything to do with outer. I like that stuff. Because I’m working it quite a bit in me.

So, about the words that come out of our mouths, as it pertains to psychological maturity. Late last night I picked up my daughter and son-in-law from the airport and their late night flight, just after midnight. The airport is 45 a minute drive. Though I was excited to see them, and thus more awake, I’m an early-to-bed person. When possible, I prefer to be in bed by 9:30 and awake between 5:00 and 5:30. To keep myself awake, I flipped on the TV and watched some of a late night talk show. Stephen Colbert was interviewing Keanu Reeves. I caught the tail end of the interview. Reeves was dressed in the character he plays in a movie that I think is soon to be released — it’s the John Wick series. Colbert asks him, “What happens when people die?” It’s loaded with myriad of responses. I love the words out of Reeves’ mouth that bridge the river of responses. Reeves says, “People who love that person miss them.” That response was unexpected. It wasn’t offered comedically. I would suggest that was a very matured orientation, knowing that you could choose a hundred other things that would just trigger the unmatured. I’d call that genius.

Here’s another example, because I’m still late-nighting, well past my preferred bed time. I watched a clip on my ESPN app with Golden State Warriors basketball player, Steph Curry. A reporter had asked, “What do you think about Drake on the sidelines?” The other team in the NBA finals that start this week is the Toronto Raptors. The artist and musician Drake is from Canada. Apparently he has attended previous playoff games, is courtside, and is both cheering and taunting. Now the question is again loaded for many triggery responses. “He shouldn’t do that.” “They need to get security on him.” That’s probably what the reporter thought that Curry would say. Curry, like Reeves, was genius. “He’s having a lot of fun. You can’t hate on someone for having some fun.”

It’s just a basketball game, with a comment from a star player. It’s just a movie, with a comment from a star actor. And who knows — maybe those people are heavily coached on what to say and these two are smart enough to follow that coaching. I love seeing the simple in the profound. The responses pointed to a nuanced choice of words out of our mouths that might just come from a more matured space.

Made me smile.

Felt like a sunny and cloudy day, which I like.