Transcript of this video:
A few years ago, I remember talking to a friend
who had very passionate views about politics,
which I kind of shared, and he was enthusing on this subject.
And then he said, my family sometimes say to me
that I should go into politics.
And I, I thought about what he said and I smiled a bit
and I said, I wonder if what they mean by that is not
that they really want you to go into politics,
but that they’re tired of hearing you talk about politics
and they’re hoping to change the subject.
And he laughed ’cause he, in recognition
’cause he thought that that was probably the case.
And I think it’s an interesting artifact of conversations
that we often mean something somewhat at
odds with what we say.
And I also think in life generally, we are often in a trying
to rush people along a bit too much.
Now in contrast, I found myself sharing a story last week
with my friend Rob Poynton,
and I’m not entirely sure why I shared the story.
He was just saying something
and this story, this memory came to me
and I thought I’d share it with him.
It felt like a bit of a risk
because it was from
a fairly vulnerable time in my life when I was going
through a major emotional crisis
because of a dispute with someone I was running a business
with at the time when I was kind of at my wits’ end
and signed up for what was called a therapy marathon,
which is essentially a chance to do group therapy,
but over 72 hours at a, at a countryside location
with about 30 or 40 other people.
And what distinguished this marathon was on arrival,
everyone handed in anything that could tell the time.
So a watch. And I guess in those days,
even phones told the time
and they’d taken away all the clocks from the center so
that only the host knew the time
and they weren’t gonna tell us what it was.
So if they said, oh, we’re gonna do this activity,
they would stretch out their arms like they’re measuring a
fish or something and say, for this long,
so you really had no idea what time it was.
You could just see the rising
and setting of the sun as some kind of guide.
And the work was quite intense.
And to me, as a newcomer to this organisation, rather odd,
I remember they announced on the first day
that they were going to do mat work
and I had no idea what that was,
but it seemed to involve people lying on mats
and talking through their issues whilst moving their bodies
and getting input somatically.
Very odd.
and as a result, I, not long into this,
I felt like I desperately wanted to leave, but
because it was in remote countryside,
that wasn’t terribly easy.
And then I think on the second evening they did an activity
in the big room where everybody was invited
to stand in the room according to
how they felt about being there.
So stand in a centre if you feel like you really belong
and further away if you don’t.
And there is a great clump of enthusiasts for this cult
huddled together in the middle of the room. The bastards
and a few people at a slightly more respectable distance.
And then me, honestly, standing
as far away from as possible, right.
Facing the door with my back to the, the room,
which kind of summed up how I felt. I wanted to leave.
And yet there was some way in which I wanted to stay.
And so this was quite an honest expression of my position.
I can’t actually remember how they handled it at the time.
I have a feeling they had a sort
of undramatic response, which was perfect.
They kind of accepted it without focusing on it too much.
And in the end I stayed, and got quite a lot out of it.
And I ended up going to more of these marathons,
which are actually sort of quite profound in a way.
But it was an interesting experience
of really feeling like I didn’t belong anyway.
I don’t really know why I shared it with Rob.
Um, but his response was really rather lovely.
And it was just simply like, ah, he said, yes.
Well, I, I see that that’s something
that you’re really quite good at doing.
It reminds me of how you’re often the one in the group
who is willing to challenge the consensus
and say honestly how you feel,
but in a way that suggests you still want to be involved.
And that creates all sorts of possibilities.
And when he said that I felt really touched, I felt,
I felt seen to use a cliche.
And it wasn’t, wasn’t my intention in telling that story
to get that feedback and that resonance, if you like,
and that affirmation of who I am.
And that was rather lovely and comforting.
And perhaps often that’s, maybe
that’s why we sometimes do tell stories about ourselves, not
as in Ted Talks to persuade people of something
or to make a point, but
to make ourselves more visible to each other.
And I think it’s one of the things that was reinforced
for me when I did the practice group on storytelling
recently with my friend Shawn Callahan.
Some people come into these processes thinking, ah,
storytelling in organisations is all about
persuading people and making a point.
And that’s clearly one way to use stories.
But perhaps I suspect a more kind
of ancestrally rooted one from the days when we would go
hunting and then gather around a campfire and share stories.
We just unpacking our experience
and actually trying to rush the narrative
to making a point sounds terribly efficient,
but actually may not be the most useful thing to do.
Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash
