I asked: how are you both maintaining you feeling bad?

All therapies encourage us to assume responsibility for our choices and feelings.  Most, also encourage us to explore inside us and consider ways in which we can learn to tolerate the world better.

According to Gestalt therapy, this is a limited view.  While Gestalt encourages us to assume responsibility for our choices, it also encourages us to constantly consider ourselves in relation to our environment, that is, how we impact our environment (this includes other people) and how the environment impacts us and our experiences are a result of this dynamic. A feedback loop comes to mind.

This means, that our work is not only about changes within us but also changes in our environment – we are not passive recipients but active shapers and as such, our responsibility is not only to learn to tolerate but also change what we can.

Our environment is also our context and the situations which we are part of.  We inhabit a contextual world that may appear indifferent to our existence but in fact is very responsive to our actions.  All our experiences take place in relation to us, concepts such as far, near, high, low, big, small have little meaning without our perception of them.  Not only do we constantly interact with our environment, we are a function of it as well.  I respond to my environment or my context in ways that fit with how this environment has shaped me, this includes culture, beliefs, language, ethnicity and family to name a few.

And such are all our relationships.  While we may accept that other people don’t make us feel our feelings and that we are responsible for our actions, we need to also accept that our feelings are relational, that is, a response to other people and our environment in general.  If we feel angry, we respond to something, the same goes for sadness, happiness and fear.

One of Gestalt’s innovative contributions is the view that our feelings are secondary to our interactions, what I mean by that is that the quality of the relation we are in at any given moment will determine the quality of our feelings.  A supportive relationship will induce different feelings to a hostile environment.

The quality of our existence and experiences, therefore, is interdependent with the richness of our environment and an environment is rich if it contains nurturing elements that support satisfying experiences, furthermore, it is rich if we bring our own richness to it.

If we want richer and satisfying relationships we need to create richer and satisfying environments.  Such environments can only exist if all participants accept that no one’s feelings and responses arise in isolation but as part of an interaction.

As such, if you feel caught up in a relationship whose dynamic is unhealthy, the focus needs to shift from cause and effect to the maintenance of the situation – how both/all participants maintain the situation by asking what is attractive to us about the situation.

A very brief intro: In the 1940s, Fritz and Laura Perls and Paul Goodman, the early founders Gestalt therapy, developed an approach that was a reaction against and a critique of the typical Freudian analysis that was prevalent at the time.  They advocated a non-interpretive therapy, that is, an approach that would not interpret clients behaviour, showing which issues they have, but focus on how a person, being an integral part of his or her environment relates to his or her environment; naturally, a person’s environment includes other people.  Thus Gestalt started a journey from the intra-personal to the inter-personal.  Thus, contemporary Gestalt can be seen as a therapy of the ‘between’ rather than within. In everyday terms, it refers to how we approach others, do we tell ourselves: this is going to be an exciting opportunity or a threatening experience, do we trust the encounter, take risks or feel curious about what is happening become the underpinning of the encounter.  Of course, we are not always aware of our possibilities, yet they will determine whether we will feel satisfied or dissatisfied.

In a ‘Gestalt scenario’, a satisfactory meeting would be one in which we approach others without giving up on some level of spontaneity, in which we can relate while taking into account new information about the situation in the moment, relying less heavily on our expectations.  It is about finding the balance between assuming knowledge of what would happen vs the uncertainty of what might happen.

Gestalt’s strength is in the giving up on the hunt of linear cause and effect, the reliance on past events as predetermining of future outcomes.  Cause and effect often requires a narrow consideration of what preceded what and ignores the complexity and the creativity of human relations.  Of course, our actions (or inactions) always have consequence, yet, according to Gestalt, it is the consequence that gives meaning to the event that has preceded it (more on that to follow shortly) rather than the other way around. Part of what Gestalt is interested in is looking for creative ways to contact others in the present moment.  There is always the question in the background: what is being blocked?  This is not an attempt at changing behaviour (as in stopping one behaviour and starting another), but more of an attempt at expanding what I am doing now thus including more possibilities. I find this approach empowering and liberating.  It turns our behaviour from being predetermined by our past (upbringing, education, genes etc) to being predisposed – yes, we have our tendencies and yet, we can make ‘choicefu’l decisions (if you believe that humans have free choice, that is – the debate is still going on).

In her book ‘Embracing Uncertainty’, Susan Jeffers tells a story of a Chinese farmer (or maybe he wasn’t Chinese) who discovered that his horse had wandered off into the forest.  His neighbours said to him “how unlucky to have lost your horse” the farmer said “maybe it is, maybe it isn’t”.  Two days later his horse came back with another horse it befriended in the wild.  His neighbours said to him “how lucky to have two horses” the farmer said “maybe it is, maybe it isn’t”. The next day, while the farmer’s son tried to tame the new horse, he fell and broke his leg. His neighbours said to him “how unlucky that your son broke his leg” the farmer said “maybe it is, maybe it isn’t”.  The following day soldiers came to the farm to recruit his son, because of his broken leg, he could not be recruited. His neighbours said to him “how lucky that your son could not be recruited” and the farmer said “maybe it is, maybe it isn’t” and the story goes on.

As an everyday application, I believe that these words sum it up well:  “more important than what you did is what you’re gonna do next” as one of my Gestalt tutors used to say.

All employee behaviour is a function of the behaviour of the organisation he or she is part of.

This is based on the understanding that organisations (institutes, companies, teams, etc) have the same dynamics as groups.  Put simply, a group is people meeting together sharing a common task or objective, over a period of time, and companies and organisations do that.  (There is vast research about group dynamics.  I focus mainly on Gestalt Group Theory and Field theory.

One of the dynamics that take place in groups is that members assign roles to one another; each member represents something or someone for that specific group.  Often you find in workplaces and other assemblages well-defined roles: the carer, an angry person, the aggressor, the peace-maker, the mediator etc.  Each is acting not only for themselves but for the group as whole.  For example an angry member, is actually expressing anger for all the other members who cannot/will not do it themselves (it’s a dynamic that can be seen in couples as well).

Another important element in this dynamic is that there is no such thing as an organisation whose existence is independent of the people who are part of it, in other words, an organisation is the people who make it; it has no other existence apart from that.

Add to this the fact that most human behaviour is relational, that is, it is in relation to other people or our environment; whether we feel angry, dissatisfied, happy, tense, relaxed or indifferent we respond to our needs as we interact with the world and our needs and the situations we are in determine each other.  For example, when we are hungry food and drink become focal, we may not satisfy our need right away, but our situation now includes the need to eat or drink.  Equally, the situation determines our needs, if it is threatening, for example, we will shift our focus to the threat.

Considering this dynamics, we get a larger context or situation is which all the parts that make this context not only relate, interact and depend on each other but also are a function of that interaction, this means that what each individual does in the organisation is a function of what the organisation does as a whole.  Paying attention to individual behaviour can reveal a lot about the organisation itself, its issues, weaknesses and strengths.  It can also direct us to where different energies (e.g. creativity, anger, resentment, illness, leadership etc) are ‘stored’ and how they are expressed or not, who plays what role and why.

Working with such information can help organisations develop healthier environments with resilient, enduring, sustaining and robust internal and external relationships.

Being able to deal with new situations requires creativity – the ability to look at situations from a different perspective. Many companies depend on the creativity of their staff members in order to thrive and people are often encouraged to think outside the box – as if this was a physical act, like stepping out of a box.

Yet, creativity tends to compete with companies’ rules and in many cases rules win.  Even inviting suggestions for improvement is not enough as these suggestions tend to be worked through the same company structure.

Rules are useful as they communicate a shared understanding of the task at hand, what needs to be achieved and how.  They also help us work together efficiently.  And yet, they can suffocate creativity; once we follow the rules, we do not need to think about the hows and whys.

One way of establishing a creative environment is by learning to break the rules.  I see two main functions of breaking rules (there may be more), one as a rebellion against what we perceive to be a tyranny, imagined or real.  It is to help us regain a sense of control over our situation.  Sometimes we just do it to feel powerful.

The second reason for breaking rules, is a skilful act whose purpose is to understand that rules are a two-faced coin, one face is protection and the other limitation.   Skilful rule-breaking gains its power from the strength of rules, not their weakness.  This type of rule breaking is not for the sake of averting powerlessness but an act of growth that works with the limitations of rules to let in new experiences.

What to do?

The separation of protection/limitation is artificial, both depend on each other, but it can be managed.

You can encourage fresh thinking by creating rule-breaking sessions.  Introduce the rules you think might be worth breaking or ask staff members to introduce theirs. Start with the question: if we broke this rule what might we be doing instead?  Once you have an answer, place both on a polarity chart, it can look like this:

The pluses represent benefits and the minuses represent limitations.  You can then workout how to combine the benefits of both options into a new rule and test it while remembering that it may become as rigid as the one just broken.

Next post: explicit vs implicit rules

Implementing change as a leader can be a challenging task, especially when your team members seem to resist new ideas.  Next time when you feel that you are facing resistance, follow these five steps.

1. Understand.  Resistance is a declaration of fear and lack of support when taking risks.
2. Reframe. Resistance = assistance.  The person you are dealing with is trying to support him/herself and maintain a sense of coherence.
3. Structure. Be transparent and offer as much predictability in the process as you can.  Lay out the development of the new plan in clear and explicable stages.
4. Provide. If new skills are required, offer resources that will help others develop the new skills that are required.  If no new skills are required, show others how they can use their current capabilities.
5. Engage.  Help others make sense of the new plan and help them make the change meaningful and worth engaging.  Allow frank discussion of the purpose of what you are suggesting.

Following these steps can help you and your team create a sense of coherence in introducing change.  Feeling competent often impacts on self-esteem, strengthen personal and brings about a greater sense of belonging.

Imagine a world in which your self-worth is a currency you trade in; your value is determined by the worth others give you in return.

Imagine a world in which your purpose is a currency you trade in; your value is determined by the purpose others give you in return.

Imagine a world in which your responsibility is a currency you trade in; your responsibility is what others say it is.

In this world your significance, self-worth, purpose and responsibility are commodities whose value is just a matter of supply and demand and the main exchange stock is called aggression.

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,600 times in 2010. That’s about 4 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 21 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 45 posts. There were 15 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 855kb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was May 6th with 34 views. The most popular post that day was Struggle well.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were en.wordpress.com, practica-ltd.com, delightfulblogs.com, linkedin.com, and blogcatalog.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for escher angels and demons, caterpillars and butterflies, caterpillars to butterflies, gilead blog, and angels demons.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Struggle well April 2010

Caterpillars and butterflies October 2009
1 comment

About me June 2009

About Practica June 2009

Stuck at a crossroads June 2009

If we accept that we cannot choose whether we feel angry or not, just what we do with it and that anger is not some object that we have within us, but a function of how we relate to ourselves  and others, then here are some thoughts.

First, the word anger is a generic term that includes many triggers, from sadness to fear, it also includes different physical expressions for different people, that is, there is no one way of feeling or expressing angry feelings.

If we take all this account, it means that each person’s experience is unique and triggered by different causes.

This is not about conquering, snuffing or removing anger from our repertoire of feelings.  It’s about understanding what we need and how our needs are not or cannot be met in that specific moment.  I suspect that there are very few people who never feel angry, maybe the Dalai Lama has reached this level; for the rest of us, well, we have to deal with all our feelings whether we recognise them or not.

Some people repress their anger to a degree that they don’t feel it, but it’s there, manifested in different ways (my metaphor for it is graffiti, it appears as an underground movement).  Others lash out and snap or see red or become violent.  Others bitch, complain, gossip, use sarcasm and cynicism.  And yet, others become motivated by their anger and go conquer the world.  The list is long.

Some myths about anger: it’s bad, women should never get angry, anger is destructive, it’s irrational, angry people are out of control and never get angry with your parents!

What to do for beginners:

1. Breathe
2. Separate the cause from the object, that is, is the object (person or thing) of your anger the cause of it (person or thing)?  Think about having a bad day at work and taking it out on your partner as one example.  We are not always able to express our anger at the cause, sometimes it can be dangerous, acknowledging it helps to deal with it.
3. Learn (take a course if you can) to make assertive statements to describe how you feel or what you need and want. (a.) Always speak in the first person “I am angry because”; (b.) Avoid impersonal statements “many people/some people/everyone feels/does etc”; (c.) be specific “This is what I don’t like about what you do/say”; (d.) Stay away from “you always”, “you never” and other character judgement statements. (e.) Separate the person from the behaviour.
4. Try not to suppress your anger, even if the only thing you can do is acknowledge it to begin with.
5. And remember anger is never just about you and your internal world, but about you and your environment, so you may want to consider a change in you environment and that includes ending damaging relationships.

This post is dedicated to all my teachers (some were in disguise) who helped me acknowledge my own anger and to all the clients I have worked with who felt overwhelmed by their anger.

We don’t do

Yet, when we recognise their purpose, we can see not only their naturalness but also their positive side.

This post is dedicated to anger, one of the most unwanted, shameful and condemned emotions.  Here is the paradox, expressing anger can lead to positive outcomes, stifling anger can actually lead to bad acts.

We cannot choose whether we feel angry or not, but we can choose what we do with it and our choice makes a difference.  Without our emotions we would not survive long as a species and in order to be able to receive the full information they can potentially give us, we must get in touch and recognise all of them.

There is something about anger, in so many cultures, that is so ingrained that it seems almost impossible to work with it.  Yet, those who learn to express their anger in constructive ways tell of a sense of wholeness, empowerment and being attuned to their needs.

What does anger tell us?

We constantly interact with our surroundings; our experience is the product of a dynamic relationship with other people and our environment.  We have needs and wants and as none of us truly is self-sufficient, we depend on our environment to satisfy our needs and wants.  But, this is not always possible and we can feel frustrated in our environment.  We can feel ignored, pushed around, lonely, afraid, sad, at risk, all of which are closely linked to our surroundings.

In all this, anger has a function and its function is to tell us that somehow we do not receive from our environment what we need (or perceive as a need).  It is a multi-faceted function, it involves all our human faculties and impact on how we respond, perceive and think.

As anger is relational, that is, it is in relation to the environment, it has both its cause and object in the environment.  The cause is the environmental circumstances that trigger anger (and that is different for every person) and the object is any person or thing that I take my anger out on.  More often than not, they are not the same.  We can feel angry because of one person and take it out on another or on ourselves as it feels less risky an option.

Workplace environment is a hotbed for such dynamics, especially when our needs and the needs of others and the organisation are not aligned and in harmony.  The distinction of cause and object is crucial because it will determine how we respond.

What can we do ?

To me, the most important thing is not not feeling angry but what we do when we feel angry.

I am going to divide this section into two parts.  One part for managers who set the agenda and another for staff members who do not set the agenda of the organisation they work for.

This week I will start with managers

Teams that always agree on everything can be misleading.  A ‘Garden of Eden’ kind of functioning that is never disrupted or challenged openly, suggests that there is a lot more going on under the surface.  Gossiping, bitching, sarcasm, cynicism and backstabbing are the signs of anger and resentment that are present but not allowed to be expressed openly.

As a manger your task is to create an environment in which anger is allowed to be expressed constructively.  Such an environment invites challenging, opposing and conflicting opinions with the safety of acceptance.  This is an environment that produces creativity and respect instead of hidden resentment.

That is easier said than done, I know, but it is worth the effort.  Because if you manage to create such an environment around you, your team members will feel respected, regardless of their opinion.

Allocate time for ‘angry meetings’ in which people share their what they feel angry about, concerns, are able to express their needs and wants safely and challenge common practice.  There a few ways to do that, but the key one is to keep all exchanges in the present, at the moment of interaction.  If you are not sure how to create such environment, get help.  A lot has been written about the power of teams that know how to have a good fight.  If you teach your team how to translate their anger into assertive communication, you will have a team that knows how to fight for good causes.

Of course, not all our needs can be met and satisfied at all times, sometimes we are required to put aside our individual needs in favour of those of others. What is important is to recognise and be aware of our actions and choices.  It also means that we do not see ourselves as victims of our environment, unless we choose to.

More on anger and what to do about it in my next post.

Resistance is often described as the opposition to flow and the remaining firm against the actions, effects, or force of…etc.

And this is what I would like to discuss here, the metaphors we use to describe resistance and how these metaphors affect how we meet other people.

A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, or a symbol, as in one thing representing another.

We need language to describe our experiences and while language may be one of our only tools to do so, it can also get in the way.  We turn to language to describe how we interact with other people and how they respond to us and when we feel that there is no flow in the interaction, we use words such as walls, blocks, friction, opposition, refusal and of course resistance.

Often we get together to change the existing conditions or status quo while using methods that are designed to preserve the status quo.  For example, a manager wants to change the structure of a department and how people work together.  He wants to change the status quo.  The team members don’t see it eye to eye and object, the manager tries to impose a new order but what he gets in return is a lot of resistance.  From this point on, it becomes about dealing with the resistance, either by imposing, threatening, negotiating etc.  But imposing, threatening and negotiating are methods designed to preserve the status quo and minimise change.  This feels like a closed door.

What if used another metaphor to describe the same experience?

One that comes to mind is information – information instead of resistance.  Some of the definitions of information are: knowledge acquired through experience; knowledge of specific events or situations that has been gathered or received by communication and study of specific and timely events or situations.

Using this metaphor in meeting others means that the door remains open.

An open door also means that instead of asking ‘what do I want?’ we can now ask ‘what do we want?’ as a team or a couple or an organisation.

This is not to say that free-flowing information is free of bias and interpretation; of course, we impose our meanings all the time, but I believe that the first step in understanding a situation is to accept things as they are and that in itself is the beginning of change.

PS. To me, status quo is an illusion, things change constantly whether we agree with it or not.  For the sake of this argument, let’s say that they change slowly enough to allow us to perceive them as constant and maintaining a status quo, but things really are in a state of constant flow.