• Transitions

    Transitions
    What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly Richard Bach
    Transitions…we all know them and have experienced them. I am in one. It feels really useful and liberating to remember that many things have just recently radically changed for me as a result of losing my longtime friend, collaborator, teaching and business partner, Doug Silsbee.  I am navigating new territory.

    Lately I’m noticing in my experience a feeling of being “on my own.”

    Lately I’m noticing in my experience a feeling of being “on my own.” This feels different from other internal spaces I’ve inhabited in my life that are close but not exactly like this “on my own” place.  I am clear I don’t feel “abandoned” (familiar in years past), or “it’s all up to me” (familiar also from my years of being an entrepreneur and pusher of the river). I don’t feel longing, or lonely, or stark aloneness (sometimes called existential aloneness).  As I step back and take a quick glance at my life, I actually feel very supported and surrounded these days, professionally, personally, and spiritually.  And yet, here’s this “on my own” felt-sense that’s present. Frankly, I think it has to do at least partially with Doug’s body no longer living on this planet.  And I continue to grieve his loss.  Of course, Doug continues to live in me, in my history and through those years that our collaboration and the work itself shaped us both.  Those experiences support me in practical ways every day, both professionally and personally, and I am grateful!

    And I continue to grieve his loss

    From the Minutia to the Present And when I’m in the middle of the daily grind of office days, sometimes I am able to wake up from my habitual focus on the minutia that make up my usual work routines.  I find myself getting lost in checking emails, tracking progress of projects, delegating (and not being the bottle neck to other’s work!), and coordinating action between lots of moving parts of PBC training and my life as a whole.  Reminders, such as my 2018 vision board sitting across from my desk, abound in my environment.  They are calling me to be present, take a pause…and when I release my tight focus for a breath or moment, I can actually see them!  Being present allows me to acknowledge my transition in leadership, and PBC’s transition as a business.  As I start to relax a bit, I am able to witness a bigger view of the movement that’s always happening around, in and through me. Insight: A Strong Wind Arrives We had a cold front blow in over the weekend, and as I stood outside on a gorgeous, sunny day with the temperature in the 60’s, I marveled at how strong the wind was in my own back yard.  Blowing the trees around, making a loud racket like a freight train.  I felt excitement and delight at the wind’s heralding of the season changing into fall. I was imaging moving into warmer clothes, having a fire in the fire place, sipping some fresh, warmed apple cider.  Once I came back inside the house, I realized that my relationship to this particular season change was very different to my relationship to the change I’m experiencing now around this transition at work.  Especially around the “on my own” space.

    I felt excitement and delight at the wind’s heralding of the season changing into fall

    Standing outside, I felt connected to the weather, to the earth, to the natural rhythms of the change of season.  In contrast, the “on my own” space feels, well, on my own.  I became curious: are the remnants of my historical experience, overlaid with old narratives of “I’ve been left” or “it’s all up to me,” driving a sense of urgency, of overwhelm?  And the predictable and familiar reactive habits of focusing in the weeds of the daily grind?  As I sense into it, this “on my own” feeling is quite neutral, in and of itself.  Perhaps it is actually pointing to a growing sense of autonomy in me, as I move more fully into the #1 leader role at PBC?  And with that independence comes a sense of more freedom to make my own choices.  I am full of gratitude to have plenty of wise council, additional perspectives and support from many others who care about Doug, me and this work. And some of the hard decisions are mine alone to make. Questions I Am Asking Myself Here are some questions I am asking myself:
    • How is my experience of the change of season different from this feeling of “on my own”? (Context)
    • What makes it exciting vs overwhelming?( Soma)
    • What assumptions am I holding about the season change, and about shifts in my work life? (Context, Identity)
    • Who am I taking myself to be in this moment, and how is that shifting ?(Identity)
    As you see, I can’t help myself in making distinctions around the Nine Panes, from Doug’s latest book, Presence-Based Leadership.The Nine Panes is the core model from the book that offers nine powerful distinctions, perspectives and practices around leading in complexity.  As I tease apart these differences in the levels of systems of which I am a part (Context, Identity, Soma), these levels of scale continue to percolate into my consciousness. And I am noticing how they affect my experience, my perspectives.

    There’s always more to explore as the seasons continue to change, and I continue to change with them

    As I said, it feels useful to acknowledge that I am still in transition and will be for some time. And perhaps that feeling of “on my own” will be present for a long while, too.  There’s always more to explore as the seasons continue to change, and I continue to change with them. I can’t control the weather change. I can pay attention to my moment-to-moment experience.  And as I do that, I notice an opportunity for choice: I can stay within the confines of my historical views and habits.  Or I can practice resting into a more spacious perspective, like the change of season, and know I am a part of the bigger dynamism of life that is always happening within and around me. A Question For You If you (or a loved one or colleague) are experiencing any kind of transition, what questions would be useful for you (or them) to contemplate? Feel free to offer your questions below…

    Bebe Hansen

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  • Presence in Complexity Series #7: Resilience: De-Coupling State from Context

    Presence in Complexity Series #7: Resilience: De-Coupling State from Context

    Directing attention instantly and directly modifies our inner condition.

    We live in extraordinary times.

    It is a new form of agency to begin to discover that we can affect our mood, our sense of ourselves, our outlook on life, and our thoughts simply by directing our attention where we choose.

    What do you mean? No drugs, no therapy, no decades of self-improvement reading? Really? Just directing our attention? That sounds too good to be true!

    Well, yes and no. Yes, directing attention instantly and directly modifies our inner condition. And, with practice, we can build increasing fluidity at accessing new perspectives and greater resilience through our factory-loaded capabilities.

    And, no, it’s not always that simple, and, even when it’s simple, it’s not necessarily easy. Let’s break this down a bit.

    The cognitive portions of our nervous system (most frequently represented by the brain) are working constantly to make meaning of the world. We rehash prior experience in order to learn from it. And, we plan for the future by anticipating problems and opportunities and preparing for them.

    The nervous system is exquisitely designed to ensure the survival of the organism in order to perpetuate the species. Most often, in our contemporary world, this is more about perpetuating identity and a pervasive sense of self than about physical survival, but in marginalized groups, in war, in poverty, with refugees, physical survival is indeed what is at stake.

    The brain engages in identity-preserving “survival” activities relentlessly and automatically.

    The brain engages in identity-preserving “survival” activities relentlessly and automatically. Seeing our thinking processes from the balcony perspective reveals an obsessive pre-occupation with re-living the past and preparing for the future. Triggers range from the mundane (a mildly irritating email, or something we suddenly remember we forgot to attend to) to challenges to our identity (a professional public failure, a conflict) to the traumatic and overwhelming (the experience of a car accident, violence, racism or sexism.)

    Obviously, these are very different scales of triggering, but the fundamental processes of disruption of what we experience as “normal” are related. Our stress hormones go up, our heartbeat increases, our thoughts become rapid. We are triggered and reacting. Our inner condition has been disrupted by the outer context.

    In many leadership contexts this experience of disruption, reactivity and disorganization is pervasive and continuous. We get caught up in the mood, pace, and intensity of what is going on around us. We “take on” the state of the system.

    The more responsibility we feel for what is happening around us (and clearly this is the case for most leaders) the easier it becomes to be in a continual state of reaction. Our inner state becomes entangled with our context as we react to events unfolding around us which are not predictable and over which we have little control.

    *************

    Sound familiar? You, like I, live in a complex world that is continually challenging your identity. You experience this complexity as triggering precisely because you can’t master and control what is happening. And, you have been trained to believe that you should be able to do so.

    The good news is that you can begin to cultivate the capacity to de-couple your internal state from the context. The cognitive function of “executive control” can be harnessed to direct your attention to something of our choosing. For example, per a previous post, directing your attention into sensation instantly changes your experience of yourself.

    Here, the Subject to Object move of adult development becomes visible and pragmatic. You learn to step outside yourself and take a profoundly liberating balcony view. These four small shifts add up to big resilience:

    1. We can’t lead if we are entangled with the system around us: overwhelmed by, and therefore undifferentiated from, our context.

      Sense, and name, what is happening in your context. This naming makes it visible and knowable. It puts you on the balcony, seeing clearly what is triggering you or what feels overwhelming.

    2. Sense, and name, your own reactions to this context. Bear witness to how your identity is challenged, how you are taking on the stress of the system, how your thoughts are racing and shoulders hunched and attention span decreasing. Take a balcony view of our own experience.
    3. Consciously direct your attention in order to interrupt the automaticity of your own nervous system’s response to triggering. This begins to reveal agency in self-regulating your own state. Your balcony view here is that your state reacts to, but is not determined by, the context.
    4. With practice and sustained witnessing, you may arrive at the transcendent realization described by Viktor Frankl. After years in a Nazi concentration camp, he wrote that “the last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances.” This is the essence of resilience: the de-linking of our internal state from the context around us. This is liberation.

    I don’t claim that this is necessarily easy. The four shifts described above may take years of practice. Old and deep wounds heal slowly and may always remain triggerable.

    Yet, this de-coupling of state from context is crucial for leaders. We can’t lead if we are entangled with the system around us: overwhelmed by, and therefore undifferentiated from, our context. Our internal state has become part of a self-reinforcing feedback loop. The actions that arise from this state are likely to perpetuate or exacerbate the prevailing dynamic.

    We must embody optimism and creativity and boldness and kindness even when the system around us is overwhelmed and reactive and chaotic and mean-spirited.

    Leaders must learn to de-couple their state from the context. We must embody optimism and creativity and boldness and kindness even when the system around us is overwhelmed and reactive and chaotic and mean-spirited. This resilience is key to leading in a way that is transformative.

    Begin by cultivating your executive control of attention. Well-grounded research  demonstrates that as little as 8 minutes a day of consistent meditative attention practice produces long term increases in well-being, the capacity to take new perspectives, and to sustain equanimity in the midst of disruptions. That’s a pretty big ROI for learning to de-couple your state from your context!

    Of course, Frankl was a remarkable guy. It’s patently unrealistic to expect to attain his liberating realization after a few 8 minute meditation sessions. We performance driven perfectionists naively think we should be able to make anything happen, and happen on our timeframe. This belief is a toxic recipe for suffering when operating in complexity: things really don’t work that way at all.

    Relaxing, being present, and engaging in our worlds in new ways is both liberating and calls for more patience than our driven world easily supports. Baker Roshi said, “Enlightenment is an accident; practice makes us accident prone.”

    Start now.

    • How does your inner state reflect the outer conditions in which you lead?
    • How are you taking on the conditions of your context?
    • What exceptions have you noticed? What is an experience of your state being very different from what was going on around you?
    • How might you experiment with de-coupling your state from your context?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Presence in Complexity Series #5: Embodying Congruent States

    Presence in Complexity Series #5: Embodying Congruent States

    To the extent that the system around us being chaotic or fragmented means that we are chaotic and fragmented internally, we have lost the boundaries that distinguish us from the system.
    To the extent that the system around us being chaotic or fragmented means that we are chaotic and fragmented internally, we have lost the boundaries that distinguish us from the system.

    Wow, what a world we live in!

    It’s a New Year. And, we face a level of risk and uncertainty that I’ve not experienced since the Cuban Missile Crisis. My father is in the hospital, facing difficult decisions about surgery. My plans for the next weeks are completely subject to events. It can feel that there’s not much ground to stand on.

    We are all constantly sensing and reacting to what is going on around us. When things are difficult or chaotic, this can be triggering in many ways. Our inner condition is sometimes completely invisible to us. More often, we just believe that our impatience, urgency, fragmented attention and tight shoulders are the inevitable results of our circumstances. We tell ourselves that we’ll take some time off when the project is complete. Or when our new team member gets up to speed. And, we endure.

    We miss the fact that our taking on the condition of the system makes us part of the problem. To the extent that the system around us being chaotic or fragmented means that we are chaotic and fragmented internally, we have lost the boundaries that distinguish us from the system. Our nervous system has become inseparable from the organizational culture and the system dynamics around us. We have lost our perspective, and with it, our capacity to be useful.

    This, from a client engagement a few years ago:

    I worked with a leader a few years ago who had established an audacious business goal with her team. Ruth was a brilliant and charismatic leader, but in spite of her stellar track record in a very specialized role, also harbored inner doubts about her qualifications, and feared that she’d be “found out.” The stakes were high for her whole team.

    In an unconscious effort to prove herself and accelerate the initiative, Ruth often dominated her tense and fast-paced team meetings. She interrupted, taking over others’ ideas, creating re-work, and disenfranchising team members in the meantime. This hyper-driven results orientation was adding to the stress in the system, and incurring significant costs in performance, workload, and team members’ ownership of the business goal.

    De-linking our inner state from our context gives us the freedom to represent and embody something entirely new within the systems we intend to influence.
    De-linking our inner state from our context gives us the freedom to represent and embody something entirely new within the systems we intend to influence.

    One of the great discoveries of the human condition is that we all have the capacity to direct and organize our attention in ways of our own choosing. We can de-link our inner condition from our outer circumstances.

    De-linking our inner state from our context gives us the freedom to represent and embody something entirely new within the systems we intend to influence. We can become an antidote to reactivity. We can be both a symbol and an instigator of a different way of being.

    De-linking provides the freedom to choose an organizing principle, an inner state, that is in fact helpful and supportive of the future we intend to invite. We become internally congruent with a value, a cause, a destination that matters to us. This freedom gives us the possibility of becoming ever more intentional about what we take a stand for.

    It is crucial that we embody what matters to us. Embodied leadership is how we turn minute firings of neurons into dams, books, trips to the moon, lasting relationships, financial success, and social justice. A future we care about. A culture of curiosity and experimentation. Relationships that are compassionate and supportive.

    As I write this, I am awaiting a call from the hospital in New York where my father is facing a difficult treatment decision. There is no question about where my embodied commitment lies. I have a very busy couple of weeks ahead of me. And, if he chooses to have surgery, I’m going to be with him.

    I am fully congruent in this. Sure, there are complexities that will need to be managed, events rescheduled or cancelled, and consequences. But, for me, that’s just details. My priorities are clear. I am going to be with my father.

    Embodied leadership is how we turn minute firings of neurons into dams, books, trips to the moon, lasting relationships, financial success, and social justice.
    Embodied leadership is how we turn minute firings of neurons into dams, books, trips to the moon, lasting relationships, financial success, and social justice.

    Holding the focus of what we care about is not simply a matter of a mental picture, or a set of words that describe what is important to us. It’s a matter of taking these things in so that we experience them as a felt state, as an inner condition, as an organizing principle.

    Ruth was prime for coaching. She intuitively knew that she had become part of the problem and recognized that she needed to shift something. Over time, she began to see how she was adding stress to the system. She experimented with replacing the old narrative that it was “all up to her” with a new narrative that her “team had the chops to deliver” on this goal. She began to organize her attention, and actions, around the assumption that her team could solve most of the big strategic and resource deployment issues that they faced. She didn’t have to provide constant motivation.

    Embodying this new narrative took time and practice. Ruth increasingly saw her urge to interrupt, and let it pass. As she held back more and more, she also explicitly communicated her confidence in her team’s resourcefulness. She settled her own internal state, which in turn helped team meetings become more relaxed, productive, and creative. She asked questions, sat back in her chair rather than leaning forward, and allowed pauses and silence where previously every moment had been pressured and packed.

    She extended calm confidence into the team environment. They in turn stepped into this new space in astonishing new ways.

    Here’s the key. The behaviors that become problematic for us as leaders were acquired previously in our lives in conditions that no longer exist. But, because these behaviors worked at the time, they became embodied as tendencies that tend to emerge under pressure and stress now, decades later.

    When we practice in this way, we cultivate useful and resilient states that are available to us both now and in the future.
    When we practice in this way, we cultivate useful and resilient states that are available to us both now and in the future.

    We can harness the same mechanisms of neuroplasticity and embodied learning to develop and integrate new congruent states, organized around commitments, futures and values of our own choosing. When we practice in this way, we cultivate useful and resilient states that are available to us both now and in the future.

    • What habits do you engage in that actually reinforce unhelpful dynamics in your relationships?
    • What resourceful internal state do you wish was available when this happens?
    • What conditions produce this state? And, how might you practice it when those conditions are not present?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Presence in Complexity Series #4: Resourcing with Presence in Challenging Times

    Presence in Complexity Series #4: Resourcing with Presence in Challenging Times

    We live in very unpredictable times. And, this has profound effects on our moment-by-moment experience.
    We live in very unpredictable times. And, this has profound effects on our moment-by-moment experience.

    Complexity, for leaders who are accustomed to making things happen, is an uncomfortable space. Lack of predictability can trigger us in ways that reduce our resourcefulness when we need it most.

    As a ready example, note your own reaction to the recent US election. What has been your mood? How are you reacting to breaking news? How do you feel this in your body?

    Whatever your belief system, we live in very unpredictable times. And, this has profound effects on our moment-by-moment experience.

    Complexity triggers our attachments and aversions. Where we sense opportunities to reinforce our identity, our energy ramps up and we act to build ourselves up.

    Conversely, when we feel under threat, aversions arise. We naturally act from fear when our sense of who we are is put at risk by circumstances we can’t control. Both attachments and aversions are likely to cause us to respond in ways that are less than helpful.

    Awareness of our internal experience, and specifically of the physical sensations that are always present within us, turns out to be a powerful doorway for resilience and creativity.

    Please try this brief experiment.

    Take a brief break from reading. (I know, I know… it’s a cliffhanger and you’re super busy and you just want to get the takeaway and move on. But, consider …. right now, you’re actually either avoiding doing something you don’t want to do. Or, you’re seeking to learn something new. Either of these will be well served by your taking an actual break. Pausing is a win either way. Trust me on this!)

    Now, read this paragraph. Then close your eyes. With awareness, take a full inhale, hold it briefly, and then allow a very long, slow and complete exhale through your nose. Be fully present. Sense the breath exiting your nose. Feel your chest and torso settling. At the end of the exhale, notice how you feel different. Specifically, what changed? Identify three words that describe how you feel different. Now, close your eyes and do this…..

    — Pause for experiment! —

    Directing attention itself changes, and regulates, the condition of our entire nervous system.
    Directing attention itself changes, and regulates, the condition of our entire nervous system.

    These three phenomena did not happen because you took a breath. You take many thousands of breaths every day. Whatever changed did so because you directed your attention to your breath, and more generally, into the sensations that are constantly present in your body.

    The experiment asked you to shift your attention from cognition (like the reading and meaning-making you’re doing in this moment) to the present-moment sensations that arise in your body (like during the breath pause.) You could repeat the breath pause, and if you do it sincerely and with attention, you will get very similar results.

    By experimenting in this way, we can discover many amazing things. Here are just a few; there are many more. All come factory-loaded in the world-class performance package included with your precious human body!

    • in any moment, we can choose where to direct our attention
    • we have an attention selector. Neuroscientists call this “executive control.” It is like the channel selector on a TV, that can be used to direct our attention where we choose
    • inside us is a wealth of constantly changing and dynamic experience
    • sensations provide rich information about ourselves, including how we are reacting to our context
    • directing attention itself changes, and regulates, the condition of our entire nervous system
    • attention brings us into the present moment, making us immediately more aware, creative, and resourceful.

    There is a lifetime of fascinating things about the workings of human consciousness to explore here. Please don’t take these claims on faith. Investigate for yourself. Verify, from your own experience, how these claims hold up.

    ****************

    Complexity is a feature of our context. We are constantly being buffeted by events, many of which are unpredictable and therefore triggering. This requires different ways of leading than we are prepared us for.

    We can learn to lead in complex and dangerous times with creativity, resourcefulness, spaciousness, and choice.
    We can learn to lead in complex and dangerous times with creativity, resourcefulness, spaciousness, and choice.

    Leaders are trained to observe the world, collect data, and base decisions on that data. It is crucial for leaders to recognize the dynamics of complexity in our context.

    However, if we focus our attention exclusively on what’s happening in the world, we will gain important information. And, we will miss essential information about our internal condition, as we are reacting to this context.

    Attention practices are essential. We must learn to sense, within our own aliveness, how our context is affecting us. This is revealed, with immediacy and clarity, in the rich tapestry of sensation-based information within us. It is revealed only in the present moment.

    From this foundation of awareness, we can build the capacity to cultivate inner conditions of our choosing. We can learn to lead in complex and dangerous times with creativity, resourcefulness, spaciousness, and choice.

    This is not futuristic. This is now. The exponentially increasing risks and complexity as we face a very uncertain future require this of all of us.

    I invite your reflections and comments:

    • How, specifically, do you experience triggering inside yourself in the current context?
    • What do you sense is being asked of you now?
    • What are you doing to resource yourself in order to respond creatively to this context?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Presence in Complexity Series #3: What Does the Body Have to Do With It?

    Presence in Complexity Series #3: What Does the Body Have to Do With It?

    Everything, really! Our body structures our interpretations of the world around us, generates our reactions to things around us, and determines the actions we take. Attention in the body is the key to staying resourceful when the world isn’t cooperating. It is how we can bring bringing awareness and choice into our reactions to the world.

    These urges drive our relationships, our connections with what’s important, our curiosity, and our avoidance of danger.
    These urges drive our relationships, our connections with what’s important, our curiosity, and our avoidance of danger.

    In the previous post, we saw how our identity gets challenged in complexity. We are constantly confronted by our limits. We know we can get things done, but our project is plagued by delays. People we usually can count on disappoint us, and we find ourselves angry. Something unpredictable happens, and we tell ourselves we should have seen it coming. Or, we are surprised by our over-reaction to a provocation that ordinarily wouldn’t seem a big deal.

    The person we imagine ourselves to be would sail smoothly through all this. But, the person we actually are isn’t sailing smoothly at all!

    We find ourselves set back on our heels over and over again by realities that confront us with gaps in our capabilities. Or, call into question the very competencies that give us pride and meaning and a sense of self.

    Relax… this is simply complexity challenging our identity! It’s normal!

    *************

    Identity is an embodied phenomenon. Our identity, our reliable sense of self, is held in place by attachments and aversions. Attachments are urges towards experiences that are safe and pleasurable and that reinforce who we believe ourselves to be. And aversions are urges to avoid what is unsafe, unpleasant, or challenges who we believe ourselves to be.

    Attachments and aversions can be felt in the body. For example, the tightening in our belly as someone gives us difficult feedback is an aversion. The small surge of energy when we see an email in our inbox from someone we made a request of is an attachment. The impulse to eat just one more cookie is an attachment; the resistance we feel to drafting a touchy email is an aversion.

    When we begin to look, attachments and aversions are everywhere. They are the direct experience of the urges within our body as it constructs and defends our identity. These urges drive our relationships, our connections with what’s important, our curiosity, and our avoidance of danger.

    Attachments and aversions are… the direct experience of the urges within our body as it constructs and defends our identity.
    Attachments and aversions are… the direct experience of the urges within our body as it constructs and defends our identity.

    These urges are constant and vigilant. They steer us automatically towards what strengthens identity and away from what threatens identity.

    How is this pragmatic?

    In our coach training and our work with leaders in complexity, we practice awareness of our interior experience. We slow ourselves down. We pay attention. When we focus on our experience, there is lots of information. We miss it when we are running fast, but the information is there for the reaping. We just have to learn how to look.

    We can use this information to guide us as leaders and humans. Sensing attachments and aversions reveals our body acting to strengthen or defend identity. We can learn to stay present to our body’s precursors to action, intervening and choosing before it is too late to choose.

    Five minutes ago, as I sat here writing this blog post, a text message arrived. A close colleague was inviting me to collaborate on a choice piece of work overseas, three weeks from now. I could feel my attachments. My heartbeat quickened. My energy rose. I sat up straighter. I watched my thoughts began to race as my nervous system automatically began to figure out how to fit this into an already packed calendar. I watched myself generate stories to justify doing so: this work would pay well, it’s overseas in a cool place, it’s with a high profile client, it would be fun and gratifying to work with this colleague, etc, etc…

    All true. And, I recognized the feel of this pull. I saw clearly how the opportunity tugged at my identity by triggering multiple attachments. I saw that these strong identity-driven urges to say Yes were leading towards a commitment that would require abandoning several other promises that I had already made to my family and to another project that is very important to me.

    In the past, I would have found a way to make it work, and cleaned up the messes later. Now, I am able to see that my attachment was hijacking me. I replied to my colleague that I appreciated the invitation but couldn’t make it work. And, I came back to writing this blog post, sitting on a rainy morning next to my wife and my dogs, writing what is mine to write.

    Our nervous system is designed to avoid dangers like hungry lions, and operates fundamentally the same with the creation and preservation of identity.
    Our nervous system is designed to avoid dangers like hungry lions, and operates fundamentally the same with the creation and preservation of identity.

    It is the body’s job to keep the organism safe. The mechanisms to do so are elegantly designed to handle this, reliably and below the level of awareness. Our nervous system is designed to avoid dangers like hungry lions, and operates fundamentally the same with the creation and preservation of identity. Like angry spouses. Or, people with power who want to give us feedback. Our body is constantly organizing itself, through attachments and aversions, to navigate the world in ways that construct and protect our identity.

    Unless and until we bring awareness to illuminating the inner workings of these drivers, they run us. We can learn to recognize the experience of our identity being challenged by unpredictable circumstances. We can bring awareness to, the precise physical sensations that indicate our personality is involved in our reactions. We can do this long before our slower and more deliberate thinking processes can figure it out.

    We can use this awareness in many ways in order to become more fluid, creative, and resourceful when the world doesn’t show up in the ways we wish it would.

    Consider, in relation to some significant aspect of your current conditions that you experience as challenging:

    • What is important to you in this situation? How does this situation contain opportunities or threats for your identity?
    • What are you attached to? What aversions are at play?
    • How do you experience these attachments and aversions in your body? In your emotions? In the stories that you tell yourself about what might happen?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Presence in Complexity Series #2: Identity on the Line

    Presence in Complexity Series #2: Identity on the Line

    Our responses in complexity are often determined, in ways that are both debilitating and invisible to us, by our perspective
    Our responses in complexity are often determined, in ways that are both debilitating and invisible to us, by our perspective

    We experience situations as difficult when they call into question our sense of who we are.

    Among most of the people I know, domestically and overseas, there is a sense of outrage about last week’s election. Among others, there is presumably a sense of vindication, of optimism, of finally being heard. Both of those responses are understandable. Both sets of people are equally convinced that they are in possession of the truth. Our response to the election is determined by its resonance with our identity, with our very sense of self.

    “Challenging” isn’t a descriptor of the situation so much as a descriptor of our perspective on the situation. Our responses in complexity are often determined, in ways that are both debilitating and invisible to us, by our perspective.

    We might believe that things should be otherwise. We tell ourselves: “I should have predicted this.” “I should be able to control this situation or solve that problem.” “I should be up to this challenge.”

    When we believe these things, we will likely experience our situation as frustrating. Our identity feels on the line. We may tighten down and work harder. Paradoxically, these very understandable responses may make it harder to actually change the situation.

    When we see that the situation is inherently unpredictable and uncontrollable, we relax. And, paradoxically, this relaxation can make it easier to see and make new moves. Being present to how our identity is being triggered is a key to this most useful relaxation and acceptance.

    Our deepest drives feed a relentless, unconscious, and automatic life-long process of constructing and defending our identity
    Our deepest drives feed a relentless, unconscious, and automatic life-long process of constructing and defending our identity

    Let’s explore the notion of identity, and see where this leads us.

    Our identity was formed early in life as we sought to discover how to survive and thrive in families of origin that were universally less than perfect. As young children, we navigated this less-than-ideal circumstance. We shaped ourselves to get what we needed from life, and to differentiate ourselves as a person. Successful strategies become embodied in our personality, and eventually come to define us.

    (It’s fun to watch my four year old grandson, Max, doing this…. the amount of will this little guy possesses, and is willing to assert in pursuit of what he wants or doesn’t want at a particular time, is absolutely astounding! He is a force to be reckoned with!)

    Identity is how a developing human becomes solidified as a personality. Our deepest drives feed a relentless, unconscious, and automatic life-long process of constructing and defending our identity.

    The Buddhist notions of attachments and aversions speak to this. They are the self-correction mechanisms that keep identity in place. They are the underlying drivers of behavior.

    Attachments are the pulls towards something (a glass of wine, the admiration of others, solving a problem) that gives us positive experiences. Attachments are what advertisements trigger when they pitch make-up, drugs, vacations, or a candidate that tells us what we want to believe, even if it doesn’t make rational sense. As leaders, getting things done is supported by our attachments to action and results, to being successful.

    Aversions, on the other hand, are the instinctual mechanisms of avoidance. Originally designed to help us avoid predators, they work just as well as drivers to help us avoid embarrassment, looking stupid, or whatever our particular definition of failure might be.

    Attachments are the pulls towards something that gives us positive experiences
    Attachments are the pulls towards something that gives us positive experiences

    Bottom line? We seek what we are attached to. We avoid what we have aversions to. Underneath, and preceding, every behavior and action is an attachment or an aversion. Look and you will see them. They are the internal self-correction mechanisms through which we organize ourselves in life to keep our identity intact.

    So, back to complexity and suffering. Situations that are VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) challenge our identity as someone who can control events or make things happen.

    Complexity activates our attachments and aversions. We are attached to solving the problem or making progress or achieving results (because our identity is linked to those things happening.) And, we have an aversion to looking inadequate or failing or staying stuck (because our identity is linked to those things not happening.)

    Our experience of a complex environment is, in fact, directly correlated with the identity we have built over a lifetime, and now finds itself challenged by the very complexity in which we are leading.

    Similarly, our view of the election results depends on our whether our identity is being affirmed by the victor’s rhetoric. If it is, our attachments are triggered: we feel seen and our energy and optimism increase. Our identity responds to these messages, and we move towards the victor.

    If, on the other hand, our identity is threatened by the victor’s rhetoric, our response is very different. Our aversions will be triggered if we belong to any of the many groups he has insulted, or if our values and the people and things we care about are threatened.

    We can learn to see how our identity is being triggered by the situations we are in
    We can learn to see how our identity is being triggered by the situations we are in

    Unfortunately our biological tendency when our identity is under threat is to tighten down, do more, and work harder. Paradoxically, as we shall see in subsequent blog posts, these may be exactly the wrong things to do when we are operating in complexity. Tightening down and working harder are the instinctual responses to identity threats, but they can make it more difficult to navigate fluidly and creatively and compassionately in complexity. Acting in complexity with conventional, identity-preserving behaviors often makes the situation more difficult, and real progress more elusive.

    When our identity needs, and the attachments and aversions that keep them intact, are invisible to us, they sabotage our effectiveness as leaders in countless ways, small and large. This is true whether the situation is big (like the US election) or small (a difficult conversation with a loved one) or in between (like the teams and organizations we lead.)

    We can learn to see how our identity is being triggered by the situations we are in. And, we can learn to stay present with the attachments and aversions that arise in response to our situation, no matter how strong they are. This is the key to resilience and choice.

    • How does your current context challenge your identity? What risks do you experience, personally, in this situation?
    • How does your current context enliven and invite you to be your best?
    • What attachments do you recognize? What aversions? How do you experience these as reactions to complexity and unpredictability?

    Doug Silsbee

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