Relationships: the glue when all else crumbles

I'm attempting to bring together some thoughts on relationship as we work on a booklet (a sort of preparatory guide) which will capture how we see the service providers working together with Nyoongar Elders in our project, the Looking Forward Project. We developed a Handbook in 2013 to help prepare service providers to come into the project and think about what they needed to consider to begin their work with the Nyoongar community. Already we are seeing some activities between stakeholders provide some spaces for conversation and learning, based on the relationships that are bieng formed and deepened!

The booklet will extend our thinking and insights into how people with differing worldviews can effectively work together.

So, these are some first thoughts to get some things down in writing, which is a challenge when so much of this work is deeply experiential!

To be in relationship is to connect, to join together, to get in touch with, or establish rapport (cf. etymology of connect). We can relate a story, or associate with, or relate to others.

Some initial questions:

• Relationships are key to our work - why?
• What kind of relationships do we mean?
• Why are they so important and necessary?

Relationships keep us connected and alive. They bind us to those we know and those we trust in such vulnerable circumstances. They are what keep us grounded when all else crumbles around us. They also enable us to meet new people and try new experiences so we continue to grow and deepen our human capacities. So, in terms of the project, people can trust others more when they know each other better. They care for each other, so remain conscious of one another when in conversation or action together. People are more likely to remain open to new experiences, challenging ideas and different ways of being, working and thinking.

Image by Michael Sarver on Flickr.

Holding is relationship. Being held by others and holding others is an incredible investment in trust and respect, an almost sacred act. There is a deep sense of care and concern for oneself as well as for others. it takes time to not only make such a connection, but to make a commitment to doing so in the first place. We need to understand our own motivations and intentions in order to commit fully. No one can talk us into it, it comes from us alone. I'm reminded here of a quote by James Marcum (2001) from our Handbook about engagement, which points to an intrinsic willingness to connect with others:

Engagement is a “bottom up,” grassroots process that cannot be directed from above. Engagement occurs when [people] undertake tasks related to their interests and competence, learn about them continuously, participate freely with (equal) associates, immerse themselves deeply, and continue the task with persistence and commitment because of the value they attribute to the work.

Relationships - what do they look like? They are dynamic, oscillating, complex, light and shade, generative and integral to our human existence. They include values and beliefs, actions and behaviours, practices and habits, past and present, memories and moments. They require talking, touching, teaching, learning, time, frequency, preparation, mindfulness, reflection, vulnerability, honesty, trust, respect, authenticity, reciprocity and generosity. They require our whole being, and we require whole relationships to truly be the best versions of ourselves that we can be. I like Moustakas's thinking on relationships in terms of "being with," together...

Moustakas, Being-In, Being-For, Being-With (1995, p. 70, 71):

In the authentic relationship, there is a facing up to the feelings and issues, an exercise of wills, without the will on either side being negated, impaired, or broken. The will ignites the fires of determination and enables one to face the old patterns of criticism, adversity, and rejection; enables one to live with the negative feelings and thoughts while creating new images and meanings in the process.

And finally why is this all necessary? We have realised, through our project, that for people to manage the unsettled nature of the work they are doing, the relationships they develop help to provide a sort of human glue. Our project is a decolonizing one. It asks people to question their very foundations - the worldviews they hold and the values it supports. This is disruptive, destablising and disconcerting. Relating to others in this contested space enables people to feel safe during such struggle and each feels care and concern for the other.

Conversation is relationship. How we relate to each other occurs through our language and communication (verbal, body, explicit, implicit, coded, power-laden, and so on). A space in which to converse is potentially a decolonizing space - a contested space. It is a space that enables many different views to be shared without persecution and where each voice is respected in the representation of the speaker's worldview. It's not easy to maintain such a space but is necessary if decolonizing is to occur. Interestingly, the etymology of "contested" is, "to bear witness together" - I love it! :o)...

Decolonizing work - looks like undoing structures, breaking current habits and pausing current actions and processes - destabilising, ground moves from under us, we can no longer rely on what we know and think of as 'truth' and so feel displaced and uncertain. I'm reminded of Iseke's work with Canadian Elders when thinking about how this work can decolonize, through the very presence of the Elders and their spiritual rites, rituals and knowledge.

More thoughts to come, and though this may not be well structured as yet, I'm feeling the urge to write otherwise it's difficult to get the words out at all!

More on patience...or is it action?

Patience alone consumes itself in mere prattle; impatience alone consumes itself in irresponsible activism. Virtue, then, does not lie in experiencing either without the other but, rather, in living the permanent tension between the two. The educator must live and work impatiently patiently, never surrendering entirely to either Freire (1998: 44). 

I'm beginning to see how our intentions flow into actions, through the mechanisms that guide our thinking in the social sphere. In his collection of letters to teachers, Freire (1998) talks about the progressive educator having the foresight to stay with the tension between patience and impatience, as he describes in the above quote.

Patience clarifies our thinking (intention), while impatience sparks our actions.

Is it that we must grow in our wisdom to know when one or the other is needed?

I think my quest for patience needs to expand into a quest to tolerate uncertainty!

Being tolerant does not mean acquiescing to the intolerable... Tolerance is the virtue that teaches us to live with the different. It teaches us to learn from and respect the different Freire (1998).

Image: Etienne Valois (Flickr)

A leap of faith

We had our first meeting with service providers yesterday about the evaluation plan they will begin developing in a couple of months. It's an exciting time!

This evaluation is based on the work we did last year and the community findings the previous year. I was both anxious and excited about our meeting yesterday: anxious in seeing how people would respond to our outline and second would they "get it", plus excited by the fact that we were beginning the journey with them in earnest (after months of planning and talking about and with them!).

As a project team, we've also been synthesizing our thinking around connecting the personal/individual journey with the systems change journey - a "leap of faith" in some ways. We tentatively tested our thinking with the service we met with yesterday, and we didn't sense we were "off track" with our message. Mostly non-verbal indicators; nods, leaning forward, a sense of warmth in the room, and I am somewhat relieved.

It's also got to do, I think, with taking your message out, to really test it and see if it lives or dies. If it contributes to the ongoing dialogue, then it's valuable.

Reflecting on that phrase, "a leap of faith", I'm reminded of The Matrix and in particular, this excerpt:


What I've noticed in this scene are my own feelings as Morpheus takes the leap: taking a deep breath and jumping, the hard work required to take the jump, the effort to gather energy to leap, letting go in my mind, trusting the process, tolerating uncertainty...! I've noticed this based on our team meeting earlier today and our discussion around connecting person to process and the bigger picture (i.e. the system, where systems are people anyway).

And so, the inquiry spirals...


Further reading:
Katie Armstrong (2013) Tolerating Uncertainty, Changerous Blog. changerous.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/tolerating-uncertainty/ March 8, 2013.

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Seikkula J & Olsen M (2003) The Open Dialogue Approach to Acute Psychosis: Its Poetics and Micropolitics, Family Process, 42(3), 403-418, http://www.theicarusproject.net/files/OpenDialog-ApproachAcutePsychosisOlsonSeikkula.pdf

Meinhold, Roman (2009) Being in The Matrix: An example of cinematic education in philosophy, Prajna Vihara. Journal of Philosophy and Religion. Vol.10, No.1-2, http://www.academia.edu/232464/Being_in_the_Matrix._An_Example_of_Cinematic_Education_in_Philosophy