Anger over fear - Day 3

Day 3

3 wise monkeys - they originate from Japan and they are Mizaru, covering his
eyes, who sees no evil; Kikazaru, covering his ears, who hears no evil; and Iwazaru, covering his mouth, who speaks no evil.

This post was composed in 2015 by Khurshed Dehnugara, a leading Partner at specialist research and advisory business Relume; this consultancy helps organisations, leaders, teams and individuals challenge the status quo. It touches on the "heartache and hope" elements of this year's theme. This post is a gift, as it will make you think about how and why you and others behave as you/they do.

 Khurshed commenced his career within the corporate environment, but left  off being an executive to become a coach and facilitator working with C-suite executives and leaders who are seeking paths to achieve desirable change within complex organisations. He has an eclectic educational background that crosses cultural, scientific, psychological and artistic boundaries. Khurshed is active on social media (I first met him via Twitter when he asked to join the 2014 Advent Blog series - his handle is @relume1) and writes excellent blogs as well as books. Last year he published the highly rated "Flawed but Willing - Leading Large Organizations in the Age of Connection". Similar to his book, Khurshed's below post is personal and explores why we behave as we do. It brings to life the contrast of feelings and how we interpret our responses - the heat of apparently coal-fuelled anger and its sometimes driver, the root-grip of fear that, if appreciated, can shed light on a situation and hence provide opportunities.

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At first I felt very angry, they were having a go at me, my whole body was flushed with an enormous surge of emotion. My mind was trying to grab anything that would get me through this and everything in my body was ready for a fight.
 

Then I stopped and gave it a little longer. It may only have been seconds but felt much longer as these things often do.

Now I noticed a sensation in my stomach that is difficult to describe but I know it after many years of experience to be a sign of me being scared. My intestines were all tangled up, I was hypersensitive to the environment and my heart was in my mouth. I used to deny this being about fear and call it something else; I couldn't accept that I would be scared of anything, far better to be angry than scared.

Now that I can accept it is fear it gives me some more choices.

I also know that when I feel it there is bound to be some anger somewhere, sometimes directed towards me. This is helpful when everyone in the room is still smiling but my senses are telling me something different. Sometimes it is more 'obvious', people avoiding contact with me, talking past me and turning their faces away. It is then a choice of what do I do with this? Do I want to press into the anger, encourage its expression? I often do this by reflecting back to the team their facial expressions - this sometimes causes a shift. Or do I want to diffuse the anger? In this case I chose to do that in the interests of the bigger piece of work by trying an apology. But I could only make this choice once I distinguished fear as different to anger. If I only had an angry response there was no choice about my reactions.
 

I imagine a picture of my fear when it is hiding just behind my anger. It is smaller, obscured somehow, it makes itself available but only for an instant before it hides away again, hands over its eyes or ears or mouth. If I can pause and wait quietly then he may show himself again. He feels weak but the more I wait, the more time I give him the more likely it is that he will come and speak for himself.
 

When I speak from that place I notice the whole tone of what I am saying changes, my voice and presence are different, steadier more connected, the audience are more intent on hearing what I have to say, the room is quieter. And we get a result more often than not.

·      Where does anger arise most often in your system? And when?

·      Can you identify what triggers it?

·      Is it authentic, about addressing some kind of injustice?

·      Is it a cover for another emotion?

·      Could it be fear that you are covering up?

·      Can you distinguish the changes in your body and the distinctions between what you notice when you are angry versus when you are scared?

·      If so what are you scared of? Can you articulate it or write it down? What happens? How do people react?

In the day to day it is quite easy to be angry with a whole host of things in the business that are not going to plan. In the Industrial Age cultures being angry is often admired as a form of leadership, if not admired it is certainly the currency of many organisational myths!

In the channel at the edges of the established ways of working, access to fear, especially the fear behind any anger is a source of creativity and change, if only we can give it a voice.

Darkness to light - Day 47

Day 47 (Tuesday 16th January 2018)

47 years ago, on the 16th January 1981, Leon Spinks (the American professional
boxer who in only his 8th professional fight won the undisputed heavyweight championship
in after defeating Muhammad Ali) was mugged and robbed. After being attacked in the
street he was taken to a motel and had $450000 worth of clothes, accessories and jewellery
taken, including his gold teeth. Spinks' boxing heavyweight title was short lived and
after boxing he became a wrestler, winning the world title in 1992 (he is the only person to hold
both the boxing and wrestling world titles). He has suffered heavily as a result of boxing - in
2012 he was diagnosed as suffering from shrinkage in his brain due to the impact of opponents' punches

Today is my father's birthday. He is turning 87. He is an amazing man (and a much loved father and grandfather) and I hope he has a wonderful day. 

The author of today's post, the highly talented photographer Paul Clarke, took a wonderful picture of my father at my eldest son's 21st birthday and I treasure it. If you have not seen his work, I urge you to click onto Paul's website: paulclarke.com - it's no wonder that he has won multiple awards. He has an eye for detail (he writes beautifully too - his blog on his business site is worth reading). You can also find Paul on Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook. He is witty, engaging, perspicacious and highly intelligent - a joy to spend time with.

It perhaps should come as no surprise that a photographer has much to say about darkness and light.

PS I have used various photos that Paul took this year to illustrate his post - you can see them (and more) on his blog and website.

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In my professional world, the world of photos and images, nothing happens without light. Literally, nothing. Seeing it, shaping it, playing with it – that’s what we do.

If I look back over the last decade as I’ve made the shift into this world, I can pick out distinct points when I started to think of light in different ways. How it might be brought into focus; how it behaves in a tight field of view; what colour it is (even when it’s “white”) and how it’s less important whether something is generally bright or dark, but much more important how light and dark contrast with each other.

This was taken in bright sunshine using the sun as the "lightbulb",
 but tightening up the camera to enable only the brightest light to get through

Over 2017 there’ve been times of deep personal darkness for me, but also plenty of light. Shakespeare nailed the very human need for contrast in Henry IV Part One, of course: “If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work” - and we have many modern equivalents.

We need the light so that we can recognise the dark, and the dark so that we can appreciate the light.

As I’ve hauled my way slowly into this new industry (from a post-40 standing start), my own lights and darks have happened in different ways. Sometimes they’ve been about finding any business at all. Or about overcoming some technical difficulty, or unfamiliarity with equipment.

This collection of more than 190 antique and modern pieces of photographic equipment
was neatly arranged and photographed by Portland-based photographer Jim Golden.
The equipment was borrowed from members of Portland’s photo community.

But the later stages have been the hardest to conquer. Putting it simply: if you try to do something well, you’ll get better at it. If you get better at it, you’ll attract tougher assignments. If you get tougher assignments, you’ll set higher standards for yourself.

It’s a spiral of expectation and challenge, and in the second half of this year it bit me. The particular client will never know of course – we’re good at hiding our own terrors in this regard. The job always gets done, and done well. But the process – that moment of realising that you’re through to a new level, and must deliver, can be awfully painful.

Composition study: shells by Amiria Gale

I think it’s something that’s particularly tough in the creative arts. What I make – by definition – has never existed before. I produce concepts, not just outputs. Were I making steel rivets, there’d be some opportunity to make a better rivet, but not much. I’d be measured on speed and consistency of delivery, but the product would be a known.

Making unknowns – whether in words, music or pictures – is different. Working with humans, as I do, means that the subject’s reaction to the unknown thing yet to be made will also be an unknown. Unknowns piled on unknowns! Where’s the light to be found in all of that? It’s very easy to fall into the dark.

I did fall, and at the lowest point I felt like giving it all up. If I lost confidence, then there’d be no creativity. No creativity, and there’d be no clients. No clients and… and so the spiral descends.

But I pulled back from the edge, this time. Going back to the simplest principles of how light works with dark. Sticking with my instincts about where the strength of an image would really be found. Stripping away composition and complexity to tell a story with as small a number of elements as possible.

October wedding photo by Paul Clarke

The job was delivered, eventually. The client was happy, immediately. The dark… didn’t recede as such, but took on a new texture. And so did the light. And so we head into a new year.

However brightly or dimly the light shines for you this year, I hope that you find plenty of contrast. That’s really what keeps us going, after all.

Seagulls by Paul Clarke

It's not all dark - Day 28

Day 28 (Thursday 28th December 2017)

28 December is, for many Christians, a day of distressing contemplation - it is
The Feast of the Holy Innocents, which commemorates the death of blameless male infants
slaughtered by King Herod in his attempt to destroy the newly born Jesus. You might be
interested to know that the 28 December is also the date when, in 2013, China eased its
One-Child policy, which had for many years resulted in the death of thousands of predominantly female infants.

We have our office Christmas Party this evening. Many firms, due to the diverse nature of the workforce have "Winterval" parties or a seasonal event, however, being a long-established UK business, we are remain traditional. 

Today's post is by the executive coach and company director Tony Jackson, who is well known to many on social media. He has a number of Twitter handles (depending on why/how you know him) - @Jacksont0ny is his personal account, @ChelshamConsult is his company account and lastly @t0nyjPhotos is his "third place" where you can often see some of his wonderful photos (as indeed you can in today's post as al the illustrations have been taken by Tony himself). Tony writes a fine blog that you can find on his business website, Chelsham.co/blog. Tony commenced his career by training to become an accountant before realising that he had a greater interest in people as opposed to numbers. He lives with his husband, Andrea, in South West London. His take on darkness and dawn is very personal and touches on difficult subjects, but it also has much to do with his penchant and talent for photography.

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My immediate reaction to this Advent Blog series’ theme was to ponder whether darkness is a negative and dawn a positive – or whether both can be either.  

Without darkness we cannot see the amazing glory of the night sky, it is harder to rest or sleep and some creative experiences cannot happen. We dim the lights for a reason, don’t we? Horrors dawn on us do they not?

In that light here is my offering, perhaps more a stream of consciousness than a blog this time……

Darkness

It took me 30 years of adult life to work out that the times when I haven’t been anywhere near at my best, when I haven’t really understood my own reactions to events around me, be it at play or at work, I have often been driven by anxiety.

There. I said it.

Most people I meet or with whom I work wouldn’t notice – I can cover it well.

However, anxiety has taken me to some dark places over the years and, in extremis, was even the catalyst for one of the very few ‘bad days’ in my relationship.  Over a decade ago (the year of two awful events which I mention below) my panic attack in a crowd ruined a long-awaited treat for my wonderful husband. Of course neither of us realised at the time that it had been a panic attack. A boss once asked me, baffled, why I had ducked out of an important team gathering. A workmate noticed that a real career success had only bred insecurity (“when will it be taken away from me?”). Hello Imposter Syndrome.

Good friends and relatives know that I sometimes have to work through anxieties to turn up to events. Friends laugh with me when they hear me say ridiculous things such as “will we get a table?” (answer of course: “if not we’ll go somewhere else”). In the mix is PTSD emanating from teenage experiences plus a physical assault at the age of 40 when I thought, I believed, I was in a safe space. Add to that the awfulness of the man I love being in that square when the bus blew up on 7/7  - this within weeks of the assault. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near there but had been displaced as events unfolded. The last message I received was “I’m getting on a bus at Euston”. Those two hours waiting to reach him were the longest of my life and then I had to work through the guilt of feeling so damaged even though neither of us had actually been hurt physically. Unlike so many.

I managed to reach out for help and we all need to recognise that not everyone can or will. It’s also why I started going to my detox retreats. I have discovered ways of self-soothing/self-healing and I commend this to you.

Being able to recognise this as anxiety has been the most remarkable breakthrough and has changed my life. I have a label for it. I can ask what the feeling is telling me instead of being confused about it. I know, yes I know, that I am a better person (and a better coach come to think of it) for having broken out of something which I simply thought was ‘my dark place’. A dark place which was worse at times than if the thing about which I was anxious had actually happened. What a waste of energy.

But if I have a plea it is this……please remember that if a colleague (be it the composed HRD or a successful, generally acutely self-aware executive coach ☺ ) is being a little ‘different’ at times there is almost always a reason. There may be interference in the form of anxiety or other mental health issues. We aren’t good enough at supporting colleagues with such issues and organisations which get this right will reap the rewards in terms of employee loyalty.  

On the other hand….

Darkness can be a place from which beauty emanates.

Photography is my ‘third place’.  The light I allow in through that shutter into the dark innards of my Nikon can create art.

I am at my happiest, and least anxious, mooching around with my camera then messing around on Lightroom (not in a dark room these days) in order to tweak the end results. I do it for me. Only for me.

That said I take genuine pleasure from others’ reactions to my work and have even splashed out on a website http://tonyjacksonphotography.com which is also for me but for you too …. if you want it.

Dawn

2017 was a year of dawning realisation for people who belong to minority groups – as do I. I know that I have enjoyed privilege as a white male but I have also experienced life as a gay man and I am troubled, anxious you might say, about the changes in the western world. (Let’s not talk about the 70 or so countries which we cannot visit for fear of imprisonment or worse).

Or are they actually changes? I thought that we had become more enlightened, that more people had learned to accept difference even if they did not or could not understand. I had taken heart from the vibrancy and multiculturalism of London 2012. I had read too much into what I perceived to be more inclusive times. That we had left behind the dark days of Section 28, of repeated failed attempts to introduce an equal age of consent and of zero employment law protection.  I and others had a false sense of security.

The dawning realisation? That the enlightened times which I thought we could take for granted were perhaps a mirage. Just look at some parts of Twitter from the perspective of a black man or a trans woman or a friend from another EU country or a refugee. Such hatred. Such unfiltered bigotry. Such joy in castigating difference. Maybe we had only suppressed it all – maybe it had never gone away.

It is deeply depressing and one has to work hard, really hard, to accentuate the positive. For we risk heading backwards and it falls to all of us both to fight prejudice and to shed positive light on the lives of others.  To be unpopular if needed as we stand up for others. To say that we will not allow a return to the darkness into which we know our fellow humans can descend.

And yet, I am delighted to say, there has been a dawning of even greater happiness for me this year.

Along came this chap – Dudley.

He radiates joy. He has the world’s waggiest tail (that’s official by the way). He is always happy to see me. He cures that anxiety. Most of the time. For sometimes it is I who is anxious when he is home alone. He just contentedly chews on his antler. He is a revelation.

Then, much more importantly, after 18 years together, and 10 years on from our civil partnership, Andrea and I married. For that is what we now can do. Let’s note that it was the much-maligned Coalition Government which made this happen. And they even set it up so that our marriage is backdated to the date of our CP. So we also had that dawning thought that, in one fell swoop, we had been married for a decade. Happy Tin Anniversary to us. Yay!

And can we all please notice that the only thing that has happened as a result of this legal change is that more people, their friends and their families have experienced merriment and joyfulness?

Not a completely dark time then.

 

A Little Less Dark - Day 11

Day 11 (Monday 11th December 2017)

11 characters are the traditional inumber for a static nativity or crib scene 

(namely the infant Jesus, Mary, Joseph, an Ox, an Ass, a shepherd, a sheep, an angel, 3 Magi).

The first creation of a crib scene is credited to Saint Francis of Assisi at Greccio in Italy in 1223.

The start of a new week. I hope it's a good one - mine seems to be filled with festive meetings, whilst still trying to do the day job. 

Today's piece is written by Sarah Storm, who is based in the Breda area of the Netherlands. She is a loving wife and dog lover. She founded her own consulting business three years ago, working as an OD consultant and coach, but also works as an associate, for example for Roffey Park in the UK. Sarah previously worked in HR, most recently as a Business Partner. She has a degree in History and Education from Stirling University and an MSc in Organisational Change from Ashridge Business School, where she works occasionally as a facilitator and OD consultant. Sarah is active on social media - her Twitter handle is @_sarahsto_ and I am sure that she would be pleased to hear from you.

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Dawn comes quite late in the Netherlands at this time of year.

Not much of a dawn to speak of today. It just became slightly less dark – an impression which wasn’t helped by the light drizzle which settled on my glasses as I walked our dogs. It was in this semi-light that I reflected on darkness, dawn and what they mean to me at the moment.

Darkness - typically used as a metaphor for evil, ignorance, sadness, depression and fear. As usual I want to be contrary and look for the bright side of darkness. Starlit nights, parties, fireworks, and Christmas lights. A time for romance and passion.

Darkness is important for us and for the environment. This week it was reported that Earth’s artificially lit outdoor area grew by 2 percent a year from 2012 to 2016 and that outdoor artificial light is brighter than ever. Light pollution can impact the quality of the sleep we need to thrive. The migration and reproduction of birds, fish, amphibians, insects and bats can be disrupted. And you can forget about those starlit nights.

Light pollution - photo by Tim Peake

In darkness we’re able to take to our bed, which can be the best place to be in difficult times. Hidden from the world and, with luck, the respite of sleep. A good friend whose husband died suddenly this summer told me that the worst time of day for her was in the morning, when she woke up and realised again what had happened.

And yet I know from bitter experience that lying awake burdened by worry or fear in the darkest, earliest hours of the morning feels desolate and lonely. 

Last winter, when my dad was very ill, it was always dark when we left the hospital after visiting. This was when it seemed most hopeless. 

After my husband’s cycling accident this summer it was the nights which brought the greatest challenges. Once he woke in a panic at the hospital and as visitors weren’t allowed to stay overnight I sat in the empty reception trying to calm him over the ‘phone. In the days after, when he couldn’t sleep from the pain, we drank tea, ate chocolate & watched Netflix for hours until he could relax enough to go back to bed.

As darkness fell last Sunday I was making a proper pudding and a stew cooked slowly in the oven. Dark winter evenings demand comfort food. I lit candles and poured some wine. The fading light felt like an invitation to hunker down. Just then I felt particularly grateful and privileged for being safe, warm and fed after being in London and Brighton last week and seeing so many men sleeping rough, begging, or selling The Big Issue. How they feel about darkness and dawn? Does the darkness only bring cold, discomfort and danger or does it provide some welcome invisibility from the passing public?

It’s possible that there could be some projection going on here. Thinking about how much of my writing sees the light of day and how long it’s taken to send off this to Kate, it’s clear that, under some circumstances, invisibility feels quite comfortable for me!

After being diagnosed with lung cancer Mary Oliver wrote in her poem “The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac”, 

“Do you need a prod? Do you need a little darkness to get you going?”

Sometimes that’s what it takes, no matter how shocking and painful. Redundancy, mental illness, a break up, even a death, can be the trigger needed for change or to appreciate the life we have. Sitting with those moments of darkness, taking a good hard look and wondering what to do with it. In my work I’ve learned to appreciate the moments of darkness and discomfort because they invariably lead to the most significant breakthroughs.

It’s no coincidence that the most soul-stirring times of day are sunrise and sunset. There’s something about the blending of the darkness and light, and we need one to appreciate the other.

Mary Oliver's cancer poem