Ripened Fruits

@Ronen Hirsch Thank you for sharing your thoughts about my communication, and I’m very sorry you lost your longer initial post. I truly appreciated the authentic responses from you and @Josh Fairhead to my proposal, and especially the care that you both showed in doing so authentically yet also kindly. I also appreciated the authenticity of the post from @Jennifer Damashek, who also shared with me subsequently in private conversation some ideas that to me resonated as more closely aligned with the crew’s purpose, and as such my own. This conversation was before the discussion we shared openly with the crew, and before your request to share our conversation about the posts openly with the crew. So at no time did I feel that my proposal was invalid, neither do I feel that way now, just that the ideas I shared were not as fully thought through and that they didn’t reflect a whole space in which all of the crew could see themselves and fully embrace. I honor the fact that you pushed back despite your dis-ease, and am glad that @Jennifer Damashek and I were able to overcome that negativity and agitation, and achieve positivity with generative potential. I look forward to the full breadth of our crew’s engagement in the next cycle.

Thank you for writing this, @Ronen Hirsch. I hope I have the opportunity to learn all the other things you have to say that were lost.

As I sat with your post, I wondered how what I said to Robert at the beginning of the conversation was different from your directness when you communicate. I felt I was being direct in stating what was there for me. When reflecting, I realized I was rather harsh, so my tone and attitude could have been improved. However, I think the message I was conveying was appropriate and I needed to say it.

When I look back on the conversation, I realize I experienced Robert’s proposal as an invitation into something I wasn’t comfortable with. I assumed he would want me to support it and participate if that’s the direction the crew decided to take. I wanted to make it clear I wouldn’t be happy participating, and I wanted to make it clear why that was.

I think the hurt feelings that arose in the conversation came both from the fact that Robert wanted me involved in what he was proposing as well as my way of delivering that message.

I can support his idea and whatever arises from it in collaboration with others here, if that’s what they want to do. I can even perhaps help in some way, but I don’t know what that would look like right now.

I think it’s important that I and everyone else state directly if they aren’t comfortable participating in something that is being proposed.

I don't think Robert capitulated to my assertiveness, I think he listened to me and liked what he heard. I also think when I asked him questions about his idea he realized it hadn't been completely thought through. That is why it might be a good idea for others to get together with him and think it through.

You wrote:

I feel dis-ease in writing this message. The dis-ease originates with the feeling that I am manifesting a quality of pushing-back. I feel I am pushing-back both against Jennifer's initial pushing (against you in the recorded conversation) and against your response (here in the thread) to that pushing. I am doing so consciously with the intention of presencing and highlighting the nature and (negative) effects of pushing energy.

The question of pushing is interesting. I think the most important thing is that we have a safe space to be authentic, whether pushing, experiencing being pushed, or witnessing pushing. Being pushed doesn’t have to be a negative experience, especially if we agree that pushing and assertiveness is allowed and expected to some degree.

What if the objective of the consulting idea @Robert Damashek has presenced should not be viewed through the lens of "helping organizations"?

What if organizations and their dysfunctions are merely a stage that creates an opportunity for the individuals in the organizations to meet new ideas and potentials?

What if the consulting work was instead targeted to reach and touch individuals within organizations? To seed them with the ideas, skills, and qualities that have arisen within our crew?

What if it is not up to us to "help organizations" or even to "help individuals within organizations"?

What if our job is to disseminate that which lives in our hearts so that it may find its way to other hearts and do what IT needs to do there?

I realize that there is probably a selling effort required in order to reach organizations. And I realize that selling effort may require speaking to the "organizational needs." But maybe we should not conflate the sales pitch with what may really be going on?

Even when I taught one-on-one Yoga I never made promises of outcomes. I offered tailored practices trusting that those practices will do what they need to do. My teacher's teacher wrote that there is only one promise he can make: "I can care."

❤️ @Ronen Hirsch I think this is a wonderful unfolding and deepening of my proposal, particularly disseminating that which lives in our hearts. Just wondering how the connection is made between that living essence in our space and bridged to make a connection with another in their own space. Ultimately, this essential exchange is at the core of what @Jennifer Damashek and I envisioned for Find My Way. If the exchange makes a contribution to another, it can lead to a desire to provide the giver a reward, hence opening a place for money.

Also, just came across this quote in a book I'm reading, End of the Cognitive Empire by Boaventura de Sousa Santos. He writes:

Indeed, the postabyssal researcher is at the antipodes of the consultant. The latter is someone whose knowledge has a specific utility with a price tag and for which there is a solvent demand. The postabyssal researcher is someone for whose knowledge there is a huge and urgent but nonmarketable demand; his or her knowledge is useful for social groups who cannot imagine having to pay for it or, if they had to, would not be able to afford it.

I feel very strongly that what we are doing can be construed as "postabyssal research" (I can get into what that means in more depth if anyone is curious about the specific term) but am mainly bringing this in to point out that there is a strong tension with consulting work here that I believe we can hold generatively.

I’m interested in learning more about postabyssal research, as I think where you are headed may also link to my response to the post from @Ronen Hirsch today.