On December 3, 2011 I was part of a Seattle workshop hosted by the poet and leadership consultant David Whyte. The title of the workshop was the title of one of his (and one of my favorite) poems, “What to Remember When Waking”. That’s where we started, with David reciting this poem in his wonderful style, repeating lines and circling back through the poem and then giving us the poem whole, start to finish. I have come to love this way of offering a poem. I get a sense of the “power lines” during the first traverse; I know when the poet wants me to pay even more attention. Then I get the poem as a whole, when I’m ready and prepared to hold it all.
David referred often to the conversations we all have (even when we refuse to have them we are having them in some sense) – with others, with our work, and with ourselves. In these relationships we might have a sense that a new conversation is what’s needed. We then try to start and sustain a new conversation so that we can make a change in a particular relationship. And we discover that this is hard to do, because the old conversation is still present, and it intrudes.
In order to have a new conversation – with a partner, with our work in the world, or with ourselves – we first must stop having the conversation we’re having now. Just stop. There will be some silence, maybe a lot of silence. Good.
What does it mean to stop having a particular conversation? To turn away from a conversation that is not helping you? It can mean not being drawn into talk about what’s wrong (with anything), about what’s not working, about who’s to blame. It might mean refusing to engage on a topic that you know will take all of you down a dark path of complaining or victimhood or partisanship. It might mean shifting from debate to something else. It could also mean abandoning the stance of a “knower”. I invite you to reflect on an old conversation that you would like to stop.
What does it mean to start a new conversation? A new conversation, in my experience, is easily started with a powerful question, an open and clean question that flows from a genuine intention to learn or help. Here are a few examples from Margaret Wheatley’s “Turning to one another”:
What is my unique contribution to the whole?
When have I experienced working for the common good?
How can we reclaim time to think? (And, are we willing to do so?)
When have I experienced good listening?
What powerful question is waiting for you to ask it?