As of this May, I’ve spent 9 years working, living, and learning as self-organizing groups and community. What I noticed most this week is the astonishing courage demonstrated by individuals who have spent prolonged time within these human collectives: courage astonishing to themselves as well as others. Here are some examples. Because I know these people very well—they are my own community and self-organizing group members—I know that these examples demonstrate that the community and self-organizing group pulled courage out of these individuals that they themselves didn’t fully know they had within them. Pretty amazing to be present when this happens to a person. It actually gives me goose bumps. Listen to the honest, powerful, courageous voices I’ve heard this week. Note: Some of these may not sound courageous to you at all, but they were courageous for them in the moment. And yes, some of these are me. The longest-winded ones, of course, I’m so freakin’ transparent.
In response to another community member getting emotional in a highly thinking- and debate-centered group: “I am impressed by your ability to own your emotions, voice your “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah”s publicly, and to name fuckball actions fuckball when you see them. I have no advice for you. I am just now learning to do what you appear to do easily. So keep doing what you do to give others the courage to do the same. Whoops, that was advice. Meant it as request. Will you keep doing what you do so that those of us learning this can keep seeing it?”
In response to another community member talking about his own purpose and wondering about the purpose of a large, chaotic community he’s part of: “We are a planet of small humans and happenings with hearts sized appropriately for our planetary selves. I don’t think I’m here to understand our purpose. I’m here to be reminded of who we really are and to get comfortable with the size of my heart and my self. It’s in the smallest random act of kindness and forgiveness that I learn the most.”
In response to a group member making major life changes without keeping another friend in the loop: “You need to Skype or email me and tell me about this immediately! This is the kind of important thing you share with your wife from another life. Don’t make me go Karen Walker on you!”
A white woman community member’s response to a male community member saying people should just “lighten up” about the recent bloody cake cutting images out of Sweden. “I first learned of the image through an African American friend who said that the photo of the cake being cut into made her cry and then tighten her fists in rage. I actually read her words, got a lump in my throat, felt my fists tighten, and had tears in my eyes before I saw the image itself. Was a black person making a cake or a statement about mutilation racism? No. Was the decision by powerful white people to laughingly, smilingly cut into it? YES. That action was like a knife into my friend’s heart (and her heart happens to be connected to my own). This hurt was not imagined. This hurt was real. Lighten up? Are you fucking kidding me?! Remind me to tell you that the next time somebody kicks you in the groin.”
To her community, many of whom are neighbors, in a politically conservative rural part of the United States where many neighbors despise government, democrats, and President Obama in particular: “I am a supporter of Pres Obama, but if his wife were to run, I would vote for her!”
In response to a person describing his own personal beliefs to a very large online community: “I love what you say about no privileged center AND everywhere is a center. This is my reality too. I believe that every living being is at the center of something and at the edge of something. This is an especially good daily reminder for those of us who’ve been told that our ideas are cutting edge. When I talk about my work, I like to remind those calling the groups I study “cutting edge” that some people, from birth, are taught, for example, about Ubuntu, I exist because we exist. So while it may be cutting edge for me, it’s just “who we are” for others. :-)”
In response to a high-tech person in a high-tech work world asking her community how to get the very best reliable internet access while traveling in Germany and Switzerland: “In each new town, ask locals for the coffee shop with the best coffee and wifi and walk there 3 to 6 times a day, put your feet up, and revel in being so far from home with good coffee and wifi and kind locals and walking.”
In response to a community member sharing a numbered list documenting what she most loves about her life right now: “This is so fucking beautiful! #s 6 and 10 are BIG in my life now too. Refusing to pause for anything less than “fuck yeah” are the same exact words I used recently to help a college professor friend come to grips with the fact that he’s not fully happy in his work. It’s not a question of choosing between I hate, I tolerate, or I like my work. Not when there is “fuck yeah!!!!!!” and “i fucking ADORE my work!!!” as choices out there. In the end, the only things you have to give up to get there are the things that didn’t deeply matter to you any way and the parts of yourself you happily shed like a snake leaving its old skin behind.”
A woman’s response to being cut off by another community member: “it’s weird that you’re interrupting me and not letting me make my point, because we get along so well. So let me make my point. But it is important, I think, the interruption is important, I think, because now we know, at least from both of your perspectives that women are not faring worse than men in the economy. That women aren’t getting paid less for equal work. I think that’s a serious difference in factual understanding of the world.”
In response to several community members getting angry with each other, moving away from the issue they’d come together to discuss, and attempting to “win” by convincing the other of the value of their point/perspective/ideas: “In my research, one thing I’ve learned is that when I move into fear and anger it means I’m approaching or crossing a self boundary as an individual. Today feeling fear and anger is one of the tools I use to know “Am I moving in the world right now as an individual? As a small self-org group of trusted others? As community (where I can fully, openly embrace strangers known by the community)? Or as the space between (where I can embrace everybody because I actually experience myself as everybody)?” All are valid, useful states that serve an important purpose. To my ears, fear and anger (beyond the immediate “I’m about to be physically attacked by a bear” kind) say “I have fallen out of the group (or am worried that I’m about to) and I need help getting back in.” Love and listening and compassion pull individuals back into the self-org group, community, and space between states. I saw this within the groups I study before I fully recognized it in myself. As a community, we may not be able to do this for AIG’s Steve Miller–yet–but we most certainly can do it for each other–those we know and don’t know here. We do it all the time. That’s actually how I know this is a community.”
Spoilers! Eight of the 10 above examples were me. All eight were spontaneous and courageous for individual me in the moment. All surprised me and several actually stunned me. It certainly appeared to be me saying these words out loud, but those closest to me know that I’m as likely to break into to tears as I am to say something courageous out loud within a very large group, especially an angry, arguing group experience, which several of these were. At least the old me was. But not this week. Hmm. None of my eight examples hold a candle to the stunning courage demonstrated by the two other people in the above examples. Their courage teaches me something new every month. One is an amazing mom and farm wife and friend. One is an amazing national news commentator. My personal poster-kids of courage.
I think maybe 99% of all the courage in existence is the internal courage to change: every quiet little internal choice about who we are, what we believe, and who we will allow others to be and what we will allow others to believe in our presence. The other 1% of all courage in existence gets all the attention and press, but it’s not where the deepest beauty of courage is. Not really.
Something else happened to me this week. I was given a gift by someone who said such a hurtful thing in one of my communities that it made me sob. Number 4 above is part of that experience. This week I watched myself become something new: a caring, close, listening, discerning, quiet, kind, and gentle kicker of metaphorical ass when it became clear that the community itself was asking for a teaching moment of close and gentle metaphorical ass kicking. And it actually worked. The person left the conversation, went and did his own research, and came back armed with videos and stories showing other perspectives beyond his own and saying that he’d spoken from a blind spot he could now see. Wow. I was speechless. I eventually said “I just fell in love with you a little bit. Thank you for bringing so many additional perspectives into the discussion.” What else could I say? A guy who’d made a deeply hurtful statement had just demonstrated that he was really at his core a thoughtful, remarkable human being who could change himself in an instant.
The gift he gave me (besides revealing more of his beautiful self and the fact that I can now trust my collective self to recognize these moments) is I now have a deeper understanding of the expression “Turn the other cheek”. As a kid I was taught that it meant one thing: that I should respond to a verbal aggressor without anger, without verbal violence of any sort, and ideally (for a woman) silence. But what if anger is actually a gift? I learned that if you graphically, verbally demonstrate how painfully you (and a friend) are receiving what is being said in a discussion, that it can support the other person in imagining that same pain within themselves. And if they can feel your pain within themselves, then they’ve already changed. I learned that a clear and vivid description of what somebody’s words are physically doing to me is not an attack on them. I will forever think of a different set of cheeks when I hear the expression “Turn the other cheek!” Next time, I’d like to hope that I’ll at least have the presence of mind to leave the curse word out. Then again, it’s tough to argue with a spontaneous approach that worked so beautifully. 🙂
Community and self-organizing groups don’t need courage. They have courage. It’s as individuals that we need courage: usually in what appear to be the very smallest of acts. Acts like showing ourselves and others who we really are, saying what we believe, recognizing and admitting that our own short-sightedness caused another pain, describing the impact of hateful words and actions on our physical selves so that others can hear them, offering kindness to those who believe the opposite of what we believe (and kindness to ourselves when we inevitably mess this one up), and letting go of who we once were in favor of who we strongly suspect (but aren’t completely certain) we now can be.
These aren’t really tiny acts at all. These are the most important acts: the acts that proceed the discovery that we are better than we’d previously imagined possible. Courageous acts that cannot be taken from us by others. Acts of individual courage (“Did I really just say that out loud?! Oh shit!”) that morph into habit within self-organizing groups and community (“That’s just how we roll.”). When you are utterly surrounded by courageous people, you’ll be surprised to discover that the honest, powerful, and courageous voice that you are hearing now is actually your own.
Monday evening I decided to go on an unannounced neighborhood Walkabout. I actually planned just to go from the backyard to the front yard, but a squirrel caught my eye and before you know it I was at our corner store. At this point, I was kind of freaked out, I’m never away from my family, so when this very nice-smelling nice guy (Nathan) walked by, I followed him. His kind heart, short hair, and plaid shirt reminded me of of our housemate Chris.
As it turned out, Nathan lives a LOOONG way from our house. Lori tells me its more than a mile that I followed Nathan home. Nathan was so cool. He fed me dinner, played with me, even watched TV with me. Sasha–his 2-year-old black lab–was nice but that young dog energy was a bit much for me. After the long, sometimes scary walk, I was feeling all 11 of my years. Nathan also took my picture and posted a FOUND DOG ad on Craiglist, called after-hours Animal Control and got my description on their lost dog hotline, and eventually talked to Tom at Central District News, which is where Tom connected him to the LOST GRADY announcement Lori and Daniel posted.
Only after they found me did I learn what all the fuss was about. It turns out, my new sock-monkey collar (which I adore, BTW, it’s so me) didn’t have my name and phone number on it. My name and phone number was on my old collar, laying on the table, back at home. And apparently the absolute worst time to go on an adventure like this is at 5:30 p.m., during rush hour through our busy Central District neighborhood in Seattle. Not that I knew what time it was. They haven’t sprung for a watch for me yet. Although today they’d give me my own GPS device if I asked them to.
I was a bit stressed being so far from home, but it wasn’t until Daniel, Lori, and Chris came to pick me up that I realized the level of family stress was off-the-charts high. Lori started crying when she saw me. Even Daniel got teary-eyed. Lori hugged Nathan. Then Daniel hugged Nathan. Chris was the only one who held it together. Poor Nathan, I think he thought they were both nuts. After all, I was fine. I’d only been gone a few hours. Nathan refused to accept reward money, even though Lori and Daniel were practically throwing a pile of money at the poor guy. Silly humans.
Lori has since told me about the heroic efforts of the neighborhood on our behalf. Apparently, spontaneously across the few hours I was missing, Emma (my dog buddy) and 8 humans joined the search on foot and bike. Kristine and Chris–amazing housemates. Bailey and Scott and Susan–amazing neighbors. Even our new neighbor Amie, who we haven’t even met yet! And several complete strangers who happened to be out walking their own dogs past our house joined the search. I don’t know why this generosity is always such a surprise to humans. Humans, like dogs, are helpful, generous givers at their core. Seriously. How do people not smell this?!
I also learned that Tom at CD News helped get Nathan my name and phone number. Looking forward to meeting Tom soon! We went to Ezell’s and ate fried chicken to celebrate our reunion, and I got to sleep on the bed that night! It was awesome! The cats were so pissed!
Today, all’s well. I have an awesome new jingly tag with my name and phone number on it. I humored them and let them get the one with Animal on it. Neighbors keep emailing us saying they’re glad I’m back. I admit that I’m feeling like a bit of a local celeb. Lori and Daniel, who have loved our neighborhood for the whole decade we’ve been here, have an even deeper appreciation for the CD. Some humans from other neighborhoods may call our neighborhood “dangerous” but we know better. We stood in an alley, after dark, crying and hugging a generous stranger, for crying out loud! There is connection here, closeness, community, and, perhaps most importantly, home after home full of people who love dogs! One neighbor even told us a story of another dog being found during the same search for me. 😛
Lori tells me that I’m the best community revealer she’s ever met. This makes me wag. She knows a lot of amazing community revealers. Because of my ability to smell kindness, I know my story of deep human kindness and generosity is not the exception to the rule. That other story about humans—the one in which you’re untrustworthy and just out for yourselves—may get more press but that doesn’t make it more more true. Dogs really should be writing the news.
Have you noticed that today? Noticed how amazing your world is despite the looming global environmental crisis and the 24×7 corporate-and-political-muck-and-mud-slinging circus and the foul-tempered stranger you met on the street? Silly question. Of course you noticed or you wouldn’t be here. Better question. Have you noticed today that you get to define the center, middle, and the edges of your own community now? Have you noticed that your soulmates are scattered across your beautiful country and this blue-green planet like a handful of jewels scattered across a beach? Who is it that made this possible and who helps you notice? Who are your jewels?
These are our right groups and community to be with. Important now, I think, that we allow ourselves to give as much of our precious individual time to these people/creatures/beings as humanly possible. And that we stop giving that precious time to others and things who don’t. I know that my own own “right” everything else–right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livlihood, right focus, right mindfulness–depends on getting this one thing right. Hanging with my peeps.
This week, for me, it was four groups of people.
My parents are visiting my sister Jen in Las Vegas over Easter weekend. Last night they Skyped me. They’d gone straight from the airport out to drinking a traditional favorite beer at a favorite restaurant (not that my mom drinks, but she always holds one in the photo–love that). Then, they spontaneously found and bought matching starfish necklaces for mother and daughters. A symbol that means more to us than any other symbol invented by God or man. They had to Skype me to show me the necklaces (we kind of suck at surprises) the moment they got home. There is nothing in the world that makes me happier than watching the three of them sitting on the couch together laughing. Well, except maybe when it’s the four of us or the whole extended family laughing together.
The second group was the three friends who showed up at our house for coworking Wednesday yesterday: Diane, Tim, and Kathy. Having physically present coworkers again makes me smile the day before coworking, the day of coworking, and at least one day after coworking. Often several days. You’ll hear more about them below.
The warm espresso walnut chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies that kept me awake until 4 a.m. So worth it.
The third group is the group that’s creating the Different Work eBook, which is on track to go live in May. Bas, his wife Simone, Kathy (same Kathy as above), my Daniel, and I–and all those who told their stories for the book and who are making edits and sending peripherals now to help out. We work so freakishly well together most days that I almost can’t believe it. I find myself actually looking forward to the moments when things go wrong, because I’ve learned so very much at those moments and I know those will be the funniest parts when we get around to telling our own story. There is no way that what this group creates won’t be beautiful. Did I mention this book will be free? My favorite price point. Woo hoo!
Warning! If you are opposed to swearing lovingly, openly and freely among close friends, please stop reading this now. No judgment if you leave us here. 🙂
Finally, there’s the newest group in my life: a 25-member Facebook group I was invited to join on March 30th. This group already contains some of the people who matter most in the world to me. Natalie Kinsey, who became my soulmate in near-record time in March, and Bernie DeKoven, whose name I’ve recommended to others on a weekly basis for several months now. Plus 23 strangers/friends who I already love because I love Natalie and Bernie. The name of this group of dearly beloved friends and strangers is “10 things I fucking love about right now.” Based on the title alone, I found myself unable to say no to the group. I just checked, and their stated purpose is:
“A good game of Co-savoring,
with the gloves off.
A place to share and more deeply
discover what you actively love
about your beautiful now.”
Love this. What’s a bigger word for wow? WOW
This wonderful bunch of folks have been weaving good humor and loving profanity around me like a fleece blanket this week. With words, they paint their charming souls bare on my computer screen. If I believed in big individual plans, I’d devise a plan for them to all move to Seattle this very moment. We would go to Central Cinema’s “Hecklevision” night, eat chocolate, drink wine, type lovely profane poetry into our cell phones, and giggle as it magically appeared as subtext on the big screen before us. I would start with my new favorite expression, drawn from this group: “It’s really difficult to be a bitch when you have rainbows in your hair.” Never let it be said that people in Portland, Maine aren’t cool. So cool.
For the first time in far too long, I have no idea what the people in my professional group do for a living, nor do I care. These are my people. They can do whatever the fuck they want to do for a living. 😉
So… Shoot, I forgot the question. Oh, yes. How do you know if you’re with the right group or community of people? One last story.
I came back from a week in Washington DC last Thursday night exhausted from miles of walking and with blisters on most of my toes.
Early Friday morning I awoke with a high fever, aching body, stuffy head, and sore throat.
Late Saturday morning, after a fitfull night of half-sleep, I awoke to learn that an invasive, idiotic, unforgiving cancer took the life of my friend that morning. He was just a few days short of his 45th birthday. Just over a year ago at this time, he was the picture of health and fitness.
By Sunday morning, my fever had worsened, and I had to give myself a 57-minute-mental pep talk and three cat-hugs just to make my body move from the bed to the bathroom.
Monday through Wednesday, although I was still sick and recovering, it was these four groups that seeped into my soul, working their magic. Their energy filled me up. Made me strong enough that I actually cast demons from myself Tuesday around 3 p.m. saying “Fever, you will leave this body immediately, because coworking is happening here tomorrow and I WILL NOT CANCEL IT FOR YOU!” Surprisingly, this actually worked. I’m still tired and sniffling, but I’ve been fever free since Tuesday at 3.
I thought I’d share the thank you I sent my “10 things I fucking love about right now” compadres this morning. I decided to share it here because these people are actually so whole and real and beautiful in person that I’m becoming more so even through their virtual presence, and those of you who’ve been with me here a long time will recognize the shift in me.
There are communities and groups within which people are so close that you’re all able to recognize—without being told—that “thank you” has become both entirely unnecessary and all that you can hear or say most days. Find yours. Mine have washed away the parts of me willing to settle for less.
10 things I fucking love about now…
10. I love that Natalie M Kinsey describes Bernie De Koven as gentle. Love that Bernie is gentle. That Natalie knows it. that I know them both.
9. I love that at 28, I believed in taking years to get to know people before applying the word friend and that at 41 I recognize and call people friends, out loud, the very moment I meet them. Like I did when I was 5, only even better.
8. I love that I’ve known, since age 12ish, that I’d fucking love my 40s and yet that my culture still allowed this to be a surprise.
8. I love that all my friends can love and trust my other friends, instantly, because they love and trust me completely. And vice versa.
7. I love that I ate two espresso walnut chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies that my friend Diane made–at 10 p.m. last night–even though my grown up self kinda knew they’d keep me awake. loved learning that I could be wide awake, alert, and yet still overflowing with gratitude for life at 4 a.m. And the wonderful, complex dreams that followed when I did eventually sleep.
6. Love that my boss is me and that I can sleep in as late as I want 6 days/week. think the researcher who wrote the book of Genesis got the numbers backwards. That God rested for 6 days and created the universe with a snap of her fingers on day 7.
5. Love the minds and hearts that devised a fucking collective now gratitude journal. And those that contribute. Amazing!
5. Love that I am reminded daily that the universe is more amazing than I can individually imagine.
4. Love using the number 5 at least twice. And the number 8.
3. Love that your fucking amazingness has already begun to wash over my friends. Yesterday (coworking Wednesdays at my house) when I told 3 friends about you, they demanded that I read aloud to them some fucking examples. After I did, that lovely “fucking” word kept showing up the rest of the day. Diane made fucking cookies. Kathy finished copyediting two fucking stories in our eBook. Tim later emailed me a “10 fucking things I learned coworking today” list.
2. That coworking Wednesdays is yet another thing that makes me glow from the inside. How I imagine being pregnant must make women feel. Like the entire universe is growing inside you because you are wicked-fierce and more than up for the challenge.
1. That our eBook is coming together better than expected, happily, and on schedule and our only plan was “have fun. no planning. do what you think needs to be done. Decide to worry about it 6 months from now.”
5. Love this vegetarian joke that Diane told me not five minutes after learning about you. “what do you call a mushroom with a 9-inch stem? A fungi to be around.” 🙂 first dirty joke told in our coworking space since it opened 5 weeks ago. Love knowing that I’ll get to include it in my coworking tips blog post next week.
8. Love that I made Tim an admin on the Collective Self Facebook page yesterday and that last night I received a Facebook post that was both from myself and also not from me. That was so surreal and beautiful that I cried. Would have told you about it then but I had cookies to eat.
This past week was a tough one for me. My grandmother passed away, and there’s been an unshakable ache in my chest all week as I learn to move with the loss. I haven’t felt like doing much of anything, so I haven’t. Then, along comes my friend Bob Petruska, a consultant who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. He asked one of his own self-organizing groups to reflect on the benefits of the group, created a video of some of their responses, and sent it to me–a kind act that just wrote my blog for me this week–a week I REALLY needed help. What a guy. Thank you Bob. Here is his video…
Bob and I are also a self-organizing group. Bob found me several years ago, when I first started blogging, and reached out to say hello. We may live on opposite sides of the country, and do different work, but we were drawn together by a shared love of working as (and talking about) self-organizing work groups. We also both love Meg Wheatley. We’re also both stepping away from full-time work within large organizations to try something different for ourselves and our families. This conscious step away from what was normal work for us is scary, and I feel better knowing that Bob is out there taking similar tentative steps and leaps on his own path–someone I can commiserate with and ask a question of, as needed. We’re also very different. He’s an expert on a myriad of things I know relatively little about, including Lean and Six Sigma. Although we’ve yet to work together, we talk occasionally via email, via Skype, and via comments on this blog. Bob is kind, shows up to learn, and is open and generous–all things I aspire to myself. He even surprised me on my birthday last year with an iTunes gift card. That was cool.
How Bob and I are a self-organizing group…
Our group is more internally created than externally created. We allow ourselves to be drawn together by both our similarities (a comfort) and our differences (learning opportunities).
Our group is more emergent (appearing to arise spontaneously) than planned.
We are surprised and delighted to find ourselves friends today–a relationship that doesn’t end even when our work together does.
The community that Bob and I are part of…
The people highlighted in Bob’s video are a self-organizing group for him. For me, they have just become community members. They are people who took a leap of faith and decided to trust me, because they trust Bob. They allowed themselves to be videotaped public speaking–something they are learning to do together. Extraordinarily brave you are, people of Charlotte, North Carolina–public speaking scares me to death! Thanks to Bob, I now know that it’s ok to trust these brave people. Although they are technically strangers to me, I would open my front door to them, and welcome them in, without giving it a second thought today. Trusting strangers and allowing them to come close (emotionally local is my Seattle-researcher-nerd term for it). That’s community. And that’s the power of community.
Within self-organizing groups, I drop my individual fears long enough to see community that I couldn’t before see or imagine was even there. As community, we make new self-organizing groups possible. And we change ourselves and our world for the better.
Thank you brave people of Steele Creek Toastmasters. Your generosity is a gift to everyone reading this and a particular gift for me, who you helped during a time of mourning the loss of my dear grandma. I wish you long, happy lives free of the “ahs” and “ums” in your public speeches that you desire and full of laughter and forgiveness when they do sneak in.
I spent this week in San Francisco gathering stories for the upcoming Different Work eBook series that Bas and I are creating. We’re gathering stories of groups and people who are doing work that they deeply love (most days), who are working beyond what they as individuals thought work should be, and who are changing what work looks and feels like for themselves, their families, their organizations, and their communities. I spent the week surrounded by people who are changing the very definition of the word work. I listened to their stories feeling amazed, humbled, heartened, awe-struck, connected, and inspired. The overarching feeling is one of gratitude. I feel grateful and lucky to be in their presence and doing this work. On the trip home, I thought to myself “I cannot frickin’ WAIT to read this book!” followed closely by the thought “Guess I should start writing it!”
Also, my week wasn’t entirely happy. One of the six meetings didn’t go as expected. My very slow researcher’s perspective/brain simply couldn’t keep up with one of the people I met with. I found myself struggling to keep up, to stay in the conversation, to understand what mattered most to this person, and at points, even to know what the heck was being talked about. Twenty-five minutes in I got a headache. I felt myself slipping out of my community self, out of my self-organizing group self, and into my individual self. And I witnessed my truth in the moment: that self was afraid. My mind darted around within itself, fretting, worrying, wondering:
“Why am I not connecting with this person like I do with most people?”
“What am I doing wrong?”
“What if this person thinks I’m a complete idiot?”
“What if I AM a complete idiot?”
“What can I do differently?”
“Do I have it in me to honor, capture, and tell this person’s story in our book?”
For me, this fear was a slippery slope and because of the slow speed at which I like to process things, I never fully recovered while we were together. I managed to get out less than half the questions we’ve been asking others for the book. More importantly to me, I didn’t fully connect with this person as a real human being. I moved away from learning and into judgment and from trust into distrust—first of my individual self and then out onto the person I was supposed to be there to learn with.
FAIL. “EPIC FAIL!” as my flash mob choreographer, Beth, sometimes shouts during rehearsals. Love you, Beth.
This failure hurt my heart in addition to my head, because from a distance I’d experienced that we were friends–and had imagined we may even work together–so it was a shock that in person I wasn’t fully feeling the same. I left the meeting, found a Starbucks (symbol of my Seattle home), and sat for an hour with a comforting green tea latte just thinking about the experience. Then I hiked up Powell Street to my hotel, got into bed, called Daniel, and cried. It took him 2 hours to convince me that I wasn’t the biggest loser ever to hit the streets of San Francisco. Love you, Daniel.
The next day I conducted my final San Francisco interview—an organization of 20-something bike couriers who built their business around a set of wishes that include riding their bikes every day, weaving work into a life of travel and adventure, paying their rent, and serving the people in their neighborhood. Wow. Our future truly is in amazing hands. My heart began to feel better. Thank you, Chas.
I also reconnected with the person I’d felt I’d completely failed and attempted to explain my experience of our time together. I received trust, kindness, and support. Thank you.
Across the past few days, more healing:
Three community members shared their own difficulties with me, helping me more easily put mine into perspective (thank you, Jeffrey, Kate, and Egan)
Four others asked for my insights and/or my help, reminding me that I’m not quite the loser I’d imagined myself to be (thank you, Doug, Bas, California Doug, and Ali)
One told me that he was a better person for our time together (thank you, James)
Four more jumped onto the sofa in my office and demonstrated that everything will be ok just by their comforting presence (thanks Grady, Joe, Ansel, and Bella)
Today, I’m almost fully restored to my community self—the open, learning, trusting self I’m becoming so fond of.
FAIL experiences are humbling, and, in hindsight, for me that’s a good thing. Hearts cracked more widely open can more deeply connect. This is good.
My faith-in-chaos way of working doesn’t work for everybody (duh), and some other people’s ways of working don’t work for me. Fantastic! Nothing wrong with that.
I just remembered why I first noticed that moving in the world as self-organizing work groups is more rewarding, fun, and effective than only moving in the world as an individual. Because when I show up as these groups, I can more easily find and connect with others who matter most to me right now and more fluidly say goodbye-for-now to others.
I learned something about my individual self. I know within minutes if I should work with a person this year or if we should wait, marinate, and become a future version of ourselves before we consider working together. I can also act on this awareness relatively quickly. That’s what happened to me this week. I’d imagined that I should be working with a person and within minutes I knew that wasn’t true. As we exist today, we would drain energy from each other instead of generating energy together. I’ve learned that it’s ok to trust myself about this. I don’t have to doubt my own ability to know who I should and shouldn’t be working with at any given time. This is big. For me this is HUGE, really. This is what working in the world as self-organizing groups and community has made possible for me. No wonder I feel grateful so much of the time.
Thank you, community, for helping me heal and for teaching me that I can more fully trust myself in the moment than I imagined I could. You rock.
As of this May, I’ve spent 9 years working, living, and learning as self-organizing groups and community. What I noticed most this week is the astonishing courage demonstrated by individuals who have spent prolonged time within these human collectives: courage astonishing to themselves as well as others. Here are some examples. Because I know these people very well—they are my own community and self-organizing group members—I know that these examples demonstrate that the community and self-organizing group pulled courage out of these individuals that they themselves didn’t fully know they had within them. Pretty amazing to be present when this happens to a person. It actually gives me goose bumps. Listen to the honest, powerful, courageous voices I’ve heard this week. Note: Some of these may not sound courageous to you at all, but they were courageous for them in the moment. And yes, some of these are me. The longest-winded ones, of course, I’m so freakin’ transparent.
I think maybe 99% of all the courage in existence is the internal courage to change: every quiet little internal choice about who we are, what we believe, and who we will allow others to be and what we will allow others to believe in our presence. The other 1% of all courage in existence gets all the attention and press, but it’s not where the deepest beauty of courage is. Not really.
Community and self-organizing groups don’t need courage. They have courage. It’s as individuals that we need courage: usually in what appear to be the very smallest of acts. Acts like showing ourselves and others who we really are, saying what we believe, recognizing and admitting that our own short-sightedness caused another pain, describing the impact of hateful words and actions on our physical selves so that others can hear them, offering kindness to those who believe the opposite of what we believe (and kindness to ourselves when we inevitably mess this one up), and letting go of who we once were in favor of who we strongly suspect (but aren’t completely certain) we now can be.
