NSL RIPE FOR SOME NEW CONVERSATIONS

Week Two of NSL begins and we come to the end of the beginning, where the newness matures into the realization that we have real work to do, part of which is getting ready to have some difficult conversations.
Listening is what we think is natural, and speaking is the not so easy part. But to listen is so much harder, when the listening is allowing our defenses to drop and letting the teller take us to a new and difficult place.
When our words become inflamed with the prejudices of the past, its time to calm the biology, to identify the Amygdala hijack that the brain scientists tell us about, and learn how to use the three S’s, be Soft and not Hard, go Slow and not Fast, and be Simple and not complicated.
We find that our default behaviors and assumptions that back home we take as natural, might be part of the problem. The first step of change is not to do anything except stop doing what feeds the problem. The power of a good story is that it makes every listener complicit. It might be about the tragic death of an innocent child but ultimately its about us. The first outrage we feel is about such cruelty perpetrated by others. The final outrage is that we live in a world that our indifference makes such cruelty possible.
The movie “The Mission” ends with this telling exchange
Hontar: We must work in the world, your eminence. The world is thus.
Altamirano: No, Señor Hontar. Thus have we made the world… thus have I made it.