by Heather Plett | Aug 3, 2018 | Leadership
I was sitting at the beach with my journal recently, while on a private writing retreat with a friend. It was a perfect summer morning, with the kind of blue sky painted with white clouds that makes the world seem a little easier to navigate.
I was alone on the beach until a curious flotilla entered the scene from further down the shore. A man on a paddle board was pulling behind him two children – a young girl with purple hair on a floating unicorn, and, behind that, a younger boy on what looked like a plastic replica of Tom Sawyer’s raft. Despite his passengers, the man paddled and navigated with ease on the smooth lake and the entire flotilla soon landed on the shore where I sat.
As they approached the beach, I heard one of the children ask whether they could go further out from shore. “No,” said the man, who was clearly their father. “If we’re too far from the shore, we might get caught by the wind and drift all the way to the other side of the lake. Then we’d have to walk a few miles home.”
Climbing off their flotation devices, the children clamoured onto the beach for some play time. They explored the beach and the young boy tried to entice his sister to build a sand castle. “No,” she said, “not right now.” Instead, she followed her dad to where he’d discovered animal prints in the sand. “Deer,” she said, when he asked what she thought they were.
Before long, the dad asked if they were ready to go out again. “Yes,” they both said. “But can we go out a little deeper first so that it’s easier to climb on?” asked the girl. Her dad obliged.
On the way out, the boy asked if they could go close enough to touch one of the buoys that marked the edge of the swimming area. “It’s not easy to steer,” said the dad, “but I’ll try.” He was successful and the children both touched the buoy.
They disappeared down the beach, but a little while later, they were back within my view. This time, Dad was taking a rest from the paddling and was sitting on his paddleboard. Both children had joined him on the board, and they were trusting the gentle waves to do the work of bringing them back to shore. Soon, though, the girl was ready to climb back onto her unicorn and the boy followed suit, back onto his own raft. Dad stood up to paddle again and reminded them that they’d have to stay close to shore so that they’d be safe.
When a motorboat whizzed past and the wake rocked their flotilla, the girl said “boats are evil.” Sure enough, she was knocked off her unicorn into the water. She was wearing a life jacket, though, so she wasn’t in real danger. A man on a canoe close by called out, asking if everyone was okay. All three respond that yes, they were fine, but they appreciated the offer of support. Dad on his paddle board didn’t seem phased by his daughter capsizing – instead he watched as the young boy helped his sister climb onto his raft. They sat together for awhile, until the girl was ready to return to her unicorn
As I was watching this unfold in front of me, I became amused at the metaphor and started recording the scene in my journal. Here’s what it taught me about leadership and holding space:
- Know the limitationsof your team/community/family and avoid leading them into deeper water than you can navigate.
- If you remain under the right conditions, leadership and navigation can be smooth and easy.
- Don’t stay in the shallow waterall of the time, though, or you’ll miss some of the fun and discovery and opportunity to learn (ie. being tipped by a passing boat). Take a calculated chance now and then, and know when it’s time to return to safety.
- Invite input about direction changefrom community members (ie. touching the buoy), be honest about your capacity to give them what they ask for, and then do your best to follow through.
- Allow each member of the community/team/family/etc. to maintain their own sovereignty and identity(ie. purple hair) and to function within the container that fits them (ie. unicorn or raft). Being tied together with a common purpose doesn’t mean you have to assimilate to a certain arbitrary norm.
- Provide proper equipment and resources(ie. life jackets and rafts) so that when the water gets unexpectedly rough, community members can rescue themselves and do not need to call in outside help (or the leader) to solve the problem for them.
- Allow the community/team/family to support each other, to problem solve for each other and themselves, and to care for each other in times of stress. A leader holds space for this to happen, but doesn’t need to take it all on.
- Once in awhile, invite everyone onto the same flotation device, take a rest, and enjoy the companionship.
- Build a consent-based culture, where people can say no to building sand castles if they don’t want to, without fearing repercussions for their “no”.
- Be open to outside help(ie. a man on a canoe), but let your people feel empowered to figure things out on their own if they don’t need help.
- When you get scared(or wet from capsizing), there’s no shame in sitting in someone else’s container for awhile and letting them care for you.
- Ask for what you need(ie. slightly deeper water for ease of entry) and do your best to meet each other’s needs.
- Don’t forget to have fun!
by Heather Plett | Jul 3, 2018 | holding space
György Faludy decided, at age nine, to become a poet because he was afraid of dying. Lying in bed at night, in terror of not waking up in the morning, he resolved to create a world with words where he could feel safe, a world of his creation that would live on after he himself disappeared.
Faludy was Jewish, and in pre-World War II Budapest, he was blacklisted and his poetry banned from print. Undeterred, however, he became a translator and disguised his own poetry as the poetry of the French masters he was translating.
When German troops invaded Hungary, Faludy was thrown into deportation camp with other Jews. He managed to escape and succeeded in crossing half of warring Europe to end up in North Africa, where he was captured once again and thrown into another camp. When the allied troops finally liberated North Africa, he emigrated to Canada and then to the United States.
Though he continued to work as a translator in several languages in the U.S., he never felt as comfortable writing in an adopted language when the poetry of his heart wanted to be sung. After the war, he returned to Hungary, hopeful that his poetry would finally be accepted. The new regime, however, was even less receptive to his poetry than the old had been, and he was arrested, tortured by police, and thrown into a Communist “punitive” camp.
Still undeterred, Faludy produced some of his best poetry under the harshest circumstances in prison camp. What’s remarkable is that none of this poetry was written down because he had no access to pen or paper. He memorized all of his poetry and then, so that it would not be forgotten, taught other inmates to memorize it as well. Toward the end of his captivity, he wrote a long elegy to his wife and each part of it was memorized by different inmates. Some of these prisoners were released before Faludy and went to visit Faludy’s wife to recite the part of the poem they had memorized.
When Faludy was finally released, he escaped once more to the West and published his prison verses, relying on his memory, aided by mnemonic devices. (For instance, he made sure the first poem he composed began with the letter A, the second with B, and so on.) After it was published, he received letters from all over the world, from Brazil to New Zealand, from people who’d been in prison camp with him, containing corrections to his poems. Most of these corrections were incorporated into later editions of Faludy’s work.
(Source: The Evolving Self, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)
What drives a man like Faludy to write poetry at such great cost and under such harsh circumstances? Surely he could have lived a reasonably good, risk-free life as a translator or high school literature teacher. If he had, he would have been spared at least one of his prison camp experiences.
But poetry wouldn’t leave him alone – it was both his vocation and his salvation; his siren song and his life raft. It compelled him forward, even into the harshest of circumstances. Then, when he was in those harsh circumstances, it gave him meaning and helped sustain his life.
What was the best thing I learned?
That after need
left my ravaged body
love did not leave.
– György Faludy
As Viktor Frankl says in Man’s Search for Meaning, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.” Like Faludy, Frankl survived Nazi concentration camp and it was his conclusion that those who had the greatest chance of surviving were those who were the most determined to find meaning in their suffering. By turning his suffering into poetry, Faludy found a sense of purpose and personal sovereignty that kept him from being destroyed.
I don’t know how I would respond to prison camp, or even if I would, like Faludy, choose to return to a country where I was at risk just so that I could continue to write in my mother tongue. But I do have some sense of what it’s like to have a purpose that has such a strong tug at your heart that you’re willing to sacrifice a stable and easy life in your quest for it.
Eight years ago this month, I handed in my notice at my stable, well-paying management job for the insecurity of self-employment. Why? Because I felt compelled to. Because I knew my life would continue to feel incomplete if I didn’t follow the calling that kept whispering in my ear. Because I knew that my own liberation was tied up with my sense of purpose.
Many have asked me how I stayed motivated during the lean years, and how I knew I was doing the right thing even when few were showing up for my workshops and the bills were barely getting paid. I hardly know how to answer them. I stayed motivated because I have always poured my heart into my work and, even when few paid attention to it, knew that it had meaning. It was the poetry that my heart wanted to sing.
That doesn’t mean that I didn’t have doubts and that there weren’t some days when I found myself deep in despair, not knowing whether the meaning I found in my work would ever translate into something other people would understand. There were days, in fact, when I wondered whether I was speaking a foreign language. But I persevered, not because I thought this work would ever turn me into a millionaire, but because that deeply rooted sense of purpose kept whispering in my ear, nudging me to take the next right step, calling me toward my own liberation.
I am writing this piece today, because I feel compelled to call you too to step forward and take your own next right step into the purpose that calls you toward your liberation.
I believe that we are at a crucial time in the world when we need more meaning-makers to step forward, to take risks, to breathe their poetry into life, to answer the call. It’s an “all hands on deck” moment, when the storms are raging, the mast of the ship is threatening to break under the pressure, and the waves are threatening to swallow us. In this darkening moment, when the world seems to be diving deeper and deeper into chaos and humans seem intent on self-destruction, we need poets, artists, creators, resisters, leaders, space-holders, lovers, gardeners, explorers, and teachers to do what Faludy knew to do as a nine-year-old – create a world with words, art, and imagination where we can continue to thrive despite the mayhem around us.
I’m not saying that you all have to leave your careers to follow some mysterious quest as I did, or that you have to risk poverty or prison in order to do work that you love. But I AM telling you that the generous, unapologetic outpouring of your gift will make the world better for you and for the people around you, even if people think you’re a little crazy for doing it. It won’t necessarily fix the brokenness of the world or change the outcome of this trajectory we’re on, but it will make the struggle more bearable and will help us find liberation.
I am reminded of that powerful moment in Les Miserable, when the oppressed people rise up together to resist the source of their oppression. Together, they stand on the barricades they’ve built and they sing at the top of their lungs…
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the songs of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
In that moment, music gives them meaning. It gives them belonging and community. It gives them purpose and strength. It liberates them and makes them stronger than their oppression.
In prison, Faludy’s poetry may have done nothing to change the outcome for himself or the other prisoners, but it gave them all a way to look toward the light. It gave them a reason to wake up in the morning. It lent them strength, and it helped them claim their own sovereignty even within prison walls. He wasn’t the only one invested in the poetry. All those who memorized it with him became invested too – so invested that they sought out his wife upon their release and/or sent in poetry corrections years later. His poetry became THEIR poetry. His purpose became THEIR purpose. His liberation became THEIR liberation.
The outpouring of one person’s gifts can give meaning to all those who receive it, even in our darkest time. It can liberate us, even inside prison walls.
I urge you, friends – don’t let the gift die inside you. Don’t let the poetry remain unwritten or the songs unsung. Write it, sing it, paint it, dance it, teach it, plant it, grow it – do what it takes to nurture that which is growing in your heart.
Don’t do it for wealth or fame, but do it for love. Do it for the light it shines into the shadows. Do it for the way it transforms a prison cell into a classroom or a garden. Do it for liberation from whatever imprisons you.
“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
by Heather Plett | Jun 15, 2018 | holding space
(Trigger warning: suicide)
The first time it happened, I was five months pregnant with our first baby.
It started with panic attacks. My then-husband was starting a new job with greater responsibility and, coupled with the expectancy of fatherhood, he was feeling overwhelmed and anxious and started missing work. We tried to get him help – I took him to a psychologist and checked him into an overnight mental health facility when the panic attacks got really bad. I thought things were shifting, but I was wrong.
One morning, after a couple of weeks of stress leave, he got ready for work in the morning, kissed me good-bye, and headed to the office. I was relieved. Maybe this rough spot was finally over. I left for work, assuming we were shifting back into “life as normal”.
A couple of hours later, I phoned his office to check how he was doing. “He didn’t come in today,” his boss told me. “He phoned earlier and said he couldn’t do it.”
I panicked. Where was he? Why had he told me he was going to work when he wasn’t? What was he hiding?
The rest of that long day was a blur of phone calls and tears and hand-wringing that included a car ride out to his favourite fishing hole with my mom to see if he was there. He wasn’t.
Some time that evening, I got a phone call that he was at the hospital. After multiple suicide attempts (that involved a knife and bottles of pills), he’d woken up in his car, realized that, if all of that effort hadn’t killed him, perhaps he was meant to live after all, and drove himself to the hospital. He was rushed into surgery to patch up the damage he’d done and to make sure that none of his internal injuries would be fatal.
The second time it happened, I was “pregnant” with a different kind of baby – I was just about to quit my job to start my own business. Fifteen years had passed (years which included the births of our four children and the loss of one of them), he’d gone back to school to get a university degree, and was finally in a job that looked like it would be permanent enough to support our family while I launched a business.
Once again, a new job with new responsibilities caused the panic attacks to start happening. Once again, we tried to get help. And once again, I got the phone call that he’d taken a lot of pills and needed to be taken to the hospital. (This time, there was no knife involved.)
This time, instead of recuperation time for his physical injuries, there was a very difficult week’s stay in a psychiatric ward. And this time, I had to juggle the needs of three children, trying to keep their lives as close to normal as possible, while driving back and forth to the hospital to support him.
At this point, if you’ve been reading my work long enough, you might be thinking that I’ll be offering “tips on holding space for someone with mental illness”, but that’s not what this post is about. Instead, this post is about me, the former caregiver and advocate of that person with mental illness. And it’s about all of those who, like me, have had to hold space for people with mental illness.
Because when/if we hold space for people with mental illness, we have to practice radically holding space for ourselves too.
It’s taken me a long time to process the impact that those two suicide attempts (as well as the many times when I was worried it might happen again) have had on me. It wasn’t, in fact, until the marriage ended five years after the second attempt, that I finally acknowledged the toll it had taken on me.
Last week, when social media blew up over the suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, I, like many others, was triggered by the stories. They brought back a flood of memories, accompanied by grief, fear, self-doubt, anger, and all of those other big emotions that are part of what a caregiver/advocate has to carry. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t have time to write a blog post last week, because it would have been a more triggered version of what I want to say. This one comes with a little more reflection.
Both of the times my former husband attempted suicide, my adrenalin kicked in and I went into warrior/mama-bear mode. I protected, I nurtured, I fought flawed health-care systems, I ran the household, I negotiated with psychiatrists, and I made endless calls trying to get the right kind of support.
While most of us are familiar with the fight, flight, or freeze responses associated with stress/trauma, there’s another reaction that has recently been added to the literature, and that’s what I was experiencing (though I didn’t know it at the time). It’s the “tend and befriend” response that is found more frequently in females than males. “…compared to males, females’ physical aggression and fear-related behaviors are less intense and more ‘cerebral’–they are displayed in response to specific circumstances and are less tied to physiological arousal. So while both sexes share the capacity for fight or flight, females seem to use it less.”
Researchers found that, during tough times, stressed females spend significantly more time tending to vulnerable offspring than males.“They reasoned that the adaptive value of fighting or fleeing may be lower for females, who often have dependent young and so risk more in terms of reproductive success if injured or dislocated. And females of many species form tight, stable alliances, possibly reflecting an adaptive tendency to seek out friends for support in times of stress.” (Both quotes are from this article. And here’s a link to a research paper about it.)
There’s a tricky thing about trauma, though, that I didn’t understand back then. If the trauma isn’t adequately released at the time, it roots itself in the body and, from then on, whenever a stimulus brings up a body memory of the trauma event, the body responds exactly as it did during the trauma. In other words, though there were only two suicide attempts in our twenty-two year marriage, there were a LOT of stimuli that triggered my “tend and befriend” response (as well as my less prominent fight/flight/freeze). The mental illness of my partner didn’t simply disappear in the in-between times, so any time there were hints of it showing up, although I didn’t consciously think “he’s going to attempt suicide again”, my body responded as though that were true.
Though “tend and befriend” might seem like a more gentle, healthy response to stress than fight, flight, or freeze, I can tell you that it often is not, especially when it’s a triggered response and is unnecessary in that moment. When it showed up, for example, when I was exhausted and yet still had to go into warrior/mama-bear mode on behalf of my children, it drove me to burnout. And when it showed up at the expense of my own well-being (ie. protecting my then-husband rather than looking out for my own interests), it nearly killed me and left me vulnerable to abusive behaviour and manipulation.
It was so present, in fact, that it took several years longer than it should have for me to end the failing marriage. I was so afraid that the marriage breakdown would cause him to attempt suicide again and that my children would have to bear the grief of that, that I held the marriage together much longer than I should have. I was so used to assuming that I was responsible for his emotions and the way they impacted my children, that I couldn’t imagine the world functioning any other way. It took a lot of work for me to release myself of that responsibility. Even three years later, I can be unreasonably triggered by a simple text message from him.
Several years ago (before the marriage ended and after my mom died), I was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue. I was exhausted. My heightened state of alertness and responsibility meant that my adrenal glands had been overproducing for so long that I could barely function anymore. I started taking supplements and tried to change my diet and sleep patterns, but it wasn’t until my marriage ended and the stimulus was largely removed from my day-to-day existence that I finally started to feel like sleep was replenishing me and I wasn’t among the walking dead anymore.
It’s not gone, though. There are still stimuli that trigger the same response in me. When, for example, my children’s emotional meltdowns or panic attacks are similar to their dad’s, I get triggered into the same anxiety and the same tend and befriend response. I rush too quickly to fix things and I don’t always wait for those involved to take responsibility for doing their own emotional work. I’m getting better at recognizing it and finding ways to self-sooth so that it’s not destructive to me or my children, but I’m not foolish enough to think the problem is fixed. I’m still actively working to heal it and release it from my body.
How then, do we as caregivers and advocates stay in the work for people we love without burning ourselves out or resorting to destructive patterns? How do we hold space for ourselves when we find ourselves holding space for those with mental illness?
Here are some thoughts on that…
- Recognize the trauma/stress that you are carrying. Unfortunately, it can often be our own strength, and our internal narratives of how we “can handle anything” that contribute to our downfall. If we don’t recognize the impact on our bodies of the trauma that’s being caused by a loved one’s mental illness, it roots itself in our bodies and can become an unhealthy, subconscious response to even the slightest stimuli. This denial can cause burnout, addiction, and destructive behaviour if not addressed.
- Care for your body. This is important, because your body is the container that holds the trauma. Go for whatever body treatments help you to release what you’re holding – massage, reiki, craniosacral, EMDR, acupuncture, etc. And take care of yourself with healthy food and movement. Pay attention to the signals your body sends you, because your body may be letting you know that you’re carrying too much. (Take it from someone who’s wrestling with how my weight may be a signal my body’s been sending me about the trauma.)
- Resist the urge to take on responsibility for anyone else’s emotional or mental health. You can not fix them. You can not make them happy. You can not even ensure that a person will not attempt to take their own life. You can support them and hold space for them (if you are not becoming too damaged in the process), but the outcome is not on you. Even if, in your desperation, you said what you’re pretty sure was the WRONG thing just before the suicide or attempt (which I did), the outcome wasn’t your fault. Let that go.
- Get help. Don’t be ashamed to reach out to friends, family, professionals, etc. You can’t do this alone and you shouldn’t. Sometimes it’s as simple as having a friend who will let you cry in their presence so that you can release what’s bottled up inside. Or asking a family member to step in to care for the person with mental illness. And don’t hesitate to hire a trauma professional to get to the deeper place of healing (or look for social services support, if you don’t have the financial resources).
- Know when to walk away. For those of us with a strong tend-and-befriend reflex, it’s really, really hard to walk away from someone who’s hurting, even when we’re being destroyed in the process. But consider the possibility that the person you’re supporting may actually be better off on their own, learning to walk in the world without the crutch you’ve offered them. Consider that your triggered tend-and-befriend response, though it’s comfortable and familiar to them, might actually be to their detriment as well as your own. And also… consider that they may be manipulating you (knowingly or unknowingly) to get you to stay.
- Create and hold the boundaries you need in order to stay healthy.Again, this is especially hard for anyone caught in the tend-and-befriend patterns. We want to make sure everyone else is cared for before we care for ourselves, because that’s what we believe will serve our overactive nervous system. But an un-boundaried life will destroy you. Practice saying no to the small things so that you can work up the courage to say no to the big things.
- Pay attention to how seemingly healthy responses may actually be unhealthy ones. Whenever I kicked into tend-and-befriend response, I always thought I was doing the right thing, tending to and protecting those I was responsible for, and sacrificing my own interests for theirs. But those responses were masking what was going on underneath and they were setting patterns into play that have taken years to release.
There is nothing easy about this, and if you find yourself in a place where you must hold space for someone with mental illness, know this… I see you. I witness how hard you are working. I know the tears you cry into your pillow at the end of the day. I get it and I hope that you will find the support you need so that you will not be destroyed by this.
Please, take care of yourself. The world needs you.
* * *
Note: If this post resonated with you, check out the work that I do in helping people learn how to hold space for each other and for themselves.
by Heather Plett | Jun 5, 2018 | Friendship, growth, holding space
I remember the day clearly. I don’t remember the date, but it must have been a warm summer day, because I was wearing my favourite turquoise summer dress.
I was walking home from church pushing a double stroller with a toddler and infant inside. I was glad that my children couldn’t see me because I was crying.
I was lonely. I’d just been to a new church because I was seeking some form of community, but it hadn’t happened that morning. I’d had to spend the whole service in the nursery caring for my children and there had been no opportunities to make the kind of connections I was craving. I’d slipped out of church when nobody came to speak with me after the service. I was feeling too insecure and overwhelmed to reach out to them, so when they didn’t come to me, I left.
That was the loneliest period of my life. With two small children and a full-time job, I had little time for a social life. Most of the friends I’d had before children were either busy with their own children or were childless and didn’t understand my new reality. At work, I’d moved into a management position, so didn’t feel as welcome in the lunchroom conversations as I once was.
More than anything, though, I felt like I no longer knew HOW to make friends. I’ve always been better at deep connections than small-talk, so the brief conversations with other parents at the playground did little to feed my hunger. At work I wasn’t making deep enough connections either, because the further I moved up in management, the more it seemed that people were guarded and not interested in really knowing each other.
This week, I thought back to that young woman crying on the sidewalk, walking her children home, and I teared up at the memory. How lost and lonely she was! How much she craved depth and meaning and friendship!
I’m not that young woman anymore. This past week, as I traveled from Portland to Ashland to L.A. to Reno, connecting with some of my closest friends and sparking new friendships along the way, I realized just how far I’ve come since that moment. I now have an abundance of deep friendships, both at home and in places as far away as Australia. In fact, I’ve built a business on deep conversations and holding space, and so the very things I once craved are the things that are now the core of my work.
That’s how it works, sometimes, and that’s why I don’t regret those lonely moments. I wouldn’t know just how beautiful this life is if I’d never glimpsed the opposite. And I wouldn’t be able to relate to my clients if I’d never known loneliness or loss or disconnection. Those moments in the liminal space helped to shape me and teach me and prepare me for this work.
Last week, I was in Reno for a few days, connecting with my dear friends Lorraine and TuBears, who I met five years ago at Lake Tahoe at the annual gathering for Gather the Women. While I was there, we had such a beautiful connection, that we decided to share one of our conversations with you. In the video, we talked about what kind of conditions help to create the kind of trust and depth we enjoy in our relationship.
Since then, I’ve been thinking more about those conditions for deep and meaningful friendships. Here’s what I came up with:
1.) Do your own work. Though meaningful friendships can and should help support growth, you can’t rely on friends to do your inner work for you. Showing up with too much neediness and not enough sense of your own responsibility to work through your weakness, jealousy, anger, fear, etc. will either destroy the friendship or make it so lopsided it won’t hold the kind of depth you crave.
2.) Let your friends do their own work. Just as you can’t rely on a friend to do your work, you can’t do theirs either. Let them take responsibility for their hang-ups, mistakes, and emotions. And when they’re feeling lost, walk beside them and offer a light to illuminate the path, but don’t take responsibility for their journey.
3.) Take chances. Deep friendships are built on trust and you can’t build trust if you don’t take some risks, share some secrets, and open your heart just a little more than what feels safe. This doesn’t happen all at once, but as you build trust, keep offering a little more of yourself so that your friend can help hold what you might not share with other people.
4.) Be trustworthy. Guard your friend’s secrets, show up when you say you’re going to show up, and apologize when you mess up. Be the kind of person they can trust, who’s dependable and faithful. And take responsibility for it when you fail so that you can begin to rebuild the trust.
5.) Be an advocate and an ally. Sometimes friendship is about standing up for each other or at least standing alongside each other when there are forces working against you. If your friend faces discrimination that you don’t face, learn to be the kind of ally that they most need and want (that may look different for each person). If they face abuse and are having trouble standing up for themselves, find ways of advocating for them without taking their power away.
6.) Be open to change. Friends change us and we change them. When a relationship grows, it creates the possibility for something new in each person and in the space in between – the “we space”. Be willing to learn from the other person and from the places and ideas that you explore together. Don’t cling to an old identity – evolve along with the relationship.
7.) Support each other’s greatness. The best kind of friends are those who aren’t intimidated by someone’s success or strength. There might be moments of jealousy now and then, and the sense that you’ve been left behind (we’re all human, after all), but don’t let that get in the way of your friendship. Don’t assume that they don’t need you anymore, because the truth is that they probably need you MORE. Success can feel like a surprisingly scary and lonely place sometimes. Be there for them through the success AND the failure and trust that they’ll be there for you too.
8.) Pay attention to what they need and be honest about what you need. Friendship is symbiotic and reciprocal. It’s not transactional (ie. I give you something and then you owe me something in return) – it’s an ebb and flow of meeting whosever needs are most relevant in the moment, with as much balance as possible. When trust is built, you can be more honest about what your needs are and when you think those aren’t being met, and you can receive the honesty of your friend in the same way.
9.) Respect their boundaries and communicate your own. In a friendship, there is usually some unspoken agreement about what is acceptable and unacceptable. It can be helpful to speak it out loud so that all involved have clarity and know how best to respect each other. If, for example, you have a family commitment on Sundays that means you aren’t available to your friends, let them know that Sundays are off limits and expect them to respect those limits. Or if you don’t like receiving text messages after 10 p.m., say so and then don’t respond to their late night texts. And if your friend communicates similar boundaries, don’t make fun of them or push past them – respect them.
10.) Don’t run away from conflict. At some point in every friendship, conflict bubbles to the surface. Instead of running away, try to see it as an opportunity to deepen your friendship. The deepest friendships are those that weather a few storms, so step into the conflict and see what it has to teach you. Perhaps the conflict will help you to better articulate a boundary that was inadvertently crossed. Or your friend will figure out how to talk about the trauma that was triggered unknowingly. Sometimes conflict is generative instead of destructive.
There is no perfect friendships because there are no perfect people. No matter how strong your friendship is, you may still fail or betray your friend and they may still do the same to you. And sometimes, even with lots of friends, you’ll still have lonely moments (which I have, occasionally, when I’m the only single person at a party full of couples). But regardless, life is richer when you make the effort to invest in deep and meaningful friendships.
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Want to know more about growing deep and meaningful relationships? We talk a lot about this in the Holding Space Coach/Facilitator Program AND you’ll have the added bonus of growing friendships with people from all over the world who enrol in the program with you. If you’d rather study with me in-person, join me in B.C. or the Netherlands.
by Heather Plett | May 8, 2018 | holding space
I cut off someone in traffic recently. It was completely my fault. I wasn’t paying enough attention and drifted into the other lane when mine was suddenly blocked off for construction. The moment I realized what I’d done, though, shame-brain quickly tried to find someone else to blame. “Maybe the other driver was going too fast. Maybe it was the way the construction pylons were placed on the road that made it difficult to know where the lanes were.”
Shame-brain isn’t very good at holding space for mistakes. In fact, shame-brain turns all of those mistakes – even the ones that are very human, relatively harmless, and completely accidental – into monsters that have to be banished from the kingdom. Because those monsters are threats that might topple the foundation that the kingdom was built on.
From shame-brain’s perspective, mistakes are dangerous.
A mistake makes me question my own value, safety, and belonging. If I MAKE a mistake, perhaps it means that I AM a mistake. And if I’m a mistake, people will stop loving me. I will be abandoned. I’ll be lonely and unprotected. I’ll be a failure. I’l lose my place in society and I won’t be able to get a job or find love. Yes, shame-brain can take even the simplest mistakes to extreme consequences in an instant.
Mistakes are human. In fact, they’re important pieces of information that help us learn and grow. Consider a child who’s learning to ride a bike – when she falls a couple of times, she’ll realize that the action that resulted in the fall shouldn’t be replicated and she’ll adjust accordingly and probably do better the next time. The same is true in school. When a student makes a mistake on a spelling quiz, he will (hopefully) spell that word correctly the next time.
I think, though, that it’s actually in the school system that we begin to be taught that mistakes aren’t just valuable pieces of information that help us learn, they are punishable offences that brand us. When we make a mistake on a test, we rarely get a chance to try again. Instead, that test mark goes into our final grade and we live with the mark of those mistakes forever. Tests don’t teach us how to learn and grow – they teach us that the person who makes the least mistakes wins. (It was a great source of frustration for me, when I taught in a university setting, that so much emphasis was placed on how to get good grades rather than how to learn.)
This is accentuated by our legal system. Mistakes are rarely treated as opportunities for growth – they are offences punishable by law that often go onto your permanent record. Instead of offering opportunities for repair, restitution, and restoration, we pass out judgements and lock people behind bars. Three of my friends have recently navigated (or are currently navigating) the legal system with their sons whose offences occurred in their formative teen years. These young men (some of whose actions did, admittedly, harm other people) are not being taught repair and restitution. They are learning shame. They’re learning just how much they can be “banished from the kingdom” for making mistakes. The same is true for one my friends who has been living under the shadow of an unfair legal conviction that makes it difficult for her to sign a lease or get a job. She has told few people of this part of her story because of what she risks losing as a result. Some mistakes (or appearances of mistakes) are costly.
Shame, the way we in western, colonized cultures, experience and express it, is deeply rooted in a culture of dominance (ie. patriarchy, white supremacy, colonization, etc.). In a culture of dominance, the person who’s seen to be the least flawed (NOT the person who IS the least flawed, but who can rig the system to ensure that they are SEEN TO BE the least flawed), dominates. The person with the greatest amount of shame is oppressed. Shame is heaped on the people on the lower levels of the system – BIPOC, women, LGBTQ+, etc., so that they can be dominated. They’re locked up for minor offences, they’re shamed for wearing the wrong clothes or having sex with the wrong person, they’re blamed for their own poverty, they’re ostracized for contracting AIDS, etc.
“Perhaps the act of ‘psychological colonisation’ is simply the process of shaming another culture.” from this article
In a culture of shame, mistake monsters are easily created. In fact, nobody needs to create them for us. After a lifetime of social conditioning, we can be counted on to create those monsters all by ourselves. Nobody was in the car with me when I cut off the other driver – and yet, the mistake monster showed up quickly to haunt me.
In the Maori culture (according to this article by Anahera Gildea), shame is treated differently. “The root word for shame in English means ‘to cover oneself’. Like with blankets, maybe. Or mud. Or hatred. To be camouflaged in a thicket, on a bank, or in the darkness of the night. Māori do not hide their shame. Nor their grief. It is visible to themselves and others because it means they have become dislodged, disconnected, from their ‘whakapapa’ (loosely translated as ‘lineage’).”
Shame, then, in the Maori understanding, is not associated with punishable offences you can’t recover from, but a reminder of how your actions have disconnected you and how you now have an opportunity to be restored.
I am left wondering, when I consider the damage shame-brain and mistake monsters are doing to all of us in non-Indigenous, colonized cultures… how do we create a mistake culture – where mistakes aren’t monsters but friends? How do we shift attitudes away from “mistake as punishable offence” to “mistake as valuable information for growth”? How do we focus not on the danger of the mistake, but on the possibility for reconnecting ourselves?
What if we treated mistakes as “miss-takes”, the way we do when we’re taking photos?
Over the weekend, I went with my sister to visit the town where we grew up. Because they are such fleeting flowers and are so connected to our youth, we took dozens of photos of crocuses. Some of those photos were miss-takes – they came out blurry, the angle was wrong, or they were over-exposed. Those photos could later be deleted from our cameras. But they weren’t just miss-takes – they provided us with valuable information about how to change the angle, the light, or the focus. Those miss-takes helped us eventually take a few photos we were proud of. 
They helped us find greater connection with the crocuses and with the land on which we’ve wandered since we first learned to walk
In the Stó:lō Nation (Indigenous to Canada), their restorative justice practices are built on an understanding of mistakes as “miss-takes”. As in the Maori culture, they see the mistakes as signposts that indicate disconnection, and that point toward an opportunity for restoration and reconnection. They don’t, in fact, have a word for justice. Instead, Stó:lō Elders created the word Qwi:qwelstóm kwelam t’ ey (qwi:qwelstóm) – roughly translated as, “they are teaching you, moving you toward the good”. “It is a concept of ‘justice’ centered upon the family and reflects a way of life that focuses on relationships and the interconnectedness of all life. It has four key elements: ‘the role of Elders; the role of family, family ties, and community connections; teachings; and spirituality.’” Justice, in a culture like this, is not a system of punishment, it is a way of re-connecting those in conflict with their higher selves and their spiritual guides. (Source: Indigenous Centered Conflict Resolution Processes in Canada, by Nisha Sikka, George Wong, and Catherine Bell)
What if we decolonized our culture and we let the Stó:lō Nation and the Maori Nation teach us about justice systems that restore right relationships and bring people back to themselves? What if we recognized the flaws in the colonial system of “justice”, humbled ourselves, and became learners instead of colonizers? And what if we extended that learning beyond justice to our education systems? How would it change the learning environment if we changed our testing practices and treated mistakes as valuable pieces of information that helped a student come into the fullness of who they are and what they are capable of? What if we removed the sting of shame and accepted, instead, a collective responsibility for restoring the community?
Recently, I have witnessed some mistakes made by white spiritual/self-help teachers who lack an awareness of their social conditioning and unconscious bias. They are causing harm to people of colour (by images and words that they use and actions that they take), and when they do so, their first instinct is often to defend themselves and/or to hide their shame. They don’t yet understand that the impact of their mis-steps is more important than the intent, so they try to convince their followers that they are good people, worthy of continued admiration. They are afraid the mistakes will destroy them – banish them from the kingdom and leave them penniless.
I get it, I’ve been there too. I made a mistake once, while doing race relations work, and my shame reared up (just as it did when I cut off that person in traffic) and made me want to use every means possible to protect myself from the mistake monster. Luckily, I was working with people who were less interested in my mistake than in my continued efforts to seek reconciliation and restitution. The mistake did not kill me or banish me from the kingdom – it taught me and further shaped my work. Now, three years later, I am grateful for that mistake and the opportunities for growth it presented.
One of the most important things I learned (or re-learned) from that experience, is that mistakes are most valuable when they are brought into the light, discussed, apologized for, and learned from. A mistake that’s hidden turns into shame. A mistake that’s owned and repaired and/or apologized for turns into learning.
We are going to make mistakes. Accept that as a given. Especially if you’re doing work that challenges you, holding space for people in places where there may be power imbalances, deep wounds, trauma, racial injustice, grief, fear, etc., occasionally you’ll offend people, you’ll let your own triggered wounds take over your rational mind, and you’ll be blind to your social conditioning. Even when your best intentions are to be kind, your impact may be very different.
Go into this work expecting mistakes to happen. And sometimes those mistakes will mean that you have to bear someone’s anger or face rejection. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news – that’s simply part of this work. That’s why we all need lots of self-care and community-care – so that we won’t be destroyed when the winds threaten to blow us over.
Those mistakes don’t need to destroy us. They can become our teachable moments.
Instead of battling the mistake monster, we need to befriend him – take him under our wing and hold space for him until he’s brave enough to take off his monster mask and reveal that, underneath, he is “miss-take”, not monster. Once we do that, we can learn from the mistake, make reparations where we need to, and keep trying until we get it right. Eventually, the picture will emerge in focus and with the right amount of light.
The next time a mistake monster shows up, take a lesson from art therapy and draw a picture of him. Make him as ugly as you need him to be, but then give him soft eyes. Talk to that monster and let him know you’re willing to learn the lessons he has brought you. You will likely find that he will soften in the space that you hold for him.
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If you want to learn more about how to hold space for your own mistakes and for others, consider signing up for Holding Space Coach/Facilitator Program, or join me in B.C. or the Netherlands.
