Place reflections: Tuesday 26th May
“All the things we’d like others to do, we might not be doing them ourselves”
This is the last conversation for the time being among Lankelly’s partners, associates and other friends from our Place Action Inquiry . Next week, a smaller group will meet for a deeper conversation about the future.
There were some strong themes this week:
Going Back
People talked about the signs they are seeing around them of ‘system snapback’ and “getting bad things back online” where there had been more creativity and freedom.
Polarising narratives and difficult feelings
We noticed polarising narratives where some people/agencies are blamed and others are feted as angels/heroes. These narratives create an ‘us and them’ dynamic and prevent honest, open conversations about uncertainty, fallibility and fear. These difficult feelings are not allowed space and become unseen drivers of some of the unhelpful and defensive behaviours which underlie ‘system snapback’. “Some agencies will create a narrative about how marvellous everything was and how we all came together. Not that it’s not the case, but people need to be more transparent”.
Being the change we want to see
We discussed how we can lean into the discomfort and practice what we preach. “We have to behave in the way we want everyone else to and to speak out honestly about what we haven’t got right”.
What is the practice of this?
What does this look like? What is the practice? Can we create environments that disrupt blame and ‘us and them’? Online spaces, not being in the room together, have helped to foster honesty, emotionality and connection in some contexts. We can work to frame and invite people into different spaces. We should work to bring the seen and unseen much closer together.
In the words of John Lydon, ‘Anger is an energy’
We talked about how hard this is, given that we are not separate from what we are seeing, when, in fact, everything — worklife, homelife — is intermingled and merged at the moment. (“All areas of my life have been woven into one”). We are not neutral, we are emotionally involved. We feel anger bubbling under the surface. “Maybe we should just say it is not fair and rant”. Is it that we need safe spaces to express this so we can return to our work with some neutrality? (“How useful is it to say ‘now I’m moving away from being part of the story and into facilitating something’?”) Or is it ok to be angry and to allow anger to be expressed? Is this possible in the kinds of ideal environments described above? “Fear, accountability, honesty, anger, is this all possible in one place?”
Things (don’t) fall apart
Perhaps this idea of intermingling/merging is part of the answer — it makes the complex and multifaceted nature of everyone’s lives obvious. It makes compartmentalising very difficult. This gives us hope.
Living with uncertainty
We noted that some people are far more used to the challenging circumstances we all find ourselves in than others. Many people have experienced much worse, much more complex situations. They are better equipped for this, and for dealing with adversity more generally. There is wisdom and strength in this.
