Indecisiveness

For much of my life I've been able to empathise with every side of every story. I struggled to take sides in team meetings or friend groups when there were differences. I'll never forget an argument between my friends in Chiapas, Mexico. We had just finished doing advocacy and campaigning work at the UN Climate Conference in Cancun and were decompressing together and getting to know the community where the Zapatista movement originated. There was a lot of tension between two subgroups of friends. Those who wanted to address the root causes of the climate crisis (capitalism, racism, an extractive paradigm, an economy that doesn't value life). And those who wanted to reduce emissions globally as fast as possible by any means, including starting big solar power companies which may just take the place of big oil in otherwise similarly abusive economy. This is not a small conversation. I could feel the realism and individual commitment from one person who said "Look all I want to do is make PV solar panels cheap and effective in my lifetime, that's my contribution", while the others radiated this sense of necessity and absoluteness: failing to confront neoliberal capitalism NOW would be a lost opportunity and that this crisis is a time for all of us to rewire the economy. Both were so emotional. Both were so strategic. Everyone was in integrity. I stayed silent and listened. About six months later, our group of friends started two different organisations which addressed both strategies. But in your own life, and in my own life, sometimes it's not possible to pick "all of the above". And the most difficult aspect of what I've been learning is that choosing all of the above may mean choosing nothing.

As a facilitator, it is advantageous to be neutral. It is not your responsibility to be directive, it is your responsibility to listen to what is being said and what is not being said, and midwife new possibilities into existence. A good facilitation style will be strong and secure in terms of creating a good flow, keeping a group moving, and providing boundaries around what is okay and not okay in terms of behaviour in the group. But that strength needs to be expressed in a way that doesn't colour the conversation with your un-invited projections, biases or opinions. Unless of course you're leading an effort with a facilitative leadership style, where you will need to be good at both vision and inclusivity. Most people, including facilitators, find it hard to raise up the conceptual sculpture of the groups' discussion without putting their own twist on it. I feel tuned enough to know when it's me talking and when I'm speaking from or channelling a shared conceptualisation

I have a strong habit of not taking sides, and aiming to understand the common ground or the opportunity for action in a group. This is mostly a gift. The shadow here is that when I need to make a big personal life decision, sometimes I facilitate others into a process of advice giving and I attempt to summarise and amalgamate these contributions to make a decision (like I would in an organisation). What I've learnt from doing this too many times with important matters, is that my friends mostly project their assumptions about their own life on to me when I'm inviting their input. So I don't actually gain a nugget of gold. I gain a scrap of the fabric of their subjectivity, how they see the world, and how they see my circumstance. Leaving that process with a pile of scraps - pieces of broken mirror to look at myself in, is only a starting point. Then I need to work out what I think.

So I turn inward. There's a group there too. I call it "The inner committee of the mind". There's someone with a valid point on every side of that circle. Bold and unafraid. Deeply anxious and conservative. Trusting and open. Cynical and sarcastic. Wise and reassuring. Loving and supportive. Judgemental and patronising. Optimistic and naive. The decisions I have most trouble with are ones where none of the options are bad. There's research that shows that the more options you have to choose between, the less good quality the decision. That's probably true for me too, but that's not what I find hardest. Most of all I struggle between A and B if they're both positive possibilities. The inner committee can go around in circles forever with two pretty good options. Go to visit New York, don't go to visit New York. Move away from my home country to learn and grow, don't move away from my home country and deepen my relationships instead. The hardest one is being in love with two people. I don't recommend it.

What I am learning is that building a strong skill set in neutrality, listening, facilitating the emergence of something greater than any individual, has actually eroded my ability to feel my own sense of direction. Obviously not completely. I'm an independent person with a lot of opinions and strong values. But in those key moments of making trade-offs, I am learning to side-step my facilitative self. Finding my own inner voices stuck in endless dialogue is sometimes a signal that I'm over-thinking rather than allowing myself to emotionally feel what I want. I'm learning to grow my ability to recognise needs I have, and seek out ways to meet those needs, rather than tell them to be quiet and push them down. Building this up is like pumping a very small weak muscle. Starting with easier decisions and trying to ensure I'm being very honest with myself as I take them is a daily practice. After about a year of actively working on this I feel much more centred and confident in my ability to have a personal sense of direction as well as to see the boundaries between "me" and a group. It's making me a much better participant in groups and in life. And I'm not losing my ability to navigate neutrally either :).