Turning Conflict Into Art

There is real difficulty in naming, acknowledging, and owning the experience of violation and, potentially trauma, that can sometimes occur in intense conflicts.  It can be even more challenging to move on from conflicts that offer no balm or accountability for the unethical actions of others. We can be hurt so deeply when the acknowledgement of our voice, our perspective, our strength, and the integrity of our intentions is refused.  The 'easy', (and sometimes brutish) route of blaming and scapegoating  for a conflict situation emerges when another's humanity is denied.

Speaking truth to power is one of the most paradoxically powerful and vulnerable forms of conflict that emerges in our world.   Toxic authority - both the kind that is entrenched in outer systems, as well as in inner ways of relating that are learned behaviours - does not like to be challenged, or have its actions questioned in any way.  Toxic power can respond to questioning with rage, panic, and ruthlessness.  Rather than allow the truth to emerge, cover ups and denial are the learned modes of operating, thereby creating more and more confusion and despair within the self-regulating system of life.  Healthy life systems have their own exquisitely tuned feedback loops which are always co-creating towards greater self-expresson, self-expansion and wholeness.

Learning from the dance of opposites that we find in the natural world, we see the stunning co-creativity that is constantly at work in all dynamics.  If we could remember, and truly trust this instinct and impulse, our  trauma could potentially become the canvas of the greatest form of expression of the deepest source of our selves.  The artist of life, through honouring and expressing the comedy and tragedy of the dance, can turn painful conflict into an exquisite new creation.

The Work That Reconnects - The Next Generation

The Work That Reconnects is the name for the work that has been developed by Joanna Macy, the profound American activist who has merged Buddhist philosophy and systems theory into an integrated form of healing and activism.  The premise is a simple one, although the implications are far-reaching.  The idea is that by engaging in practices which help us reconnect to our feelings, to our bodies and to the Earth, we can more meaningfully participate in the 'Great Turning' - the shift from an industrial society to a sustainable one.

Yesterday as part of honouring Earth Hour at school, I led the students through some of these practices - including a meditation, a creative visualization with seven generations back and seven generations forward, a gratitude circle and a 'boddhisatva check-in."  The best part?  The vast majority of students loved it, and allowed other dimensions of their intelligence - particularly their emotional and intuitive intelligence - to be come forward during the activities.

I have been fortunate to participate in Jeannette McCullough's skilled facilitation of this work here in Toronto for adults.  Through my own immersion in work like this, I have become more passionately convinced that young people need more opportunities to connect with themselves, one another, and the Earth in simple and profound ways like this.  We used little to no electricity during these activities, and there was a palpable level of engaged focus in the class.

The best proof?  The student who piped up at the end of our time to say, "Hey Maria - did you notice that none of us were misbehaving during these activities?  We should do this more often!"

Power & Love

So many people are working to shift our collective trajectory at this time.  The movement, as Paul Hawken writes, is a "blessed unrest" - a myriad of individuals, groups and movements seeking to restore balance to the world.  What are the challenges that undermine this work?  How can we become better, more conscious, more loving, and more powerful agents of positive change?

In his new book Power and Love, Adam Kahane explores our two fundamental human drives: power, which he defines as the focused pursuit to achieve one's solitary purpose, and love, the drive towards unity.  When we fall into either extreme, we are not as effective as we need to be.  We either escalate conflict by pushing for our own agenda at all costs, or we avoid conflict to keep a false peace and harmony.  Either approach taken without a respect for the other lands us into trouble.  Kahane quotes Martin Luther King: “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.”


We are challenged to hold the paradox of both.  Yet this is not as easy as it sounds, as I think we have all been imprinted by the toxic power drives that have so imbalanced our world.  Power has ruled without love in our world for a long time, and we are dealing with the consequences today. Without a conscious effort to healing that split within ourselves, we are vulnerable to falling into either side of the abyss.  Where do victim and victimizer find peace?

Somewhere in our minds and hearts are the answers, I think - pulsing with vitality and clarity, yet vulnerable enough to yearn and reach for what we long for in the deepest corners of our being.

Can we trust ourselves enough to use our power with conscious, loving intent?  Do we love fiercely enough to move us into our true power? 

Can we join together, empowered in our love, to do what needs to be done to ensure a better future?

EQ in Schools

When many educators within the province hear the first two letters "EQ", they might automatically think of EQAO - the Educational Quality and Accountability Office whose mandate is to ensure greater accountability and quality within Ontario's publicly funded education system.  At core, educators are accountable for fostering an environment and creating the conditions for the development of literacy, numeracy, critical thinking, and skills development in a wide variety of areas.

But what about the importance of EQ - emotional intelligence?  We have yet to create systems of accountability within education where we are accountable for fostering humane, caring and empathetic human beings who will, by virture of their interpersonal skills, cultivate a healthier, more productive, and more dynamic and inclusive society.

What if EQAO stood for Emotional Intelligence Accountability Office?  Of course, we might bristle at the thought of an intrusive, external gaze of how we conduct our emotional lives and how this might be measured.  Fair enough! Yet I can't help playing with the possibility of what kind of society we would create if what mattered in our schools equally to what we were learning and teaching was who we were when we were teaching and learning.

In so many ways, because our modern culture has embraced success, efficiency and productivity at any cost, we all carry the lack of balance this has produced within our psyches.  To embrace emotional intelligence as a core educational value would mean that our understandings and measures of success, efficiency and productivity would be transformed.  Due to the long history of not valuing emotional literacy and intelligence and the wounds or incompleteness in our humanity that has been created as result, elements of education would have to be broadened and understood as a pathway of healing (being made whole), and not only as the transmission of knowledge.  The way in which the work of education is understood expands and deepens with this shift, and institutional responses must arise organically to support this process.

It would also mean that educators would not only have the responsiblity of having a firm grasp of the curriculum, and the various strategies, approaches and techniques that help cultivate success for students, but would also be deeply committed to their emotional and psychic growth.  Of course, many educators already are - I happen to be lucky enough to have known and worked with some of them (and do now). 

Can you imagine what kind of society we can create when the heart of a child really, truly matters?  When what they feel is listened to, understood and given space to be expressed in healthy ways?

When I realize what could be achieved and created by a society of deeply secure, healthy, caring and inclusive human beings, I then truly understand that the cultivation of emotional intelligence is not an "extra", or an "add-on" - it's essential.