"The cost to me of not doing so. I'm unwilling to pay the cost of
carrying a resentment (or whatever) around, so I draw on the
intelligence of forgiving."
"People often don't understand what is involved in forgiving. They
think that if somebody does something wrong, and you forgive them,
that is like saying that it was alright to do it that time - but don't
dare do it again. But life doesn't work that way; and it's stupid or
hypocritical to forgive someone on that basis. If somebody does
something, you can be sure that he or she will do it again. That is
why I prefer to talk about 'making space' and 'completion'. To the
extent that forgiveness is involved, it is more like
self-forgiving and self-acceptance. When you forgive yourself
for something, you have to create the space for that thing to exist.
For whatever you resist, and fail to make space for, will indeed
manifest itself in you."
...
"Resenting is like taking poison, hoping the other
guy will die."
"A crucible experience is an intense, often traumatic, always
unplanned experience, out of which one is transformed (it's the way
one deals with the experience not the experience itself,
that's transformative)."
...
Warren Bennis
and Robert Thomas paraphrased by Laurence Platt, Crucibles of
Leadership, Harvard Business Review, referenced in the
Leadership
Course materials
Definition
crucible
noun
a container in which metals or other substances can be heated to
very high temperatures
<unquote>
A Crucible Experience
I speak coming from experience. Divorce (in which I wasn't the willing
party) was indeed a crucible experience for me. A crucible experience
is an intense, often traumatic, always unplanned experience, out of
which one is transformed (it's the way one deals with the
experience not the experience itself, that's transformative).
Being as I was in the crucible, things got very hot. Things got very
painful. Things I counted on being in place for the rest of my life,
vaporized leaving but the barest of
residues.
And as for being expensive, divorce cost a shed-load of
money, money which would have been better set aside for my children's
education than to pay lawyers and court costs (the huge financial hit
in itself, irrevocably altered the once-possible future which was
rapidly spinning more and more out of my reach).
The
residues
left included restricted access to my children, and theirs to me (trust
me on this: divorce is not kind to children). They
included at times depraved anger, frustration, profound
sadness,
a deep sense of failure, and an unavoidable realization of the
unfairness of it all. When the proceedings began to roll, a friend of
mine told me "You're the husband responding to a wife's divorce
petition in the State of California. You're going to get taken to the
cleaners" (he used an expletive-deleted actually). "Not so" I countered
righteously, "California is a community-property state.". How wrong I
was. How very wrong I was. And how oh so right he was ...
But perhaps the biggest and most painful
residue
left was the predictably massive breakdown in my relationship with my
ex-wife, the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Regardless of what drove her to file to dissolve our marriage, I love
her. Even though the divorce crucible allowed so much to melt and
vaporize that I couldn't have salvaged it no matter how hard I tried, I
did try. Oh God! Did I ever try ... ("try" is questionable at
best but here it'll do).
In the end, setting the
story
of it all aside and sharing what was transformative about
it instead, the thing about the crucible experience of divorce is that
it did eventually transform me. It wasn't the experience of divorce
itself that transformed me. That was horrible. No, it was the way I
dealt with my experience of it that transformed me. What I
got (eventually) was my love was unscathed, my sense of family
uninterrupted. That's transformation.
And so as I made arrangements to attend my daughter's wedding which
would have me be together again with my ex-wife, I looked at how I
could facilitate a breakthrough,
an unimaginable
breakthrough
in what was possible for us in relationship. That's what
Life calls for: not just a breakthrough but
an unimaginable
breakthrough.
I was vaporized to a
residue
in the crucible. And yet I was transformed by the experience ie I was
transformed by the way I dealt with that unavoidable intense,
traumatic, unplanned experience which left me complete with what
happened, and with the intention to create an
an unimaginable
breakthrough.
As a result of an intention like that ie out of an
intention like that, you may well imagine just about anything could
have happened. This is what actually did happen.
What Life Calls For
As I tried to imagine what it would be like being around her again at
our daughter's imminent wedding (more than that, what it would be like
being around her family ie my ex-in-laws again for the first time in
nearly seventeen years), it became abundantly clear to me there would
be many more meetings like this in the future. It wouldn't be an
isolated incident. It would be the forerunner of for example, our sons'
weddings, celebrations of our grandchildren etc etc. And in that
moment, I knew that what I was about to start would be something new
which would bring forth the honor and the joy and the accomplishment of
it all, leaving the past in the past and a future of possibilities wide
open. This would be no dummy run.
I saw the possibility of a
BIG
future I could not avoid, one I didn't want to avoid. I knew I had to
create a space in which, rather than being merely another casualty of
divorce and being around her by default, I would bring elegance and
dignity to the proceedings rather than just stoically tolerate / bear
them. It's what Life calls for, and I knew I would heed the call - I
just didn't know how (or at least, I just didn't know how yet).
The intention was there. The specifics? Not quite. But look: you don't
create something like this by inventing a new plan, a new strategy. You
create something like this by getting off it. You create
something like this by inventing being newly. You create
something like this by inventing yourself anew ie by re-inventing who
you've been being.
Dawn Mist
I caught sight of her in the crowd. She had her back to me. I
recognized her immediately even though her hair was longer than when I
last saw her. I
walked
up to her and, standing behind her, said "Hello!" warmly. Hearing me,
she turned slowly, said "Hello!", a lovely, open smile on her face,
opened her arms, and embraced me in a hug in which I was enveloped as
if by the dawn mist.
Instead of being predictably awkward, there we stood, her arms around
me, my arms around her, nothing in the way, two human beings, old
friends, and now parents of three gorgeous children, one of them about
to be married. She didn't let go, not even when I thought she would,
not even after an ordinary hug would have run its natural course. Dawn
mist hugs are like that. Dawn mist hugs are
out-here.
They've got nothing to do with what's going on internally*
at all.
Without letting go or standing back, I began speaking, my eyes closed,
my mouth
close to her ear, our heads resting on each other's shoulders. I
thanked her for being
the mother of our
children.
I told her I loved her (it's true: when I get below the
sadness
of divorce, I do, I always have, I always will). I said "You are a
champion, you are my
hero.".
She was
quiet,
saying nothing in response ... and then I realized she couldn't say
anything: she was crying softly. Warm tears. Relief tears. And there we
stood, hugging like the dawn mist, me acknowledging her, she not
moving, getting it, hugging closer, as close as two human beings can
possibly hug without actually merging.
Parents Of The Bride Holding Hands
Walking
my daughter down the aisle was one of the proudest moments of my life.
It was also one of the most miraculous. I mean wasn't it just yesterday
(or was it an hour ago?) that she was born? Now she's a most beautiful,
serene, calm, poised bride. How did it happen so fast? She's holding on
to my arm as
we walk,
and in the world in which
we walk,
there's just the two of us (although we're surrounded by hundreds of
family and wedding guests, it's just the two of us). We get to the
front of the aisle where her groom, her husband-to-be is waiting, and
she lets go of my arm. He and I embrace. I whisper in his ear "Take
care of
my baby girl.".
He says "I promise I will.". We're both in tears. I've just given my
darling daughter away.
Then something extraordinary happens, something I neither expected nor
imagined would happen. I go to my seat in the
bride's-family-and-friends section, which I realize is next to my
ex-wife's seat. It's the mother of the bride who's sitting there, the
mother of our daughter, and now we're sitting next to each other for
the first time in years, at her wedding. I still have tears on
my face
from giving my daughter away, and I sit there, next to her, savoring
the moment. Talking with her would be inappropriate now that the
ceremony has begun. And then ... my hand spontaneously reaches out ...
and takes her hand and holds it tightly. I almost can't believe it.
It's the most natural thing in
the world:
sitting next to the mother of our daughter who's getting married in
front of us, although we're no longer married I reach out and take her
hand. I'm probably as startled as she is. Her hand is unmoving, and I
wonder if I should let go ... until she grips my hand tightly back,
and that's how we are for the rest of the ceremony: the
no-longer-married parents of the bride holding hands as their daughter
and oldest child is married a few mere feet away.
During the festivities there are more dawn mist hugs, during one of
which I suggest "We should talk more.". There's so much I'm
grateful
for, especially for her. And it works better living into a
grateful
future than languishing under a painful past re-triggered in the
present. I literally don't know what could become possible if we talked
more coming from that place. We set a time to talk one evening for half
an hour from 6:30pm to 7:00pm when the wedding's over and everyone's
back home.
Transformed Listening
Everything came out - and I do mean everything. Unresolved
issues got cleared up. The possibility of being complete emerged. And I
noticed something powerful: I noticed a shift in the way I was
spontaneously listening her which allowed everything to come out.
It was I'd stopped listening "... but that ... didn't
happen" - or at least I'd stopped listening "... but it didn't happen
that way.". It was I'd stopped listening "You shouldn't have
done that" - or at least I'd stopped listening "You didn't need to do
that.". That's the way I was listening until I realized listening that
way isn't going to work. It's just going to keep us stuck in the
same vortex.
So instead I started listening newly for how it occurred
for her, not for what happened for her, and certainly not
for what happened for me. Whether what she said happened happened or
not, what was surely true is it occurred that way for her.
Her occurring-world I could really get. Her
happening-world I could only disagree with or agree with.
My listening for her had transformed. Our 6:30pm to 7:00pm half hour
call had become a 6:30pm to 1:00am-the-following-morning marathon.
I suggested we pick a spot on the coast halfway between the
Napa Valley in California
where I live, and Portland Oregon where she lives, drive there and
meet, and just
walk
on
the beach
and talk for two or three days. "In fact" I said, "I'd be willing to
drive all the way to Portland to visit you, if you prefer", to which
she surprised me by saying "... and I'd like to visit you in
Cowboy Cottage.".
It's clear to me something once impossible is now possible. "Let Life
take its course, Laurence" she said as our half hour call which had
become a six and a half hour marathon, came to its
inexorable
close. And the thing is: the space in which it came to its
inexorable
close, was a brand-new space. It was a never-before-lived space. In
contradistinction, the space in which it started was now
long gone,
relegated to the distant past where it belongs.
*Giving
Up What's Going On Internally
What worked I realized later, came down to this (let me say it this
way): giving up investing in what I had going on internally about her.
What do I mean by that? By giving up investing in "what I had going on
internally about her", I mean giving up (for want of better words)
being attached to my mechanized, entrenched, internalized
emotions, mental state, and bodily
sensations I'd associated with her. What opened up in doing
so was a space in which relationship is possible newly, a space for a
new
future to live into,
a space for the present to be refreshed, a space for the past to be
recontextualized
(I love that word).
It's abundantly clear to me now too that being in a new relationship
with her won't be like a being in a relationship with a girl I once
dated in college whose face I can hardly remember and whose name I
don't remember at all. She is
the mother of our three
gorgeous children,
and she'll be in my life,
front-and-center
stage, forever.
So I'm asking myself "What is the possibility of relationship?".
