Transition Thinking Enables Community (Itch #5)
One of the vital roles for community to play when emergencies arise is to enable transition from what was to what could be.
Imagine this scenario: When a doctor tells me that my body is unhealthy, to the point of risking severe illness or death, she may identify a choice for me that would improve my health and quality of life. Perhaps I have a bad habit, what I eat, how much sleep and exercise I get, how much alcohol or drugs I consume. She lays out the choice for me: the comfort of the same behaviour and risk a heart attack or the disruption of new behaviour and greatly minimize the risk of a heart attack. (Note: this is an imaginary conversation with my doctor.)
My doctor helps me see the choice, and the choice is mine. Two things are at work here:
I have feedback about the consequences of my choices, and
I have a choice to make about my behaviour (take action or don’t take action)
The choice to take action means I immediately integrate the feedback and think and act differently to improve my situation. The choice to not take action invites the possibility of an unwanted heart attack. To survive, without making any effort to adjust my behaviour, I will likely rely on people rescuing me (emergency medical technicians, surgeons, etc.). After the scare of an emergency, I again choose to return to my usual behaviour or reach for new behaviour.
When we hear feedback we don’t like to hear, we can create the conditions to need to be rescued. We all do this when we avoid feedback to avoid changing. And when rescued, we always have a choice to allow our rescue to be an opportunity to return to what was or let our rescue to be an opportunity to reach for something new. Either way, our growth depends upon our ability to receive and integrate information we don’t want to hear.
Two choices
When presented with information we don’t want to hear (“you need to eat better to avoid a heart attack,” or, “you need to reduce your carbon consumption to avoid an overheated planet”), we have two choices:
Welcome the feedback and allow myself to change how I think, feel and behave
Deny the feedback and resist changing how I think, feel and behave
We humans rarely choose option one. Most often, we resist changing how we think, feel and behave. We can, but it takes a great deal of discomfort for us to choose the new; the disruption of change has to be less than the discomfort of the status quo. We need to experience the disruption before most of us begin the process of transition to something new.
Often we don’t “read” all the signs, the available feedback, and the transition is forced upon us. If I don’t heed my doctor’s feedback that if I don’t change my habits, I can expect a heart attack, I may need the nudge of a heart attack (if I survive). I may need to experience the upset of a heart attack to hear the feedback and take action. If someone swoops in and changes how I eat and exercise, their “rescue” denies me the opportunity to reach a new understanding and make changes on my own. Or experience the consequences.
“The transition from unhealthy to healthy habits is mine to make; if someone does this work for me, then I do not make the transition.”
The choice to act or not is mine, not my doctor’s or anyone else who sees themselves as my rescuer.
The transition from unhealthy to healthy habits is mine to make; if someone does this work for me, I do not make the transition.
Think about transition
We can choose to continue to do—and redo—what we’ve always done. When we notice that things are not working as well as they could, when we spot the need for improvement, we have an opportunity to do more than complain. We can ask, “What else is possible?”
Unlike complaining, which maintains and entrenches the status quo even when we say we don’t like the status quo, asking “What else is possible?” invites us to think differently, a prerequisite to making or doing anything new. At any scale, from self to family, organization or neighbourhood, city, nation, species, the remaking of any system begins with a seed of renewal that began with that simple question, “What else is possible?”
Without thinking differently, we reproduce the same system that produces our current conditions. If I don’t think differently about my heart health, I will get caught in the adapt and respond cycle without considering new possibilities. I may feel sluggish and adapt to life while feeling tired. I may have a heart attack and adjust to living on medications. I may have another heart attack and continue to live with surgeries and medications without ever asking if I could improve my quality of life.
In the same way, we can adjust to increased temperatures on earth and more forest fires and storms and floods, or we could ask, “What else is possible?” We can “withstand the storm,” but we can only do that so many times without wearing ourselves down. We are resilient after one storm or three, but not the fourth or seventieth. (Ask a first responder about what they need to do to look after themselves to avoid burning out.)
“We start to behave differently when our thinking changes.”
Rescue and adaptation in and of themselves do not build the capacity in a person or community to recover and “bounce back” and be resilient. And the ability to bounce back is not a guarantee that we grow anew. New growth, new understanding, new thinking, making and doing are in the transition, and the other side of transition and this new “stuff” only happens when we ask, “What else is possible?”
We start to behave differently when our thinking changes. Here’s some language about emergency and transition thinking at the scale of community and regular people (not first responders). Let’s see how it “fits.”
Emergency thinking (reactive)
Quality of action: reactive to life conditions, autopilot, reinforce established habits.
Stress response: we trigger our autopilot stress response.
Embodies: the smallness of Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle:
Hero/rescuer: I must save others, save the world. We are the only ones who can do this. It’s on us. We are the saviours. It is left to us to do because no one else will do it.
Persecutor: Others are destroying the world.
Victim: because of others’ actions, including inaction, I am harmed, we are harmed.
Motivated by: fear and worry about the past and future, harm to my group and me. Often unconscious emotional reactions to the circumstances of the outer world.
Focus on: immediate crisis with little contemplation of consequences of action.
Quality of doing/being: focus on doing to avoid the discomfort of inner “being” work.
Time frame: short term.
Behaviour: coordinate and cooperate; manage and project manage; clear roles that enable automatic action; roles and responsibilities that do not shift over time; adherence to the instructions of a dominant influencer or power holder; avoid inner exploration.
Outcomes:
Present problems have our attention.
Existing operating systems are reinforced.
Business-as-usual is maintained despite good intentions.
Polarization is maintained and increased.
Transition thinking (proactive)
Quality of action: proactive, responsive to life conditions, learns new habits.
Stress response: we learn to choose our stress response.
Embodies: the expansive qualities of David Emerald’s Empowerment Dynamic by reaching for new possibilities:
Contribution: I have a contribution to make to be in alignment with myself (from within) and the improvements I would like to make to our world.
Motivated by: growing and learning from our emotional reactions in our inner world, in the context of the outer world.
Focus on: the immediate crisis while enabling new possibilities now and for the future, considers consequences of action.
Quality of doing/being: focus on “being” to enable wiser, more responsive doing.
Time frame: short term and long term.
Behaviour: coordinate, cooperate and collaborate; manage, engage and hold messiness and possibility; clear roles that enable responsive action; roles and responsibilities that shift and change to suit the circumstances; engage with self and others as a self-organizing ecology; invite inner exploration in self and group.
Outcomes:
Current challenges are responded to and addressed.
New possibilities are investigated and acted upon.
New operating systems are created (by asking: WHO do I need to be? How do I need to BE differently?)
New action is enabled by new ways of thinking, making and doing.
Transition from resistance to discomfort
The danger of emergency thinking is that fear chooses our behaviour. Whatever the scale of emergency, fast action is needed to avoid harmful results. Emergency thinking compels us to act from fear, not a desire to create a better world for ourselves. In doing so, we erode good intentions to improve our situation. (No, I don’t say this from a place of fear, rather a place of me being honest with myself.)
Where emergency is rooted in fear, transition thinking is rooted in responsive accountability and possibility.
When I resist
When I resist changing, here’s what I’ve come to understand about myself:
I have unacknowledged fear (for example: I will be abandoned)
I have placed an unacknowledged limit on myself (for example: I’m not skilled enough to handle this conflict)
I want to avoid the messy work of community (for example: I want “it” to be simple and easy and have someone swoop in and tell everyone what to do, and they do it)
I want to maintain control (for example: I know best, and people should just do as I say)
I believe there is scarcity, not enough to go around (for example: I need to buy as much toilet paper as I can)
I engage in magical thinking (for example: the effects of climate change are not happening in Edmonton, so I don’t need to stop driving my fossil-fuel car)
I avoid being uncomfortable (for example: I won’t tell someone they’ve hurt my feelings because I’ll feel bad that they feel bad)
I reject information that is contrary to my views (for example: I don’t want to hear the reasons why people don’t want to have bike lanes in the city)
I say I don’t like something and take no action (for example: I don’t like how a community garden carts off organic material, and I don’t get involved and encourage composting)
I choose the most comfortable option (for example: in the rain, I’ll choose to drive my fossil-fuel car instead of taking my bike to run errands)
What I observe about transition thinking
Over the years, I’ve spent time with people and groups who engage in transition thinking. It doesn’t last for long, but the qualities are worthy of identifying. People who engage in transition thinking practice:
Welcoming curiosity and questioning because the people who challenge us may have the way forward we need
Welcoming unwanted information that requires us to rethink embedded assumptions
Working in a spirit of abundance and possibility rather than scarcity and despair
Learning about how they learn and work
Taking responsibility for what they need to learn from each other; they don’t put the responsibility on anyone else
Witnessing and holding space for each other
Making room for emotional work because it allows individuals and the group to work better
Welcoming the growth of individuals as an opportunity for the group, rather than a threat
Acknowledging the grief and trauma that is present in our lives and experiences
Where emergency thinking is about resisting discomfort, transition thinking is about embracing discomfort—because allowing the experience of discomfort is a natural part of our growth and development.
“Where emergency thinking is about resisting discomfort, transition thinking is about embracing discomfort.”
Our choices reveal our thinking
I should declare the discomfort I experience: I am uncomfortable with the language we use about the climate crisis (emergency response, be a first responder) because it conflates the distinct work of first responders and community.
First responders only do the rescue job. It’s valuable and vital work, but it is not the bigger work of rethinking who we are as a people and recrafting ourselves as a species that looks after itself better. As the scale of emergency grows, the ability of community to be proactive, responsive and response-ABLE becomes imperative.
Rescue gives us an opportunity to adapt, but the choice to adapt or not is with community, not the first responders. Rescue is not resilience because rescue embodies resilience only when the rescuer takes action the rescued can’t do for themselves (and wants).
“Community, not first responders, are responsible for our resisting or inviting improvement.”
Resilience is the ability to adapt, which is in part an emergency response and also the adjustments made by the wider community. (For example, if we keep having to spend money and resources to rescue neighbourhoods from flooding, it’s time to adapt and relocate those neighbourhoods.) The special ingredient is our ability to renew ourselves, regenerate or reinvent ourselves, learn about ourselves and incorporate new understanding into our thinking and behaviour. That is community work.
Community, not first responders, are responsible for our resisting or inviting improvement. Community is responsible for releasing old thinking behaviour and welcoming the new. Resilience requires more than an emergency response; it also involves transition into a new way of being in the world.
What happens when “emergency” is not a shared experience?
Emergencies signal to us that something needs our attention. Whether a fire, car accident, heart attack, or a flood, a survival instinct kicks in, and we react to respond to the emergency. It is only an emergency to me if I feel that survival instinct. If you are beside me and have a heart attack, I will mentally prepare myself to perform CPR if needed and call 911. If there is a power outage in the cold of winter, my neighbours and I will be organizing ourselves to make sure we can stay warm. The urgency of an emergency is palpable and clear, and we respond accordingly.
In the messiness of community, when the scale of emergency is much larger, like the COVID-19 pandemic or climate change, we do not share a palpable sense of crisis. In this context, where emergency is abstract or non-existent for many, to arrive on the scene as a saviour “first responder” fully embodying emergency thinking is harmful.
If enough of us don’t awaken to the need to change our behaviour, we may need disruption to compel us to make the change. We may need to experience more climate change; this may be unavoidable because it seems to be how humans operate.
Questions for our civic practice
In times of transition, we need to make extra effort to care for our relationships. Here are three sets of questions I ask myself as I explore the quality of my civic practice:
Do I need to save others so we can save ourselves? If yes, how does the role of hero manifest in me? Where does my need to be the hero come from?
Do I need to blame others for their inaction and the harm they cause? If yes, how does the role of victim manifest in me? Where does my need to be the victim come from?
Do I need to demand others to take action? If yes, how does the role of persecutor manifest in me? Where does my need to be the persecutor come from?
When caught in fight drama, we are stuck in reactive emergency thinking without possibilities for renewal and regeneration—especially when the emergency is not viewed as an emergency by everyone. We erode our capacity for resilience.
The self-organizing nature of community
The self-organizing nature of community is a messy endeavour. It is incredibly uncomfortable because it involves conflicting priorities and values and hurt feelings. By default, we bypass community whenever possible, yet to make our way through the climate transition, pandemic transition, or any other transition, the way through is community.
Being resilient means our tolerance for the disruption that community causes must increase. It means welcoming, hearing and integrating feedback we don’t want to hear. It means being open to challenging each other and being challenged. It means finding ways to create our world together.
“Being resilient means our tolerance for the disruption that community causes must increase.”
And so I ask, how do we make our way through our climate transition, or the pandemic transition, with care and compassion? Who do we need to be? Who do I need to be? Who do you need to be?
Reflection
Think of a time when you’ve had an opinion different from another. How did that person display care for you while disagreeing with you? How did you show care for the other person?
When there’s disagreement, what does care feel like to you?
Choose someone you do not have a disagreement with and have a 5-minute conversation. Ask yourselves: What does care look and feel like when a conflict arises. How did having this conversation feel?
This article is the fifth in a series about the relationship between community and emergency:
Scales of emergency response (Itch #1)—As the scale of emergency grows, the ability of a community to be proactive, responsive and response-ABLE becomes imperative.
Choices to enable our emergency response-ability (Itch #2)—6 ideas and 8 suggestions to be response-able at any scale of emergency.
Rescue is not resilience (Itch #3)— Rescue embodies resilience only when the rescuer takes action the rescued can’t do for themselves (and wants).
Resilience requires transition (Itch #4)—When busy rescuing others or looking for others to rescue us, we miss the opportunity to renew ourselves
Transition thinking enables community (Itch #5)—Community has a vital role to play when emergencies arise: to enable transition from what was to what could be.