The Cost of Criticism

 Criticism, blame and shame--the Big 3 Negatives--can be deadly to a relationship. Why do we engage in them? The next time you have the impulse to visit either of these on your partner, try to catch yourself and check in with what's really going on under the surface. My bet is you'll discover a need and a set of feelings that you are not fully owning, and certainly not expressing in a direct and clean manner. Why is it so difficult for most of us to just ask for what we need...and why are we so quick to shift responsibility for our well-being to our partner...which really puts us in the position of being a victim, in spite of all our huffing and puffing to the contrary?
We might say that we criticize, shame and blame others precisely to avoid being on the receiving end of same, to avoid feeling wrong or bad. Feeling wrong or bad tends to light up the central brain and brainstem...we feel threatened and with very little participation from our executive centers in the neocortex,
react because those parts of the brain are designed specifically for that kind of quick reaction, to save our lives. But our lives are not actually in danger in the overwhelming majority of situations where we perpetrate the Big 3. So what's up?
Well, think about the consequences to us when we are little children and are made to feel wrong or bad. As children, we actually have little or no power. The power legitimately resides outside us in the hands of our caregivers. To anger them often yields consequences that are very difficult for little people to absorb. To be wrong or bad might mean we get spanked or yelled at and put down, ignored or isolated, or not fed when we're hungry, not changed when we're wet, not moved to a cooler or warmer environment when we're uncomfortable. It might mean privileges or prized toys or tools are taken away. The people to whom we look for safety, nurturance and love suddenly remove all of that. Most of the time, they don't do this because they're bad people...but because they're just not able to rise to the best possible version of themselves for some reason--a terrible economy pressing in on them, a natural catastrophe, war or the surfacing of some demon from their own emotional heritage.
In this situation, our system is likely to be overwhelmed and the feeling of emotional violation, loss, even a kind of temporary emotional death--these are all palpable and real to a child. The younger and smaller we are at the moment, the more dependent, the more dependent, the more likely the experience is authentically traumatic. No child can live with a continuing awareness that his or her caregivers are capable of this kind of reversal from the loving beings we need them to be. It's a genuinely shocking turn of events. In order to adapt to such an environment, those feelings of shock and loss get stuffed into the back pocket of the brain--the unconscious mind. They are held in the limbic system of the brain, the brainstem and in all likelihood, on a cellular level throughout the body. But they are not dead...far from it. Years later, as adults, no matter how old and experienced we are, when we find ourselves in a relationship whose intimacy resonates with those early intimate and dependent relationships, those feelings get stirred up. They hijack our consciousness and our behavior in the moment. This is why a six foot five inch 250 lb man can react as if he has no power when his five foot, 100 lb partner says something that touches the early emotional heritage. Next thing you know, he is using all his adult language and conceptual skills to respond by lambasting her with a ferocious verbal attack...or he is withdrawing and sulking like a three year-old. In either case, he is not his grownup self. He is incapable of seeing that whatever his partner has said is arising either from an innocent and real need for more closeness in the present, or may also be underpinned by her own old hurt. In short, we criticize, blame and shame because we are unconsciously triggered into an early scenario in which the power really did reside outside of us. We lose our grip on the present moment. This is a painful and divisive dynamic. It's cost is enormous--broken hearts, abandoned children, ugly battles over money, property and custody.
How do we get out of this? With the proper tools and coaching and commitment to be self-aware and use them, we gradually learn to speak directly from the feeling that is arising in a non-aggressive manner. "That hurts me." "I feel sad when you talk to me that way." "I'm scared when you do that." "I'm feeling engulfed, overwhelmed, like a little kid." Such openness and honesty is not easily achieved in a culture that worships supermen and superwomen...but it can be achieved. When it is, it brings grieving for both members of a couple, and in that grieving there is healing; and from that grieving is born a newer, deeper empathetic connection...and, sometimes, poetry.
C 2011 Bob Kamm

Beyond Compare

This is a poem I wrote for Annie recently, after Love Over 60 had already gone to press. Bob

Beyond Compare

for Annie

You look at me

differently

than you do

anyone else

on earth.

And I see your eyes

as I see no other’s…

for they are

like no other’s

and no other thing,

yet many others

and many other things

are like them.

Like

but not equal to

or the same as

--the dark wondering

of a

child

studying

her first

falling leaves;

rain puddles

holding the sky

within their small borders;

the fierce stare

of a painter

churning her pallet

into purples and reds;

the high sun

of summer

the low sun

of winter;

the moon

so full

with song

even the deaf

can hear her

--all strive

to be worthy

but end up

on their knees

as do I

before your

fierce

and tender royalty

…but unlike them

I hope to rise

when you

tap my shoulder,

reborn

incomparable

in your incomparable

gaze.

Original Welcome

Welcome to my blog.
So...love. What is it? Is it a liquid? A solid? A gas? Is it a state of being or a transcendence beyond anything science or religion can touch? Plato called it "divine madness". So is it a form of madness? An addiction or compulsion? Or a divinely outrageous creation of two souls gyrating and dancing within and beyond their bodies? My suspicion is "all of the above" and I don't see that as an easy way out of the conundrum. Rather it is an embracing of it.
Love is both knowable and unknowable. Some of it can be described behaviorally and scientifically, but to do so doesn't touch the actual personal and interpersonal experience of falling in love and being in love. So I'm fine with neuropsychiatrists talking about
the limbic system, oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin and hormones--the electrochemical
mighty mischief. I find the micro-architecture and processes of the brain enormously interesting, even poetic. But in the last analysis--if there ever is one--the language required to describe the inner experience of love is poetry, not science. Thus, my book, Love Over 60...love poetry that, I hope, speaks to lovers of all ages, and to scientists, philosophers and therapists. Finding myself at 60 single once again, I didn't think I could find love. I mourned for weeks about this. Then, I guess I got past that critical tear--the tear beyond which enough grieving has occurred to change our inner dynamics. I awoke one morning quite certain that I was indeed going to find love again. I called my son, Ben, and said, "I'm going to wake up a year from now next to the woman I love. I just haven't met her yet." Six weeks later, I met Andrea and, in the parlance of today, it was an OMG to the tenth power. Can science explain all this magic? I doubt it. But poetry can.
We have had an extraordinary three plus years together now and are just really getting started. Andrea is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and I am a leadership consultant with two certifications in Imago Relationship Therapy, the model Andrea uses. We both have been working in the realm of the heart for many years, although I certainly would not call myself an expert...and am not sure there is a person truly worthy of that term.

I have taken an avid interest in the brain, studying the works of Damasio, Le Doux, Schore, Siegel and others. So all through our romantic period, I had a joyful sense of irony knowing what parts of my brain were sucking up all the oxygen! Now that we are really creating a life together, I still find it fascinating, even as I write a poem, to feel, actually feel, what part of my brain is engaged. One of Damasio's books is titled, "The Feeling of What Happens". What a great phrase. The feeling of what happens throughout my body in this love is at least to some degree, what I hope I have mapped in Love Over 60.
So my intention in this blog is to explore the geography and geology of love, the science and the poetry of it, and above all, the personal experience of it from the sunlight to the shadows and back again. I invite you to join me in this joyful exploration.
C 2010 Bob Kamm

Posted by Love Over 60 Bob's Blog at 11/24/2010 7:25 PM | View Comments (37) | Add Comment

The Listening

As I write this, I'm sitting in a condo in Costa Rica, right on the Pacific. It's about 1:30 in the afternoon which means sane Norte Americanos are safely hunkered down in the a/c...unless you're a surfer, of course.

Whether you're in the States, Central America, Europe, wherever, the issues and challenges of keeping an intimate relationship worthy of that word are universally interesting to people. We're pretty friendly travelers. We like meeting new people and when we happen to share with someone that we have The San Luis Relationship Institute and do a lot of work with couples, they get curious and often end up sharing about their own relationships and asking for advice. Some are coy about how they approach the topic. Some will get straight to the point. Last night, a young man in his mid-thirties we happened to be doing a little business with down here didn't waste a moment. He was passionately interested in having a deeper connection with his wife...but the way that interest emerged was in his expressing some frustration over his wife not being as interested in doing many of the things they did together when they were courting, things in the outdoors he particularly liked. He asked what he might do to reignite her interest.

I took him out on the balcony to watch the sunset as I gathered my thoughts, looking for something in my Imago toolbox that might work for him (I'm a certified Imago Educator and Workshop Presenter). He is a very bright, hard working young fellow and was quite earnest in his question. We talk a lot in our practice about fully appreciating our partner as a separate individual with a unique point of view that will not always align with our own. When we're able to cross that open space between us--what we call the relational field--and see the world through their eyes instead of trying to get them to see things our way, we experience a shift of energy, often for the better, and often more empathy centered. So I asked my young acquaintance this question: "Do you think there are things your wife wishes you were still interested in doing with her...that you used to do more of when you were courting?"
He laughed, then dropped his head, then poked me in the chest in a friendly manner. "Wow, that's a really good point. So maybe we're both missing something."
"Chances are pretty good it's a mutual thing," I said. Now, we were in each other's company to do some business. This was not a counseling session and he was not my client. So I thought I'd just give him one suggestion in the form of a set of questions. "Do you really listen to her? Are you really attuned to her? Can you listen to her without judgment and without rushing ahead to a solution?"

He shook his head and readily admitted he wasn't doing his best work in that area...and that he did tend to rush ahead to find solutions instead of just letting her express herself.

"If you want your wife to do more of those things with you that you love, make sure, first of all, that you really show up for her, that you hear her and respond to her. If you do that, you'll likely find she'll be a lot more interested in rekindling some of those activities that used to give you so much pleasure."

As Harville Hendrix, our mentor, says, you could call this "the listening cure". We all want to be heard. Early in our relationships, we listen from a very deep place to everything our lover tells us. This ability resides in almost all of us, long after the romantic phase of our relationship has ended. The thing is to rejuvenate it and embrace it as a sacred practice, moment by moment, day by day. Practice...that says exactly what is called for. Practice listening empathetically with the same commitment you might apply to mastering your profession or your favorite past-time (golf is the obvious example that comes to mind).

This fellow was a young man, but we hear the same pain in folks who've been married for decades and over all have pretty good relationships. No matter your age, may you ask with love for the things you desire. May you listen with love to the things your partner desires...and may you both say, "Yes!" as much as possible.

C 2010 Bob Kamm

Posted by Love Over 60 Bob's Blog at 11/24/2010 7:11 PM | Add Comment

 

Mourning in America, September 2011

In vast stretches

of the nation's heart
               --desert--
    no poetry
                metaphor
                                song
                           or
                                     sacrament.
Water, sky, earth and wind
are commodities now.
Bottle, sell, buy, cut, exploit.

For all the houses of worship,

                holiness goes homeless.
Who rises to face the dawn?
Who pulls off the freeway to
                bid the sun adieu?
Who daily dips hands in water...
                weeps
                      at wonders?

Children

                are weaned quickly
from the language of the leaves,
their eyes turned to tiny screens
              of screaming electrons.
      The true songs
                swirling so near
are lost to their hearing.

 The loudest preachers

                leech
blood and money
                from the frightened.
God and our ancestors are
the ultimate commodities,
used when
                advantageous,
invoked
but not summoned
                for fear of
what their eyes will speak.

In truth,

God has left us to our own devices,
knowing
devices
bring no virtue...
                only  widen the divides               
even as they offer the illusion
of communion.

The industrial dragon's hunger

                can never be satisfied.
It eats its way
                toward famine
and then,
      only then,
                perhaps...

My silver husky, Sofie, knows the songs.

She heard them in her mother's womb,
          handed down by the old dog spirits
                who learned them
                                from wolves, fires,
                                       tall trees,
                thawing meadows
                         and men still as ice.                              
She sings, rumbles, warbles, wails and whispers
                the shamans' secret tongue.

I will rise with her to face the dawn
                and take my mantra from the morning wind.
I will lay with her under the jacaranda
                and howl
                     at the setting sun,
hoping
    that when the new moon rises
                                Americans
                                                will also
                                     rise anew.

 C2011 Bob Kamm

The Three Trusts of Leadership

            In an economic, political and social climate as challenging as the current one, it’s hard to keep our bearings as leaders and all too easy to succumb to a string of “ideas of the month” put forth by well-meaning but short-term thinking colleagues.  Notwithstanding that some of these might be excellent and worth doing, how do we avoid being trapped in such tactics and stay true to our values, keep good people and continue to achieve optimal results?  By remembering one guiding principle that has been in play in the dynamics of great leadership from the beginning of human life on this planet.  What is this principle?  Trust.  Our workforce, from the person with the least responsibility to the one with the most, must trust us.
            There are three essential aspects of trust we must embody in our daily actions.
            First, the commitment and talent of our people will flower for someone whose basic decency they trust, someone who believes in being fair, open, honest, caring of the individual and the greater good of the group.  Let’s call this Trust of Heart. 
            Second, our folks will give their all to someone whose sense of vision of the organization they truly believe in.  By vision, we mean not only specific achievable (not pie-in-the-sky) targets profits, volume, return on investment, market share, productivity, growth and customer loyalty.  On a broader scale, Vision asks, “Who do we want to become as a workplace community?  What kind of people are we?  What should our relationship be to our customers, community and county?”  This particular trust embraces a clear sense of the kind of personalities and talents we’re looking for in every position, from department heads on down, because those personalities will be the raw materials from which we form who we are to each other and the outside world.  Let’s call this Trust of Vision.
            Third, and lastly, diverse talents and personalities need to have faith in their leader’s real-world competency to turn his heart and vision into congruent and timely action.  It isn’t enough to be a wonderful, caring person who has a beautiful vision of how to create a high-performance community that fully honors the humanity of the individuals that comprise it.  Leadership is not a noun; it's an action verb.  It must deliver and do so consistently with steady, balanced hands that fashion short-term solutions serving long-term goals and timeless values.  Let’s call this Trust of Stewardship.
            It’s also not enough to just be a person of action.  Actions must embody the kind of heart and vision that make people eager to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for us.  In other words, each of these three is necessary but not sufficient unto itself.  The three are joined at the center and unfold with equal vigor in great leadership.
            Now, if you spend some time thinking about these Three Trusts of Leadership, you’ll begin to realize that whatever previous model you’ve looked at—whether from Tom Peters, W. Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, Warren Bennis, John Kotter, Robert Greenleaf, James O’Toole, Daniel Goleman, Robert Quinn, Michael Hammer, John Maxewell, Jack Welch, Andrew Grove or any number of other business thinkers—they all fit here. 
            Each of the Three Trusts has its own field of competencies, some of them overlapping, to be sure.  Let’s get right to the essence. 
            For people to trust your Heart, your gifts and skills must be strong in what is now called Emotional Intelligence.

·        Know yourself, be yourself, allow yourself to be known broadly.  People
           will give you more if feel they know you.

·        Speak your truth and speak it consistently.

·        Connect deeply with others. 

·        Let the truth of your point of view do most of your persuading.

            ·        Err on the side of over-communicating. 

·        Listen to your people, see them, inspire, grow and guide them with
           unfailing empathy.

·        Be humble and give away credit for accomplishment.

·        Be willing to openly and sincerely apologize as soon as you realize you’ve
           erred.

·        Be willing to ask for help, recognizing you can’t do it all yourself.

            For people to trust your Vision, your talents and competencies must be strong in…

·        The spirit of inquiry…conducting yourself as an eternal student.

·        Big picture thinking.

·        Synthesizing the best ideas in the air at any given moment without
           concern over getting the credit.

·        Strategy development.

·        Entrepreneurial imagination.

·        Listening and connecting empathetically.

·        Consistently inviting participation and co-authorship.

·        Consistently comunicating with clarity.

 It’s worth saying a bit more about the necessary communication skills to win trust in your vision. You must be confident enough to allow people to see in detail how your mind works, where your ideas come from, how you developed as a human being and how that development serves you in formulating a view of the future and how to get there. 

            For people to trust your Stewardship, you must…

·        Consistently go the final yard to the goal line and get the job done, often
           right at the sides of your front line.

·        Possess a strong intuitive capacity for making tough decisions with
           appropriate input in a timely manner. 

·        Focus your passion for living your Heart and Vision. 

·        Have an advanced talent for hiring great people, coaching them and
           delegating responsibilities equal to their maturity and skills. 

·        Be firm in your insistence on excellence but never mean-spirited.

            ·        Have conviction but at the same time be capable of flexibility and   

           adaptation.

·        Stay the course in the face of temporary set-backs…not lurch from pillar to post based on short-term developments.

            Stewardship skills comprise what Dr. W. Edwards Deming called “constancy of purpose”.  I think this is one of the most beautiful phrases in our language.  It can be applied to every realm of life, personal and professional.  Put simply, great leaders know what they are about and keep at it.  They have a passion for culture, process and results.  They hire people who share that passion and create an environment in which collaboration is as ever-present as oxygen.
           Congruency is a key factor in all of this.  If you say you really care about people but are mean-spirited and down-putting, you will sacrifice all Three Trusts.  If you say you want your people to have rich personal and family lives but establish or tolerate eighty hour work weeks, you will sacrifice all Three Trusts.  Through direct experience, people will come to see you as a hypocrite.  The same would be true if you espouse openness and participation but dominate meetings with your own ideas…or if you talk up innovation but lack the courage to take a chance on a bold new idea…or if you espouse commitment to a comprehensive strategy but then lurch reactively away from it every time things don’t turn out as you hoped.  For our politicians I will add that when you use lofty language about "what the American people want" and yet consistently act as if you're largely interested only in what a few of the American people want (the one's with the campaign contributions), people will see you for the hypocrite you are.
          The Three Trusts challenge you to keep asking these fundamental questions that will ultimately determine your degree of success as a leader.

·        What inspires trust in my Heart?

·        What inspires trust in my Vision?

·        What inspires trust in my Stewardship?

There is no better example of leadership embodying the Three Trusts in American political life over the last sixty  years than when President John F. Kennedy publicly took full responsibility for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.  Kennedy learned his lessons well, a fact that was lost on the Russian premier, Khrushchev.  Not long afterwards, when the Russians were caught trying to secretly set up missile bases in Cuba, they encountered a JFK who was much sharper and clearer, mobilized all the brilliant people at his disposal and brilliantly threaded the needle of excruciatingly difficult  decision.  The Russians backed down and a potential nuclear war was averted.

            Trust-centered Leadership applies to any setting and any endeavor, from how you lead your family to how nations are led.  It reminds us that we must constantly work to be worthy of our followers, for without them, we are alone with our dreams.
            Great leadership is a complex and continuous dance.  But these Three Trusts can serve as the basic steps on which elegant moves can be based to create beauty in the face of dissonant times. 

C 2011 Bob Kamm

The Leader as Healer

                                         “Whatever house I enter, I shall come to heal.” 

                                                               --Hippocrates

             A great leader is many things—a strategist, visionary and builder, a teacher, preacher and coach, a nurturer, communicator, comic and storyteller.  Not least among his/her many talents, but often least attended, is that of healer. 

            The healer’s gifts are critical to building any organization for the simple reason that each of us is wounded in some way…and we bring that woundedness with us wherever we go.  That includes our workplace.  These dynamics show up in the politics of ego, turf battles, favoritism, abuse (subtle and not so), under-developed talents and the withholding of truths that could lift the organization to a higher level of performance.
            So how does the leader heal?  In the most basic sense, by adopting Hippocrates’ mantra quoted above.  He or she conceives of each individual and situation as a house to enter, a house where some healing is necessary and possible.  The first action of the healer is to bring his/her heart and mind fully to bear…in other words, he/she pays complete attention to those before him or her in a spirit of inquiry that asks quite consciously…

§  Who is this person at her core? 

§  What is she here to do in this life?

§  How is he doing, right now, this moment in time? 

§  What does his body language say to me? 

§  What does his voice communicate that the words are not expressing? 

§  What conditions make it more likely she’ll do her best work, day after day?

§  What needs and dreams can I help him with?

§  What can I share of myself that will encourage and illuminate his path?

§  What is beyond my responsibility and control?

             By showing up as a student in the classroom of each individual, we naturally show up as a healer in his/her house... because to heal, first, is to know the current condition and then to apply the kind of balm that will contribute to the knitting of the wound.  What balm? 

§  The balm of listening and really hearing.

§  The balm of caring.

§  The balm of appreciation.

§  The balm of light-hearted humor.

§  The balm of storytelling.

§  The balm of compassionate truth-giving.

§  The balm of welcoming the person into your own world.

§  The balm of patience and benefit-of-the-doubt.

§  The balm of reciprocal trust, which requires prudent risk-taking.

§  The balm of appropriate boundaries…knowing when to step forward, when to step back, when to stand still.

             I am constantly asked, “How can I motivate my people better?”  My first response is a question: “How well do you really know them?”  Most of the time, frankly, the answer is, “Not all that well.”  Some of my clients call me “the lunch king” because I’m always suggesting the leader take people to lunch and have a free-flowing chat that puts them at ease so they are more likely to reveal their true selves.  Important insights and ideas have emerged from such lunches, and deeper bonds that facilitate the flow of work.  Trust is the ultimate lubricant of a healthy workplace…and trust is built on knowing others at depth and allowing them to know us at depth. 

            A common objection is, “If I get too close to my people, I won’t be able to discipline them.”  I invite you to see this as limited thinking.  Gaze over its horizon.  We are less likely to have to discipline people when we really “get” them and they “get” us.  But when it is necessary, and is delivered with compassionate directness and clarity, it is more likely to be efficient and effective because of the deeper bond.  Those who fear being “too close” to their people are closing off the possibility of elevating to the highest plane of leadership.  Often, these folks need to do some preliminary inner work of their own on boundary setting.  Once they have developed sufficient clarity and assertiveness in this realm, appropriate intimacy in workplace relationships flourishes.
            Besides, the question, “How do I motivate my people?” is not the most useful way to look at a workplace community.  A better inquiry might be phrased, “How do I create the optimal conditions for people to do their best work day in and day out?”  The answer is right here in front of us—by getting close, by building authentic relationships with a deep sense of reverence for the magic and uniqueness of each individual, by helping them in their life journey towards wholeness, by being a student in her classroom…and a healer in his house.
            Now, there is one more thing that bears stating…which is that in order for us to effectively attend to others, we must first attend to ourselves.  For leaders, moment to moment consciousness of our own inner states and their history is not optional…it comes with the job.  We need to be able to get out of our own ways.  We need to know when an issue is largely our own personal dynamic, to be handled away from the workplace, and when it is truly a workplace issue.  We need clarity about our own gifts, wounds, drivers and limitations. The more attuned we are to ourselves, the more accurately we’ll be able to read and lead others.  The ultimate expression of such leadership is a web of collaborative workplace relationships that yield consistent high service to the greater good.  So, being on a developmental path and doing the inner work is a critical activity that distinguishes the many good leaders from the few who are great.  Hippocrates once again gave us appropriate guidance, when he said:  “…heal thyself.”
C 2011 Bob Kamm

No Justice Here

A  slug of metal

      blew open the skull

of Osama bin Laden

just above an eye

                                that

                 for all its lofty visions

and the height of the man

                could not see it coming.

His life ended too fast.

Justice has been served

                but Justice can’t be

                                done.

He knew no agony

                to approach

                    the suffering

of our brothers and sisters

                mothers and fathers

whose eyes did see an “it” coming

--a tower of glass,

a concrete pentagon

a grassy field

    where lovers might have walked;

and the “it” of all their relatives

                all their countrymen and women

who over and over

have imagined those last seconds of their lives,

                wept

                raged

                torn at the air

                punched at walls

and found themselves

                imprisoned by visions

    of melted metal,

blood-dyed dust,

                shards of talismans,

     spears of bone.

How can justice be done

for such a sundering of souls?

The blind lady has lost her scales

                and gone begging in the streets.

The gut yearns for

                what it cannot have.

No death could be sufficiently

                appalling

no solitary confinement

                even in the darkest dungeon sufficiently

                excruciating,

no revenge sweet enough

to wash out the bitter spit

                he left in our mouths.

So let’s not talk of justice done.

Let’s say simply,

“He’s dead…

one less psychopathic killer

                on an earth

that still has plenty left to

                lift the bloody mantle

                                as if it were a sacred shroud.

C 2011 Bob Kamm