Neither past nor future provide legitimate respite from the challenge and beauty of the moment. When we learn to become fully present in every instant, we discover that there are opportunities and choices immediately before us which will determine both our past and our future. Here on the sharp blade of the moment lie opportunities to create and to love. Equally present are the possibilities of abuse and cruelty. In the capsule of experience which is given to us each instant, we determine who we are and what is significant to us. The whole of our lives is presented to us in the moment, and each moment is an intersection with eternity in which we decide our destiny and are offered the grace of becoming. All else is illusion.’
Mike Riddell, Sacred Journey
There is a story that Mozart was asked what he appreciated most about his music? He apparently replied “the pauses”. Without the pauses there would be no music. It is perhaps the pauses that give shape and colour and energy to the music. Many talk of mindfulness as “minding the gap” watching the pauses, noticing the space in between, spaces between utterances where the shape and direction of conversations and hence relationships can take new directions or continue on well worn tracks. Communication theorist Barnett Pearce encourages a mindful focus on “what are we making?” Whilst in the flow of active participation in communication or call it conversation, we are not simply studying awareness of self or other but resting our attention on “what are we making”. Perhaps gently asking ourselves the question, what are we making here? How is this conversation going? Is this a moment to pause together and reflect?
Others may refer to this kindly attending as reflecting both in the action and on the action, noticing how we are together shaping the conversation and noting in a curious kind of way our knowing of ourselves and each other, watching how we dance and endlessly co-author different reversions of ourselves and others and are constantly redefining our relationship one with another. Asking together what kind of conversation is this or pausing to reflect together on the direction, flow and pace of the conversation? So together we are evolving a dance of reflecting in and on the conversation as it unfolds.
One of a number of frameworks Barnett Pearce gives us for reflecting in and on what is being made in conversation is what he refers to as the serpentine model. Let’s imagine the thread of a conversation as if it is following a snake like shape. Along the thread we mark the different utterances and leave spaces along the thread to denote the length of the pauses between the utterances. So for example a mother and daughter told me that the daughter had come home from school and said to her mother, “Mum I need some new clothes” there was a longish pause before the mother replied “I’ll have to ask your Dad” almost instantly the daughter walks out the room slamming the door and shouting “well don’t f..ing well bother then”. In my conversation with this mother and her daughter we were able to reflect on the meaning that was being made at the time. It seemed what was being made was a world of misunderstanding and reactions and all stemming from a complex history of family relationships. Now we were reflecting on this conversation exploring the space in between these three utterances. In doing this we were able to create a space for multiple levels of meaning to co-exist, where one level of meaning is neither more nor less significant but leaning towards being able to hold these different understandings or meanings in a relationship of acceptance.
An early day family therapist Harry Goolishian would often advocate being “slow to understand”. I find this obviously hard to do but enormously helpful. What I take it to offer us in terms of mindful communication is the ability to gently watch how our minds constantly construct meaning and understanding which in essence simply expresses our beliefs and prejudices and assumptions about what is being made (going on). Without mindful reflection we might well take this to be the truth of what is happening and rush towards it. This approach fits so well with Harry’s and Harlene Anderson writings on developing “The Not Knowing Approach”. The attitude that keeps us focused on taking a “not knowing stance” is of course mindful curiosity.
Mindful communication could be seen to be about pacing. Not necessarily meaning being slow but having an intention to mind the gaps however short, to notice the in taking of breath as a space for new movement in the dance of the conversation.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this short offering and found it perhaps offers a pause to mindfully go onto notice what we are going to do next with an eye on “what we are making” extending our field of awareness to include first, second and third person perspectives. What am I experiencing; I wonder what the other/s are experiencing and what are we together creating?
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