Читать книгу The Way of Nowhere: Eight Questions to Release Our Creative Potential - Nick Udall - Страница 61

Once we engage with the inner battle for emotional mastery (instead of being its unwitting victim), we can begin to see how the same struggle is being played out in the people around us. Then we can take a third position, a meta-position – a position that does not collude with the emotion – ‘Yes, I think that too’ –or react to it – ‘What do you mean by that?’ – but simply allows us to observe it with compassion.

In one-to-one relationships, we are interested in how this emotional position affects the adventure that we are on. It can open a space between the thinker and the thought and so enable choice. It can transform our unthinking reactions into elegant responses.

In groups, it can also make us simultaneously aware of the content of our conversations and the emotional quality of our engagement. When we are in the process but not of it in this way, we have greater ability to defuse conflict or collusion.²

Of course none of this is a linear process. Our inner and outer worlds are in dynamic relationship with one another. As soon as an inner pattern has surfaced, a new energy is released and the nature of the adventure of life deepens and expands in the outer world, transforming inspiration into innovation.