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Articles + Musings

Beyond 'Best Practice:' Ethical Storytelling & Cultural Transformation

9/23/2020

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In 2017, I partnered with the Hollywood Homeless Youth Partnership on a project around Ethical Storytelling. This collaboration resulted in a white paper that examined the storytelling practices of organizations working specifically with young people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles. We decided to invite members of the nonprofit community in LA to a workshop based on the project.

We expected about 30 people to attend.
Over 100 showed up.

Clearly, we weren’t the only ones grappling with the question of how to effectively share stories in a way that not only met leadership and organizational objectives like fundraising, but also lifted up the voices of our story-carriers.

Over the past three years, the work around ethical storytelling has expanded through partnerships with EthicalStorytelling.com, Conveners.org, communications consultants around the world, and hundreds of participants at storytelling workshops throughout the United States.
You can listen to podcasts about ethical storytelling here. You can access resources shared in workshops here. A quick google search will reveal a growing number of articles and guides around ethical storytelling practices, particularly for social impact and nonprofit organizations.

Ethical storytelling has, in certain circles, become a ‘thing.’

My hope is to help broaden the context within which the conversation around ethical storytelling takes place: it's not just the 'right thing to do,' it's also essential to building a more just, equitable, and viable way of being within our communities.

​Conventional organizational storytelling is rooted in extractive practices and, when we engage in old-school storytelling without awareness, we are complicit with virulent mindsets and ways of being responsible for the genocide of indigenous peoples, the subjugation of black and brown bodies for the economic gain of white bodied people, and climate collapse.

​Ethical storytelling is a set of tools and practices that can help us divest from exploitative ways of being and relationships with the communities and people we purport to serve while fostering more equitable, inclusive, and human relationships.

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Case Study: From Panic to Wonder

9/8/2020

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**Note: Names and identifying details have been changed to preserve anonymity. Stories used with permission.**
The Situation
Ann was referred to me after experiencing a series of panic attacks and a prolonged period of intense anxiety. In our initial call, she expressed fear that this might be her new normal and a sense of helplessness. Her life felt out of balance and chaotic--not the norm for her--and it was impacting her relationships with her children, her work, and her ability to navigate the basic tasks of survival in a major city. She also felt a sense of misalignment, as if something deep within her was bucking against the way her life had evolved around her.
The Conversation
At the end of our initial call, Ann and I decided that a series of four sessions would help establish a foundation for her to move forward with new tools and understandings. We began the series of sessions by exploring the panic and anxiety she had been experiencing. Stripping the words 'panic' and 'anxiety,' along with their associated 'stories,' away, we examined them as physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual experiences. Spending time with the experiences she'd been having without a need to 'treat' or 'fix' them began to help Ann feel a greater sense of understanding, moving from experiencing herself as a 'victim' to experiencing herself as someone with the agency to make choices.

With that foundation in place, we moved into the sessions with the goal of opening up new possibilities and supporting her in developing a new relationship with herself and the larger world.
The Sessions
Each session had a different theme and approach, each building on the next. We began by introducing simple tools and techniques to help Ann both allay feelings of anxiety in the moment and also to build resilience in her nervous system in the long term. She created a 'resilience' plan for herself as well as a tool to help her track how her experiences shifted as she worked with the tools.

From there, we helped her reconnect with the deep calling of her Soul and Spirit through explorations of personal mythology and story. This exploration helped Ann listen deeply to herself and, by listening, connect with a vision of the life that wished to be built from her core.

With that vision as a 'north star,' we moved into a process of identifying the different energies, beliefs, and ways of being that kept her from stepping in to her vision. The goal was not to obliterate these hindrances, but rather to help her develop a new relationship with them. Through energy work, breath, and story, Ann was able to integrate 'blocks' in a new way and release some energies and beliefs that she had absorbed from her family and the broader culture.

Finally, we explored practices and structures that would help Ann stay aligned with her vision and continue connecting with her body, mind, heart, and spirit, deepening her relationship with them all on an ongoing basis.
The Results
After the first session, Ann expressed an immediate sense of relief and a new relationship with the anxiety and panic she had been experiencing. With each subsequent session, she expressed a deep sense of appreciation for the new ways of meaning-making and experiencing the world that were opening to her. 

Several months after our final session, Ann reach out with an update. Friends, family, and colleagues had all remarked on a new sense of lightness, joy, and ease they felt in her. She shared that she was seeing even the most commonplace occurrences, like a bird perching on a nearby tree during the day or a call coming at a perfect moment, with a sense of wonder. She felt as if she was moving through the world alive to possibilities and, although she did still experience some anxiety, she was able to engage with it and allow it to pass with greater ease.
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Healing Case Study: A Pain in the Neck

6/8/2020

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​**Note: names and some details have been changed to preserve anonymity. All stories used with permission.**
The Situation
Amy arrived complaining of an intense pain in her neck. She'd been to acupuncture and a chiropractor already. Both had provided some temporary partial relief, but at this point she was dealing with more or less constant pain throughout the day. It was interfering with her sleep and ability to engage with the world. She'd heard about me through a referral and, although 'Breathwork' and 'Energy Healing' didn't particularly resonate with her, she figured she'd give it  a shot. 
The Conversation
We began the conversation with a short exploration of what was going on in her neck. How long had the pain been present? Could she identify a particular moment when it had shown up? She couldn't. It had just appeared one day a few weeks earlier.

Through conversation, Amy realized that around the time the pain had started, she'd found out that her father had been cheating on her mother for years. Her parents, cornerstones of her world and identity, were in crisis and heading towards divorce. In recounting this, Amy's voice took on a different quality. Quiet and sharper. Her body tensed a bit and I noticed her shoulders clenching towards her ears.

After a few minutes of explanation around what to expect during the rest of the session, Amy hopped up on the treatment table. I put an cover over her eyes and we began.
The Practice
I guided Amy into a gentle 3-part breathing pattern, two inhales and an exhale, and observed that she struggled to inhale fully. Instead of pushing her to try harder, I invited her to be gentle with herself and allow herself to find her own rhythm with the breathing.

​As she moved into the practice, I guided her to bring awareness to her neck. Together, we observed the sensations there, allowing them to simply exist without needed to change or influence them. As we did then, her body began to soften and she began to experience emotions--first laughter, then tears. "Why am I crying?" she asked while laughing. "This is so weird."

Emotions continued to move through for a bit. Then she settled in and moved into a place of deep rest. She shifted into a integration breath--a single, slow inhale and exhale--while I shared Reiki with her to support her body's integration of the experience it had just had.
The Outcome
Following the session, Amy report a significant reduction of pain in her neck as well as a sense of energy and well-being that had not been present before our session. As we concluded, I invited Amy to engage with the breathwork three times a week for ten minutes or so to help keep energy moving through her system. Two weeks later, the pain remained diminished. 
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Tips to increase your 'presence' over video

3/3/2020

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Recently, I facilitated an online workshop for a remote team that often participates in and leads meetings via Zoom. Other members of the team are together in a conference room and they float over the conference table on a 60 inch flatscreen. It's weird. And it's the new normal.

The workshop was ostensibly about public speaking and facilitation skills. We ended up spending a fair bit of time on how to optimize ‘leadership presence’ when working over webcam. Since then, I’ve participated in a few webinars and have been floored by how awful many of us are at working with the vocabulary of camera presence.

In other words: being in a room with people is vastly different than relating over webcam. Body language works differently, facial expressions may be highlighted, etc. and so on. 

Here are some things to keep in mind for your next webinar or zoom conference, particularly if you are the facilitator:



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Case Study: Exploring 'Fear' of Public Speaking

2/5/2020

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**Names and identifying details are altered to preserve confidentiality. All stories used with permission.**
The Situation
Gina called and asked if I could help her with her public speaking. Her job had become more public facing and she found herself speaking in front of groups more often. Each time, she experienced intense anxiety before the engagements. Once she got into the groove, she felt better. But afterwards, she would be relentlessly critical of her performance, even when participants told her that her talk had been inspiring and powerful. She wanted to get a better understanding of why she experienced anxiety and beat herself up while learning new strategies to make speaking more easeful and even fun.
The Conversation
In our initial conversation, we explored her anxiety, breaking it down into her physiological experience and identifying key moments that precipitated that experience. This inquiry revealed that the anxiety grew from a fear of judgement associated, at a deep level, with letting people who depended on her down. When we explored the self-criticism, Gina realized that it sprung from a deep desire to speak from a deep place of alignment with the purpose of her work. She felt that she often soft peddled her passion for the work in an effort to make her speeches more appealing and less bold. This was a significant revelation and challenged her assumption that the self-criticism was related to being a 'bad speaker' or being in some way technically deficient. 
The Sessions
 We began a series of three sessions by helping Gina develop simple practices and a pre-speaking ritual to help her establish a sense of grounding and presence even while experiencing excitement (which feels exactly like anxiety). From there, we entered into an interactive visualization to help her experience and shift the energy she experienced during a recent speaking engagement.

In our second session, we again worked with visualization to help Gina connect with a master of public speaking who served as her teacher and offered her a gift to serve as a totem to bring with her when speaking. And in our final session, we created a ritual to help Gina ground into her deep purpose and distinguish between what it felt like for her to embody that purpose in her speaking vs. what it felt like to shy away from it.
The Outcome
Over the course of our sessions, Gina had several speaking engagements and with each one reported greater feelings of ease, confidence and comfort. Colleagues remarked on the different energy she brought to her speeches and she had learned to gauge success by how aligned with and grounded in her purpose she felt. At the end of our time together, Gina expressed that she now had a completely different understanding of public speaking and her role as a speaker.
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Coaching Case Study: Transforming Leadership Presence

1/7/2020

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**Note: Names and identifying details have been changed to preserve anonymity. All stories shared with permission.**
The Situation
Gemma had recently assumed leadership of a mid-sized nonprofit. It was her first executive position after a few years of working in operations and management and, although she felt confident in her skills as a leader of her team, she felt a lack of confidence in meetings with potential funders. During a recent meeting, she reported feeling 'small' and 'not like herself,' wanting the approval of the funders. As a younger woman of color, she also mentioned that most of the funders she interacted with were older white men. She wanted coaching that would help her experience greater confidence and alignment in these conversations.
The Conversation
During our conversation, I asked Gemma how she would know if our session had been successful. She identified three factors: feeling more grounded before, during, and after funder conversations; a feeling of inner alignment during funder interactions; and a sense of joy in working with funders (something she experienced in her other leadership interactions).

With this in mind, we explored the power dynamics at play in conversations with funders versus those at play during other conversations. Through this exploration, we unpacked some unacknowledged dynamics around race, gender, and age. And when we followed those threads, we began to unravel internalized stories that had been present since childhood. The conversation expanded the scope of our work from a single situation to expose deeper roots. Gemma agreed that, in order to shift the dynamic at play with funders, we would need to hold that larger container.
The Practice
With Gemma's permission, we moved into an interactive guided meditation. She reconnected with a moment during a recent meeting where she experienced feelings of being 'less than' and a lack of confidence. Then we brought in guidance from a powerful leader who appeared to her in the meditation. By watching this leader and guide navigate the conversation differently, Gemma was able to re-write the narrative of this moment and anchor a new way of being into her body. The key shift was witnessing how the dynamic changed when she entered the room with the knowledge that she had something to offer that the funders needed and not vice-versa.

​During this process, Gemma reported feeling by turns exhilarated, a warmth moving through her body, nausea, and tears. Throughout, I helped her remain present and hold all of these sensations with compassion.

As we moved towards the end of the meditation, Gemma received a gift from her guide that would help her reconnect to this confidence and way of being as she moved into future conversations.

Following the meditation, we processed the experience and, based on what she had learned, Gemma developed a set of actions, a ritual, that she would engage with to help anchor a new approach to and mindset around funder meetings.
The Result
Immediately following the session, Gemma reported feeling a new sense of empowerment and knowledge surrounding her relationship with funders in her new position as executive leader. Two weeks later, she contacted me to say that she had had three meetings with funders and had felt a significant shift in her experience. Instead of feeling intimidated and as if she had something to prove, she felt grounded, confident, and secure in her knowledge that she brought value into the room.
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7 Tips to Help Your End of Year Appeal Get Seen

11/19/2019

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With the end of year fundraising rush just around the corner, chances are that, if you’re a 501(c)3 organization, you’re in the midst of feverishly drafting your year end appeal.

Generally I focus on the story and content for appeals, but the fact is that it doesn’t matter how great your story is if you don’t follow a few best practices when it comes to format, layout, and structure of your print appeal.

Here are a few that sometimes get missed (based purely on the letters I’ve been getting over the past week or so). This is far from comprehensive, so feel free to reach out with a few of your own:

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The Transformational Power of Listening

8/2/2019

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Any time I lead an organizational or leadership storytelling workshop, I split folks into pairs and ask them to share a story with each other. Person ‘A’ goes first and Person ‘B’ is asked to simply listen without interjection. After the exercise, I ask everyone what they noticed about sharing and listening to the stories.

Based on what I’ve heard after facilitating this exercise hundreds of times, one of the most challenging parts is not telling the story, but listening without speaking. This makes a fair bit of sense: most of us have been culturally training to treat conversation like a tennis match. We listen primarily for an opening, a chance to return the volley, to share our own point of view.

What happens when we’re challenged to simply listen, to take in another person’s story without any agenda of our own other than being present?
Based on what I’ve heard and seen, what happens is empathy, compassion, and a bond that forms quickly and with unexpected depth. 

According to Otto Scharmer, the author of Theory U, listening happens at four different levels:

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More Lessons from the Heart of a Horse

5/28/2019

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Last month, I had another opportunity to join The Nomadic School of Wonder to visit the amazing herd of mustangs at Windhorse Relations in southern Utah. My first visit yielded some powerful lessons on leadership and being human. This time I figured I knew what to expect and would be able to relax instead of feverishly taking notes in an attempt to capture the fleeting wisdom of the horses and their human helpers, Marcia and Mary Lee.

I figured wrong.

At one point, someone (it wasn’t me!) left a gate open and the herd, 30 horses strong, decided to have an adventure. They galloped out of the compound leaving a trail of red dust in their wake.

We were concerned. So were a couple of the volunteers.

Marcia and Mary Lee weren’t. Leave the gate open, they said with wry smiles, they’ll come back.

Sure enough, within 20 minutes, the horses had tired of their adventure and, with the gentle urging of a few volunteers who waved their arms vigorously at the horses, decided to come back through the gate. They looked, to my human eyes, very proud of themselves.

The escapade had not come without a cost: Barrel, a beautiful chestnut horse, had caught himself on some barbed wire and managed to gallop through a few cholla. He had shallow scratches on his neck and dozens of cactus quills in his skin.

Several of the volunteers leapt into action, immediately going to help the horse.

Mary Lee’s voice cracked out: ‘Wait.’

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Story Maps: No Iceberg Floats Alone

3/5/2019

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*This article is an excerpt from the recently published book 'Story Maps: Wayfinding Tools for the Modern Seeker.' Enjoy!

I first came across the ‘iceberg’ as a metaphor during a session with my therapist over ten years ago. I had been grappling with the idea that the way I experienced myself was not at all how the world experienced me.
 
She nodded and drew a simple image on her pad:

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​Icebergs, she told me, are much larger than they appear. Only 10 to 20 percent of an iceberg is visible above the water. The rest lurks below, under the surface. The same is true of people. We only see what’s on the surface, people’s behavior and their actions in the world. There’s so much more beneath the surface, a whole world of emotions, thoughts, and feelings. What you’re describing, she told me, is a disconnect between the top and bottom of the iceberg.

The metaphor blew my mind and stuck with me.
 
A few months ago, I found myself meditating on the power of ritual and prayer. The iceberg came floating into my mind, but instead of focusing on the iceberg itself, my attention focused on the water around it. An expanded version of the metaphor emerged that resonated so strongly that I popped out of my meditation and scrawled it on a scrap of paper. Here’s what I drew:

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