As healers (broadly defined), we want to be mindful of the opening lines of Hippocratic Oath taken by physicians which begins:
“Above all do no harm.”

Engaging in any kind of change work: helping, healing, giving feedback, etc. is an intrusion of our energy into someone else’s energy field.

A wise and revered Sufi teacher and healer named Reshad Field suggests that we always ask ourselves three questions before engaging in any kind of healing work with others:

#1. May I?

Do I have permission?

Is the other(s) willing to receive what I have to offer?

#2. Can I?

Do I have the knowledge, experience and/or competence to provide the service well?

#3. Should I?

Is it wise for me to intervene? Is it timely? Will it really serve the needs of the situation—from both short and long term perspectives?

We might have permission… but lack competence.
Or conversely, have plenty of competence… but no permission.
We might have permission, and we might have the capacity, but our
inner knowing may be telling us that it’s still not right. This is the
case surprisingly often. Timing is key in this work.

I have found reflecting on these three questions offers me valuable guidance into my actions as a change agent.

Practice Variation for Today>>
Explore these 3 questions throughout the day, as you are presented with opportunities to help or engage with others:
May I?
Can I?
Should I?

and continue on with our contracting practice>>>

For each significant context and relationship (work & personal) with which you engage today, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is the nature of our contract, stated or implied?
2. How clear are our expectations of each other?
3. Have there been insecurities, frustrations, mis-steps, inefficiencies,
or breakdowns, due to differing expectations?
4. How comfortable am I with the current nature of our agreement
field?
5. Are there areas I might like to clear up or renegotiate?
6. How might dynamics related to differences in power be impacting
our agreement field?

Adapted from the practices of Robert Gass.

Photo: Wieboldttv/AFP/Getty Images

One of three prisoners who tried to escape hangs, caught in razor wire, on the wall of a prison. He was given medical aid in the German town of Bochum. Two of the three inmates were severely injured and the third one only slightly.

“Only free men (and women) can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts.”
Nelson Mandela

Our work as change agents always takes place within a context of power relationships. These differences in power have profound implications for the nature of our work… and for the process of contracting.

Here are some of the major external factors that impact our power relationships:

1. Positional Power:
Where one party has actual power of institutional position
(e.g. the power to demote or fire, or deny funding or other resources)
* Even if those with more power have no intention of using this power, it
remains a potent influence in the relationship.
* We also bring a lifetime of experiences with people with more power, and we
carry these into relationships in the present.
* When people look at someone with more positional power, they project a
lifetime of dealing with authority figures: parents, teachers, other bosses.
* Those of us who have positional power are often awkward in these roles, often
creating even more unclarity and confusion.

2. Power related to Social Identity
Where there are relationships between members of social groups that have historically been oppressed and members of relatively privileged groups.
* All of us have been impacted by having grown-up and living in a white-
dominated, heterosexual and patriarchal society.
* When we meet across these lines of privileged and less-advantaged social
identities, it’s not just about you and I as individuals, but that collective history
lives with us in the room and affects the dynamics of helping relationship
* Social identity dynamics may also interact with positional power dynamics:
e.g. an older white male supervising a young woman of color

3. Power related to institutional dynamics
examples:
* you have been hired by the Board or ED to work with the organization.
You are ultimately accountable to that person with positional power.
In the eyes of staff, you may been viewed as an agent of those with power.
* you are facilitating a coalition meeting. You are the representative of the most
powerful organization in the coalition, the one whose support can make or
break any decision. Your attempts to help may be experienced through that
lens by less powerful members.

Those with more positional power tend to be less aware of these dynamics at play.
Those with less power rarely forget.
It is therefore incumbent upon those with more power to stay conscious and alert
in navigating these dynamics.

An assignment>>>
Re-look and reflect on your inquiries into your contracts and contracting over the previous days of our practice.
How might issues of power be impacting each of these contracts and agreement fields?
Are you engaged in contracts with those with more positional power where this
power differential is having a negative impact on the agreement field?
Are you engaged in contracts with those with less power, where the power
differential may be having an undesirable impact on the agreement field?

Practice variation for today>>>
Add the above lens of power to your continued field research into the state of your contracting.

The practice>>>
For each significant work context and work relationship with which you engage today, ask yourself the following 5 questions:

1. What is the nature of our contract, stated or implied?
2. How clear are our expectations of each other?
3. Have there been insecurities, frustrations, mis-steps, inefficiencies, or
breakdowns, due to differing expectations?
4. How comfortable am I with the current nature of our agreement field?
5. Are there areas I might like to clear up or renegotiate?

But now add the following inquiry:
6. How might dynamics related to differences in power be impacting our
agreement field?

In order to really engage with this intriguing (and possibly unsettling) practice:
* write these questions down where you can easily see them over the course of
the day
* use whatever kinds of reminders (sticky notes, etc.) seem to help you stay
focused on practice
* jot some notes over the course of the day—there’s a lot to be tracking and
integrating here

Adapted from the practices of Robert Gass.

I’m back in the land of the speaking and posting… writing from sunny Oakland…

By way of connecting again… to honour the transition… I offer you this poem…

This Wine is Within You

This tavern is about to close it’s doors.
So my friends, we must go.
But do not rejoice
or regret your leaving
for this Wine is within you
the warm nectar of a thousand Buddhas.

We will meet together again at this tavern
I am sure
but do not forget
that at the innermost table
this wine of yours is always flowing
and it is where all true lovers dwell.

Within the stillness of Stillness
you will be met there
and consumed by the Winemaker
by the object of your secret devotion.
The you will sing
the most drunken song of all:
I am He, you will sing
I am She, you will sing –
the song of your long awaited
return to your senses.

Blessings dear loves.