We seemed to both recognize the
inevitable at the same time; perhaps we had been simultaneously mulling our
options…and each came to a similar conclusion.
Maybe this explained our first emotionally charged fight just the week
before. I had initiated the encounter
after E gave what seemed a lukewarm assessment of our performance. I thought things went pretty well; I had been
into it. So her comment evoked a
defensive edginess. And then when I
heard her say what we could and could not do in future shows, while sitting
quietly I started smoldering: my
autonomy, my freedom of expression was under attack…I was not holding
back. Well, I wasn’t a verbal volcano,
but I stated my fear.
Okay, I didn’t state my fear, I went
straight to anger, basically confronting her one-sided attempt to determine the
direction of our Radio Podcast. E
countered saying that’s my default position:
repeatedly and incorrectly assuming that she is trying to control the
show. Related issues were hurled that we
both ducked and dodged…In hindsight, the only thing clear was our not being
prepared to address candidly the bottom-line.
Anyway, it really doesn’t pay to argue the points of contention any
further. But what is significant,
beginning that evening at home and for the next couple of days, I was agitated,
not being able to drop our charged encounter:
had I been too aggressive? I was
aware of not pulling very hard on my tone and volume reins. And then my real default issue arose: a historical fear of abandonment, that is,
had I pushed E to the point where she would walk away from our show? Once again, had my wounded intensity
distorted a sense of impulsive or aggressive “necessity”? Had I caused another woman to bail on
me? (It’s been a little over a year
since my ex ended our ten-year partnership.
So in my sensitive mind, was E adding insult to injury? Then again, I too had run away from a number
of potentially intimate relationships in my time…but that’s another story.)
Alas, I began to consider a familiar and
neurotic – “codependent” – coping strategy:
sending an apologetic note, one that, in all honesty, would have been
mostly disingenuous as well as self-defeating.
Grasping for reassurance would only have appeased the rumbling, gnawing
in the stomach of the frightened little boy still trapped inside. Wisely, I understood needing to sit with my
separation angst, to confront my “worst case, being left scenario fears,” which, truth be told, were often
exaggerated. So I sent a perfunctory
text: “Are we talking Mon am to plan the
upcoming show’s agenda?”
The
Calm before the Brainstorm
Not surprisingly, when finally getting
together, we played down the charged encounter; and the next evening even had a
successful podcast. We conversed long
distance on the phone (I was in NYC), instead of our usual war room – on opposite sides of E’s kitchen table. But the die was cast…and a creative cast it was!
Once again, around the planning agenda
table, E cautiously let out a trial balloon which, instead of shooting down, or
insinuating was full of hot air, I
gently grasped. I should note that E is
pretty EI & I (Emotionally Intelligent & Intuitive; she listens well
and asks good questions) though, also like me, sometimes hard-headed. Anyway, she began to note some of our
difficulties: too similar in
perspective, temperament, and background (she’s a Certified Coach, with a
marketing background; I’m a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with the Stress Doc
™ moniker). “We just didn’t
interactively click.” Perhaps a nice way
of saying we too often banged heads if not egos. And, of course, the bottom-line: the
show never generated the numbers.
A couple of questions to ponder: having almost always been the Lone Ranger in
the performance arena, is co-hosting outside my sweet spot? And to what extent was synaptic firing and
jumping impeded by our significant generational divide? Our sparring only sparingly morphed into
successful jazz riffs. (I mostly agreed
with her latter assessment, less so with the former.) But I liked her counter.
Previously, we had shifted the
title-focus of the show from “Partnerships that Drive Performance” to “Human
Connection in a High Tech World.” This
was motivated partly by my upcoming book, Preserving
Human Touch in a High Tech World.
Another factor was E’s experience providing communication coaching with
often empathically-challenged engineers and other technophiles. In our succinct post-mortem, E noted we
seemed to have differing goals: she to
build her coaching practice, me to increase general visibility. In truth, in my mind, the entire podcast
experience had been framed as an exploratory learning of a new social
medium. I also recognized the
opportunity to evolve relationship skills with a “sharp and savvy” (in all senses
of the phrase) female colleague. Again,
not a small undertaking for one who had mostly traveled down a solo
professional pathway.
The
Podcast Pivot
As it turned out, E wasn’t abandoning
ship, just proposing a new conceptual co-captain for the podcast: she suggested that her good friend, D, a
computer scientist and academic by training, should share the pod wheel. Like E, a thirty-something, I had met D, and
appreciated his thoughtful, soft-spoken manner. And in truth, there was the potential for a
sharper dialectic: the Stress Doc as Human Touch representative with D
articulating the High Tech
position. And E could still play a
commentator-consultant-conceptual bridge role.
In addition, E and I agreed that co-leading live workshops might be our
stronger partnership path.
And D hit a home run in his first formal
offering: a suggested program
objective-synopsis:
I'm envisioning a show
in which we highlight current technology-related topics that have some
significant social relevance. These topics would ideally have some
element of controversy that would keep listeners engaged and thinking.
I love the idea of
posing difficult questions to the group and unpacking them on air, each of us
giving our own unique perspective on the issue. (Or better yet, we could
just come up with tough moral/ethical questions that try to catch E off guard.
lol)
I see M as providing us
with expert analysis of the underlying psychological concepts at play as well
as an important perspective on technology and the current generational
gap. E might comment on how the topic represents a success or failure
from a communications standpoint. This might also afford her the
opportunity to vent her frustrations over trying to express the value of
communication coaching to technical people. lol And finally, I could interject
any relevant details from a computer science perspective. (D previously assured me
despite his natural introversion, he definitely speaks up on subjects of which
he is knowledgeable and passionate.)
There is certainly no
shortage of material discussing whether technology is making society advance or
regress. [Being that half
empty/half full kind of guy, I will amend to read, “advance and
regress.”] And “off the top of (his) head,” D listed several articles and video
clips for future programming.
Letting Go to Letting
Grow
So, from the ashes of contention and dissolution, one new and one
reconfigured Phoenix duos are rising.
The iconic artist, Pablo Picasso’s, pithy observation once again finds
illumination: Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction! And now I see the motivational link to
the words of another iconic artist. As Nobel Prize-winning author, Albert
Camus, noted: Once we have accepted the fact of loss, we understand that the loved
one [or loved role-relation] obstructed a whole corner of the possible, pure
now as a sky washed by rain. Destruction
or dissolution with its concomitant period of confusion, anger, and/or mourning
is needed to release our grasp of what has been for exploring and realizing new
possibilities – to reach out for what may
be.
To E’s credit, she did not “rebuff and
run.” To both our credits, we had done
some emotional processing, at least enough to:
a) appreciate what had been achieved, b) recognize that something was
missing, and c) to make room for a generative “letting go.” She turned our former emotionally charged
space into a new conceptual-performance “corner of the possible.” And for me, the podcast experience became
food for reflection. In hindsight, what
had I learned about myself, our “task and touch” relationship, and the process
of dissolving and reconfiguring a partnership?
In Part II, “Transforming a Maxed
Out Working Relationship into New Possibilities and Pathways: Top Ten”:
Until then…Practice Safe Stress!
Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW,
"The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker, writer,
and "Psychohumorist" ™, is a founding partner and Stress Resilience
and Trauma Debriefing Consultant for the Nepali Diaspora Behavioral Health
& Wellness Initiative. A former Stress and Violence Prevention
Consultant for the US Postal Service, he has led numerous Pre-Deployment Stress
Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for the US Army. The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of Anger, and Preserving Human Touch in a High Tech World. Mark’s award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite"
– www.stressdoc.com
– was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio
(NPR). For more info, email: stressdoc@aol.com.
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