Interrupting myself

The Promise that Changes Everything is the title of Nancy Kline's latest book on the Thinking Environment; and that promise is "I won't interrupt you."

Listening without interruption is at the heart of this powerful approach to helping others to think in your presence, about which I have blogged many times.  Nonetheless, as I continue to study and practice the Thinking Environment, I continue to learn, and so, unapologetically, here is my latest thinking (or at least, some of it).

The context was a meeting of five of us, interested in this work, in which we had agreed to listen to each person think, without interruptions, for 45 minutes each.

So it was fascinating that at least three of the five of us interrupted our own thinking, and typically about half way through the time. One person said 'I'm done,' and stopped; but when asked what more he thought, (and thus assured of our continued interest and given permission to keep going) he thought more. And that was repeated a couple more times, until he had thought for 45 minutes.

The second person stopped halfway through, and asked someone else: "What do you think?" but again, when assured that we were still interested in what more he thought, he continued to think for the remainder of the 45 minutes.

And a third person said, after about twenty minutes, "I must be boring you by now"again, when assured that we were still interested in what more she thought, she also continued to think for the remainder of the 45 minutes.

All of which led to interesting discussions and reflections. One thing that we have frequently observed is that thinking comes in waves.  Thus when someone has completed a wave of thinking, he may well think that he is done; however, if given permission, an invitation, and a stimulus in the form of a question, there is often a second (and third and so on) wave of thinking that arises.  And that is often the newer, fresher thinking, too.

But the other thing, most explicit in the third case, but we all thought it was a factor in the other two, is that sense that people can't really be expected to listen to us for this long!  And that was even the case when we had a clear agreement that that was precisely what we were wanting to do.  We also reflected on the fact that whilst each thinker had feared that he or she might be boring the rest of us, each of the listeners had been completely fascinated by each thinker's journey.  And we all enjoyed the fact that each thinker reached some valuable places with their thinking.

So one of the dynamics is clearly that many of us are socialised into thinking we shouldn't go on too long or we will bore people. In many social contests, that is a useful thing to understand; but it was fascinating to experience how difficult that was to over-ride that, even when we had a clear contract around the time, and knew that each of us was going to get the same chance to think - and that in this context, going on was not boring. 

A final reflection was how this demonstrates why thinking with a thinking partner or listener is different from thinking on our own. On our own, we often interrupt ourselves or get distracted: with a thinking partner who is genuinely interested in where we may go next with our thinking, that doesn't happen so much.  And on our own, we may get to the end of a wave of thinking and think "I'm done." With a good thinking partner there, to sustain generative interest and ask a skilful invitational, and completely content-free question (such as 'What more do you think, or feel, or want to say?') we may discover that there are many more waves of thinking to enjoy, and that they take us somewhere completely unexpected, and often very valuable.

--

With thanks to Mimi Thian for sharing this photo on Unsplash

On Retreat

If I believed in coincidence, I would think it a particularly rich one that the weekend after we were considering the promise not to interrupt, I should have been booked into a retreat at Pluscarden Benedictine Abbey, in the north of Scotland.

The link may not be immediately apparent; but this was a silent retreat. I went to spend a long weekend free of all the demands of daily life, in order to have time to think (ah, there’s a link) and to immerse myself in the ancient Benedictine rhythm of time, marked by the Offices sung throughout the day in Gregorian Chant (those who know me well will understand the appeal already).

Between the Offices, time is free. And I had decided not to engage with the outside world, beyond one brief phone call home each day. I wanted to use the time to stop: to reduce the demands on my mind, and free myself to meditate on what is truly important.

And if you have been paying attention, the relevance will have leapt out at you. With no external distractions and ample time, what do you imagine happened when I tried to think about something – anything – that I decided to turn my attention to?  Yes,  you’re right: I interrupted myself.

And interestingly, the longest periods of non-interruption were those when I was following the Office (chanted in Latin, of course, so requiring quite active attention) or praying that ancient and repetitive prayer, the Rosary (again, I found praying it in Latin helped – a little less easy to drift onto auto-pilot).  It is almost as though the ancients had discovered some wisdom we would do well to re-discover.

And by the end of a long weekend, I was getting better at it: longer periods of sustained attention with less effort required.

Perhaps the most valuable learning was what I choose to interrupt myself with... but that, as they say would be Too Much Information in the public sphere.

And it was little things: like turning my phone off… I was slightly shocked to find how often I got it out, walking from the abbey to my room for example, without consciously deciding to do so, just to check…. To check what, precisely? Why, whether there were any interruptions I could indulge in, to excuse me from the harder work of focusing on one thing at a time.  Of course, having the phone switched off reminded me that I didn’t want to do that – and indeed that was something of a relief; but I hadn’t realised how strong the habit (I had almost written ‘addiction’) was.

So a rich weekend (and in many other ways, which I will not share publicly); but the challenge, as ever, is how to return to the world and keep the learning and practices alive.  And if you ring me but get straight through to my answerphone… well, I’m sorry, but it’s a necessary price to pay from time to time.