Turning to One Another
Meg Wheatley’s talk from the 2003 Circles of Recovery Conference

Dr. Margaret Wheatley	An Aspen Grove

This is Part 1 of the talk given by Meg Wheatley. Part 2 can be found in Volume 4, #31 of Wellbriety Magazine

Turning to One Another
How Communities Can Change From Within
Meg Wheatley’s talk from the Circles of Recovery Conference Albuquerque, New Mexico, September 20, 2003
Part 1

I want to start by talking about where this word healing comes from in English.

The word to heal is the same word as wholeness. Wholeness is where the word holy comes from. You can see this theme, that healing is accomplished by wholeness, in many, many places, including biology. I don’t want to give too much credit to the sciences because I think they are leading us in entirely the wrong direction right now, but even in biology, when a living system—whether it’s a neighborhood, an ecosystem, or an individual organism—when that system is unwell, the work is to connect it up to more of itself. The work of healing is to connect it up to its neighbors, to connect it up to relations that it didn’t even know were part of its system. Even in the sciences, we have confirmation that when we are engaged in healing, the essential nature of our work is to create more wholeness, to create more connection.

Little Boxes—The Org chart
Wholeness is not the world that we are living in right now. The world that we work in looks like an org chart. It looks like hierarchy, patriarchy, and division of people into very small, tiny boxes. If you look at the form of an org chart and compare it to a ceremonial circle, you’ll see that in the format of an org chart you can only be an isolated individual. You can’t pay attention to most other people. When we walk into hotel seating like we have here, the message is to be an individual because you are here for your own learning and you are not here to be in relationship. You’re not here to even be aware that there are a couple of hundred people in the room. The org chart is the same issue. With this way of thinking about the world, we divide and separate people into very small tiny boxes. Then we accuse them of not being creative. We then say we need out-of-the-box thinking. This is my big plea for out-of-the-box thinking: Let’s get out of these boxes. These boxes destroy us. They take away our life and they take away our health.

I believe that the greatest journey for those who have been raised in Western culture is the journey back together. It’s really time for us to understand that we need to get past these boxes and reweave the world. We need to reweave the broken relationships that exist. How many of our children feel isolated? They are put in a box. They’re called “rebellious teenagers.” How many of our elders are called “elderly,” and put in a box and put away? I had an African colleague who said you can tell a culture is in trouble when it calls its elders the “elderly.” He went on to say you can also tell a culture is in trouble when its adults cross the street to avoid meeting its youth.

Our job as healers is to lead the journey back to one another and away from the craziness in which we are all living. I want to give you a little bit of a poem that describes what happens to us when we put each other in these little boxes. Whether it is a job description, or a title, or a profession, or a role for us, the set-up of the org chart shows up everywhere. For example, it shows up in the hotel seating that we’re in today. Or how we teach children in separate rooms and have them sit at isolated desks. This thinking is everywhere.

American poet AR Ammons said in a much longer poem, “Don’t establish the boundaries first, the squares, the triangles, the boxes of pre-conceived possibilities / and then pour life into them, trimming off left-over edges and ending potential.”

That is a truly gruesome image. We put each other into these small, little boxes. We can even put each other into the box and say, “Well I’m in recovery. I’m a child of alcoholic parents. I’m a cancer survivor. I’m a victim of abuse.” That’s a box that is actually too small to hold your life. When you or someone else puts you into that box, you’ve trimmed off all the rest of you and ended what potential might be lurking there.

Colorado Aspens: One Being

Teachings From the Aspens
Org chart thinking is a deadly form and stands in contrast, for example, to a grove of Aspens. Aspens are my favorite teachers because they are one being. They teach me about interconnectedness and the pioneering journey that we are all on. When we look at a grove of Aspen, no matter how many trees we are looking at, we are actually only seeing one tree. Aspens propagate, they create more Aspens, not by seeds, cones, or flowers, but they go underground and they put out a root system. Then, one of those roots pops up to the light and we say, “Oh look, there’s a new tree.” They’re known as a clone species in biology. When we are looking at a grove of Aspens we really “can’t see the tree for the forest.” We think an Aspen grove is a forest full of separate, individual trees. But we need only look below ground to see that the grove is one totally interconnected being.

It takes courage and faith to look below ground and make the statement that we are all interconnected. But that’s what every spiritual tradition and every traditional culture says. We are all interconnected. The Aspens are a much truer description of who we are, even as we sit in this isolated form. The Aspens remind me that at a level we can’t see, we are all one. Interconnectedness is now becoming a biological principle, as well as being well known through Native traditions or other traditional peoples from around the world.

In West Africa I learned a song where the lyrics went, “Oh—to be an individual is a very bad thing. Oh to be an individual is a terrible thing. Oh God, please God don’t make me an individual.” Now, that song in un American. We are living in a time when we are continuously being told we can make it on our own. In fact, there is something nastier under there. It’s called Social Darwinism. It’s the belief that if you don’t succeed you are not a good person. It has nothing to do with your relations, nothing to do with the community, nothing to do with the culture, nothing to do with your inner resources. If you don’t succeed in the ordinary way, the sort of mindless doctrine in America is: the strong survive, those who succeed are the best, and those who don’t succeed, well, it’s their problem. This is called Social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. It creates a loveless, mean society. It creates a society in which we all struggle to re weave our relationships. In which we may know that the path of healing is walking towards each other, creating new connections, creating stronger community. Yet, even if we know that, we have to struggle in this country because the force, the philosophy, is so divisive. It says: individuals make it. America doesn’t pay enough attention to community.

Aspens in a “multicultural” community

The notion of making oneself better than your neighbor is the path to destruction in so many of the traditional cultures that I’ve worked with. This value is so opposite what’s going on in our country right now. I say this to you in order to assure you that whatever work you are doing that feels like you are creating a stronger web of relations, whatever deep knowing, you have yourself, which may come from your ancestors, whatever deep knowing you have about the need for people to be in community, to be in relationship, that is your gift to the rest of this nation. Our nation is dying under the myth that people can make it on their own. There is no such thing as a healthy individual. Healthy individuals arise from being part of a healthy community. And so do healthy leaders. One of the interesting things about leadership, which has been my field of study for many years, is that really good leaders only arise out of healthy communities. They don’t come onto the scene, decide to be a visionary, and get a lot of people to follow them. A good leader is born from a good community.

A Roman soldier about 100 BC

Roman General—Heroism
Consider the image of a Roman general, in full armor but with no arms. This is the image that’s out there right now. This is the image that’s in the press daily. It’s in every announcement from the President. The message is, “I will fix it, I will make it better, just believe in me. I’m the strong man. Nobody can hurt me. I’ll go after anyone who does.” It’s very difficult right now to try not being a heroic leader. And the reason it’s difficult is because people are really suffering right now. People’s stress levels are higher, their addiction rates are higher, suicide rates are higher everywhere, and suicide and mental illness are moving down to our children. There are six year-olds who commit suicide right now. What kind of tragedy is unfolding in front of us? In the midst of so much desperation and loss of meaning, people are asking to be rescued and saved. People are asking for this kind of leadership from you. People have lost their power, have lost their energy, are so stressed and strung out that more than likely they are coming to you and saying, “Well, you had better fix me. I’m willing to surrender my freedom to you. I’m willing to be dependent on you but you had better do a good job at saving me.”

In history, the most opportune time for a dictator is when things are not working well and people are afraid. People are then willing to surrender their freedom to a leader. It’s also hard to resist this image of being the hero and the savior if you love the people that you serve. If you are filled with compassion for their suffering and their problems, and you really do see a way to be helpful, you may be more susceptible to this. Right now, I’m alert to just how many of us who are healers, who want to make a difference, are just going down because the problems facing us are never ending.

When a society is in such crisis there will only be unending problems coming to us. This is not just true in Native communities; this is true everywhere in America right now. I ask you to enquire how you are dealing with the increased demand on you, the increased demand for your help, for your heroism, for you to come in and make a difference in an individual’s life or a community’s life. How much of this image of the hero as a Roman general with his arms cut off, the leader who says, “I’ll do it even if you cut off my arms,” how much of this is alive in you? And if it is alive in you, you might think that you don’t have any choice; that you have to respond to these needs, these needs are tragic. But if you feel that, I would ask you to think again because if you stay in that position of wanting to be the savior, you will die soon. You will physically go under.

There is just no way we can take on the collapse of a culture, and I do believe that is what is going on in America right now. It’s the collapse of a culture. We don’t have the right system, the right ways of thinking or the right values to make this a healthy land right now. Our task is to work creating healthier values. Not greed, but generosity. Not the individual, but the community. Healthier values—like serving the poorest among us. Unless we choose those values I only see more collapse. That’s why I’m speaking to you about taking care of yourself. There is no way, with our finger in this dike, that we are going to stop the flood. And yet, we do have an important role to play, and this is as healing presences. But please see if the heroic leader is alive in you. I want to offer you some other images and some other ways of proceeding that I think will give you more capacity rather than just overwhelm you.

Wrestlers of ancient Greece

Greek Wrestlers—Competition
This next image is almost as negative as the Roman general but I want you to see if this lives in you. This is an image of two Greek wrestlers in hand-to-hand combat. For me, this is a symbol of competition. It’s not in your Native traditions to think competitively, but because most of us have grown up in this ruthlessly competitive culture, it’s quite present in a lot of us. We don’t wear it well, but its quite present. It’s the belief that only the strong survive so I had better go for the jugular. It’s the belief that I have to be first, fastest, and smartest, that I’m the only one who is smart enough to solve this problem. It’s the whole competitive mindset under which we train kids in schools. It destroys initiative and creativity, no matter what we are otherwise told, and it pits people against each other.

In the world of non-profits right now, those of us who are serving the poorer communities are working with fewer and fewer resources. We have less and less money to do the work. It’s my personal belief that there are fewer people in Washington who want us to succeed because they just don’t care for the populations of the people whom we love so much. In that environment of very scarce resources we have to check whether we are becoming combatants with each other, or whether we are becoming stronger neighbors and colleagues.

I’ve noticed that whenever I’m in a poor community—economically poor, not spiritually poor, not neighbor-poor—I see that they learned a long time ago that nobody makes it on their own. They take care of each other. That’s where I have learned about generosity and companionship more than from my own middle class life in America. When Mother Theresa was alive and doing her work she said the greatest poverty she ever encountered is in the United States because people are spiritually poor. I read that when I was in my 20’s and it took me a long time to figure it out. What do you mean, I’m poor? I finally understood, when I was in the presence of people who really loved being together and knew they needed each other to survive.

If this image of two wrestlers in competitive combat characterizes your work right now, I would ask you to just notice it. It’s the kind of survival mode that will take us down. In my own work, I’ve been working with this principle: How can I ensure that everyone succeeds? Even if people are competing for the same money I need for a project. I’ve tried to be in the thought: How can I be sure they succeed with that grant even though I need it too? We’re all trying to get out from under this terrible burden of competition.

Caught In a Net
Another image is that of a leader caught in a net. Sometimes I feel like a leader in a net that is tightening around me. Sometimes I feel that any time I solve a problem all I do is create more problems. I’m trying to get out, but I’m just getting tighter and tighter in the net. If this is how you feel, just notice it. It’s very common. We are overwhelmed and under resourced.

Ancient Gaia sculpture from the island of Sicily. Gaia, the Earth Mother, goes back to Neolithic times when humankind saw the world and the processes of nature that sustained them and named them "Mother."

Modern Gaia artwork

I learned about a hospital in down town Havana Cuba. Cuba has pioneered many forms of healing because they don’t have the burden of technology as we do. They’ve had to remember that people are people. This hospital is a huge facility for those with mental illness. The whole facility is run as a community because the belief is that in community we find our healing. I was told that they have each other and they have a healing modality that says, together we will make one another well. They are expressing the biological principle that healing is found through wholeness, through connecting. I was told that there is a group of patients at the hospital that volunteer to introduce the hospital. They do it as a theater presentation for those who come to visit. They’ve exercised their creativity and their love, creating a theater presentation, a drama to show the visitor what goes on and how they function. I would love to go there. I want to be in the presence of people who really understand what I understand, and what many of you understand—that there is only healing to be found when we have each other. {{Continued in Wellbriety! Volume 4, # 31}}

Dr. Margaret Wheatley is the author of Leadership and the New Science as well as Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future. She is a popular leadership and organizational development consultant.