The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Welcome to Syncreate, where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. Our goal is to demystify the creative process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative.
Creativity. It’s a word we throw around all the time, but what does it really mean? On the Syncreate Podcast, we share stories of the creative journey. We talk to changemakers, visionaries and everyday creatives working in a wide array of fields and disciplines. Our goal is to explore creativity in all its facets, and to gain a better understanding of the creative process – from imagination to innovation and everything in between.
The Syncreate Podcast is hosted by Melinda Rothouse, PhD. She helps individuals and organizations bring their creative dreams and visions to life through coaching, consulting, workshops, retreats, and now, this podcast. She's written two books on creativity, including Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities (winner of a Silver Nautilus Award for Creativity and Innovation), with Charlotte Gullick. She's also a musician (singer-songwriter and bass player) and photographer based in Austin, Texas.
The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Episode 44: Conscious Facilitation & The Power of Presence with Jimmy Johnny Juste
Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate, a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. We believe everyone has the capacity to be creative, and our goal is to demystify the process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. I'm Melinda Rothouse, and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life and create.
At Syncreate, we're here to support your creativity. So if you have an idea or a project and you're not quite sure how to get it off the ground, please reach out to us. We've got resources, coaching, and creative process tools to help bring your work to the world.
So I am very delighted today to have our guest, Jimmy Johnny Juste, coming in from Boston today, and I want to just go ahead and read your bio because I found it so compelling.
So, Jimmy, an unwavering seeker of uncharted territories, ignites insightful discussions with straightforward queries. Embracing a nine-year journey in Montessori spaces, he excels at disrupting and reshaping cultural norms as a seasoned consultant and facilitator. Jimmy's influence extends to over 30 organizations across Massachusetts and the wider U.S. At the core of his practice lies the liberation of self, employing diverse methods from somatic work to hypnosis and facilitative mediation.
Facilitation, a transformative modality for meaning-making, empowers participants to express themselves authentically and boldly. Being a living commitment to imagination involves silencing the world enough to heed the soft, authoritative voice, reminding individuals of their essence and purpose. So there's so much there. I just love it. Actually, there's like, so much to unpack there, right? So just to say, like number one, welcome. So happy to have you here today.
Jimmy: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm glad to be here.
Melinda: Yeah. And just, you know, less formally. So we met a few months back in March at the Florida Creativity Conference, and I attended your session on conscious facilitation, which I really loved. And, you know, you just bring this really powerful yet calm presence to your facilitation work, and you gave us all a taste of it at the conference.
And so I hope we can, you know, kind of extend that to our listeners and viewers today. And the topic of your presentation was conscious facilitation. So I think that's a great place just to jump in. So for people who may not know, what is conscious facilitation?
Jimmy: I think if you asked any facilitator, they would say that my definition of conscious facilitation is the same definition as facilitation.
Melinda: Okay.
Jimmy: I think I call it conscious facilitation because I think it communicates to people who are not familiar with facilitation that there is some consciousness and awareness to playing the role of facilitator.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: So, I think, for me and for many other people who practice this, so I, in no way do I think what I'm doing is special. I'm just doing it in a way that makes it really transparent for the participants. I think it means that you're holding space and you're using yourself as an instrument to read what's happening in the room.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: So I think you are just more aware of how things affect you, even things that we would normally like, take for granted, and use them to sort of paint an imagery of what other people in that very same room are experiencing.
Melinda: Yeah. So there's a lot of sensing into the environment, sensing into what's going on with people. And like, for example, what are some of the contexts in which you use this type of facilitation?
Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. So, normally when I'm hired to work with a group, it's, I would say maybe 60% of the time, it's, to work with groups post some sort of conflict that they've been experiencing.
Melinda: Right.
Jimmy: So usually what happens is, is this conflict has been sort of, like, normalized over time. and now it's coming to a head, and they're beginning to realize that they need help to figure out what to do next about this conflict. So, they're usually like, some shit has hit the fan, and they're hiring me to come in and sort of like, one, clean up the shit, two, let's talk about what just happened because there was shit everywhere.
Melinda: Yes. And what happened there? Where do we go from here?
Jimmy: Yeah. Where are we going to go from here next? Like, how do we see each other differently? So, I'm often, in this space facilitating with people who are having a conversation about a thing that they've been actively avoiding.
Melinda: Yes.
Jimmy: For a long period of time. And some, maybe some people have left. Maybe the people who created the situation aren't there anymore. Like it gets, it can be really complex. And people are having different experiences of this very same conflict. For some people, this is crisis level. And for other people, this is like, this is regular shit, ‘I don't know why this is a big deal to you.’
And trying to find, I have to, in that conversation where people don't really want to talk anyway, I have to use a lot more tools to be able to figure out what's the reality of this and what's at stake if this situation continues to persist. So there's lots of things that I have to leverage. In order for me to do it well, I gotta learn how to listen in other ways besides the words that are coming out of people's mouths.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I think something that you said at the beginning, you know, about this, you know, I sort of liken it, I think there's a component of emotional intelligence. And, you know, just being able to kind of see below the surface of what's going on in these kind of complicated dynamics.
There's also, I know that you use a lot of grounding practices in your work, and you actually lead a grounding circle a couple times a month. So tell us a little bit more about some of those techniques. And how that, how that kind of comes into play, whether you're working with groups of people or individuals.
Jimmy: Yeah. So grounding practices, there was a time in my life, in my professional life and in my personal life, if, you know, if sometimes the boundaries between personal and professional sometimes they’re permeable.
Melinda: Yes.
Jimmy: So, the grounding practices were something that I had always engaged in, even as a child, through the sort of spiritual practices that, you know, were passed down to me through the lineage of my family. Like my father and my mother. Things like prayer, things like lighting a candle, like, things like that, that people wouldn't think of as a grounding practice.
As I explored my spirituality, I realized that what I was doing with all those things was, they were all grounding practices. And so, I realized as I became more interested in the pursuit of learning facilitation, I realized, especially in these high-frustration situations where we're having conversations, we have to figure out a way to deal with the excess energy that comes up.
Melinda: Yes.
Jimmy: When we're either like, talking about something that has built up a lot of energy over time or something has triggered like an emotional response. So there is heightened energy in the space or conflict that's happened in the midst of talking about something else. So now there's more energy in the space because things are vibrating, in ways that we can't necessarily control.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: So there is some energetic disorder happening in the room. And so the grounding practices, things like stopping and breathing or doing a short meditation, or even just like, when they say take a deep breath, when, you know, if things are really starting to go south and you say, just take a deep breath. All those things are grounding practices. Some of them are symbolic and some of them are not.
Some of them are physiological and some of them are, mind-spirit type of work. So in facilitation I tend to do a lot of grounding practices that are small and don't really trigger the like symbolic. networks in our brain that make us think this is a little bit woo-woo and I'm checked out now.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: So sometimes those things just look like, an icebreaker before we get started.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: So, like, maybe just sort out what's happening in the brain and get you ready for that thing that we're about to do next, to get you to practice the thing that we're going to do when the stakes are higher.
So grounding can happen in two ways. Sometimes it's the sorting through what's happening in the mind or what's happening in the body. And just putting things in a proper place so you can make room to do the thing that you want to do. And sometimes it's getting rid of whatever excess in taking up space because you haven't figured out where to put it.
And so grounding practice is really about, essentially, in a nutshell, figuring out what to do with excess energy when there's too much of it and you can't control it, and it's making more chaos and disorder that isn't particularly helpful. It's figuring out what to do with the extra.
Melinda: Yeah, and I love that way of looking at it. Right? It's just, okay. It's not, there's like, no judgement on it. It's just an excess of energy. And how do we work with that when things get really heightened or there's conflict or people are nervous or.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Melinda: Whatever it might be.
Jimmy: Uh-huh. I think one of the things that I find people do who aren't really familiar with, like, what the purpose of grounding is; when you think about grounding, grounding is just about clearing space or making space for dealing with excess.
Melinda: Yes.
Jimmy: Energy. But sometimes, people who really don't have a really deep understanding of what grounding is, they might use it to like, sterilize the situation. Like, so they'll be like, ‘let's just take a deep breath so we can, like, make this clean again and not deal with what's happening.’
Melinda: Right.
Jimmy: But that's not what grounding is. Grounding is not that. Grounding is clearing space. Everything is what it is. There is no judgment. We're just clearing space so we can choose what we want to do in this, like, heightened situation.
Melinda: And coming back to the conscious part, like, you know, it reminds me of that Viktor Frankl quote, you know, between stimulus and response, there's a space, right?
Jimmy: Right.
Melinda: And in that space, that's where we can make a choice instead of just reacting.
Jimmy: Right, right.
Melinda: So I, I love this and, you know, definitely want to hear more about like how you work with groups on this. But given the fact that the show's about creativity and we met at a creativity conference, I'm curious how you see the creativity in your work or how it relates to creativity.
Jimmy: Yeah. It relates to creativity because, like I said, I'm usually working with groups that are like, in a heightened state, and they need to, and they don't want to be in the problem state anymore. They want to be in a future state.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: And sometimes they're asking me to tell them what the answer is to get to the future state. And sometimes they ask me to do that. And I usually tell them, no, that's like, that's not what I'm here for.
Melinda: Right? [Laughter]
Jimmy: I would make a ton more money if I just…
Melinda: Could solve all the problems?
Jimmy: If I just, like, I'm just going to tell you what to do. Like.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: I’ve said this before. But it never works. Like, if I just tell you what to do, it's, it never actually solves the problem because it doesn't have as much energy as there would be if it was buy-in. And through all creative processes that have been formalized, you are building buy-in throughout the entire process because people are diverging and then converging, diverging and converging.
And in some way that is, the sort of, the coalition building and then the consensus building, coalition building and then the consensus.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: And there's so much at stake because these people are all really motivated not to be in the problem state anymore because it sucks for them. So they need to do two things. They need to figure out what the problem state is and why it exists.
Melinda: Right. And sometimes that can be challenging unto itself. Just defining the problem, like, what is the issue here actually like at the heart of it?
Jimmy: Right, right, right. And that sometimes is the most, can be, depending upon where a group is, that can sometimes be the most contentious. It's like naming that, because that's when resistance comes up.
Like I don't want to name the problem that because it implicates me in this way.
Melinda: Right.
Jimmy: So the naming the problem can become where the grounding practices are really helpful because it helps us stay, it's a mechanism that I can use and participants can use to help them stay on their purpose.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: And to clear out the distractions.
Melinda: Yeah. And then once you've defined the problem, then?
Jimmy: We have to converge on what it would look like. And then we have to converge on how we would get there. Because they're building the solution to, if I'm playing the role of facilitator with a group, the solution doesn't come from me. I'm walking you through a process where you get to your solution.
Melinda: Yes. And that's so important that they, whatever's going on, whatever the group is, that they feel ownership. Right. And that they're, they're willing to engage and take responsibility for the solution.
Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, so it's very deeply tied to what we know works in creative processes. it just doesn't look like, it just doesn't always look like post-its on a wall.
Melinda: Right.
Jimmy: Which is like, what you see a lot of…
Melinda: Like "here’s the formula for how you solve the creative problem."
Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And all those are great. They're really helpful for mapping out, if you want to look at, if we want to look at, you know, some version of qualitative and quantitative data, those things are really helpful.
Melinda: Sure.
Jimmy: But there's also an instrument that is experiencing all those things that are on those stickies.
Melinda: Yes.
Jimmy: There are people and experiences that are happening that need to be processed.
Melinda: And emotions, and maybe people are getting triggered by stuff that happened in the past that's, like, something in the present is resonating. So there's, like, so much complexity with, like, what each person is bringing to the table in a moment of conflict.
Jimmy: Yeah. And all those things need to be, they need to be catalyzed. They need to be used so that it doesn't creep up again as something different.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy: It's got to be, it's got to have the, and that's what facilitation does. It creates the space for you to take that experience and make meaning of it, and then use the meaning that you've got from that experience, as opposed to that experience haunting you in all your decision making.
Melinda: Right. And that's what I think is so powerful. Like if we want to bring in more of the like, psychology, spirituality side of things, you know, creativity is a way that we can make meaning, just as you're saying, of our experiences. Right? And if we can make meaning of our experiences, then we can learn and grow from them. Right? And again, make a different choice the next time.
Jimmy: Yeah. Otherwise we end up with more clutter. We just end up with a bunch of ideas. Which is why, you know, in creative processes there's the divergence and the convergence. Like, you get all the clutter of all the ideas. And then you have to figure out how to make meaning of them. Where do you find the most meaning? What's the most high-leverage direction we can move towards?
Melinda: Yes. And then how do we take meaningful action on that?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, so, so one of the things we talked about when we were kind of thinking about this conversation was, you know, how important it is to, to, you know, help people stay present when things get really difficult and like having those difficult conversations. So, yeah, say more about that, because I just thought that was a really powerful element of this work.
Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. It's a really powerful element. And this, you know. It's probably the most challenging. And requires the most consciousness. It's, I mean, it's, this is where, I think, getting people to stay in the room when things get challenging becomes a challenge for the facilitator, for the practitioner who's in charge of holding the space, in charge of, shepherding the purpose of why we're all in a room together. Because money's involved a lot of the time. [Laughter].
Melinda: Yeah. [Laughter].
Jimmy: You, as a facilitator, have to check your biases.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: And the only way you can absolutely check your biases is if you are paying attention as much to everyone else as you are to yourself.
Melinda: Yes.
Jimmy: So you're sort of like splitting your awareness when you're holding the role of facilitator. That’s fucking hard.
Melinda: Yeah. Because you're probably, you know, physiologically responding to like, this person's angry. This person's not saying anything. This person's really agitated. Like you're holding all of that.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Melinda: And you're also trying to facilitate a dialogue, right?
Jimmy: Yeah. And the world teaches us to do one of two things: Either cut everyone else off and only pay attention to yourself. Play your role. Stay in your lane. Or cut yourself off from yourself and pay attention to everyone else.
Melinda: Right. Right. And just focus everything outward. Yeah.
Jimmy: So there has to, be in order to for you to, like, responsibly play the role of facilitator, you have to be figuring out ways to watch both. And some, for some people that means, like, bifurcating your attention. Like this is where I'm going to pay attention to me and this is where I'm going to pay attention to them.
Sometimes it's about building the muscles that you need, sort of like a, I always think of like jujitsu where there's grappling and holding and there's like a, there's like a negotiating between muscles to hold the position. Like there's that, there's also that, like paying attention to all the muscles that are required to hold a dual awareness of what's happening with you, what's happening with them, and what does it mean for them? Everything that you're experiencing from them.
And what does it mean for me? Everything that I'm experiencing with me, while also keeping an eye on how they're interplaying with each other.
Melinda: Yes. Right. Because you're, even as a facilitator, you're part of the context. You're part of the equation at that point, right? You're not just an outside objective. You know, you're in it.
Yeah. And I think there's, there's wisdom that, you know, anyone could take from that, you know, because we're all facilitating in different ways in different contexts all the time. Or at least we have the potential, whether that's in our families, our personal relationships. Right? Work situations. And so yeah, I think it definitely comes back to that, you know, self-awareness: What am I feeling? What's happening inside my mind and my body? What's going on with you know, the other people and the situation? And how do we communicate in a way that's productive?
Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. And all of that is sort of giving you information or what you think people need so that they'll stay as it gets harder.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. So so I think this is all such great stuff. And we're talking about it like a little bit abstractly. So I'm curious like is there a particular example that you might be able to relate, like whether it comes from your kind of Montessori background, or facilitation, where, you know, we could kind of see this process at work.
Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. Okay. That's a great question. I love that because it's gonna force me to really, like, think about this. So, I would say, there is some, there are lots of technical practices that I use in connection with each other. NLP, for example, neurolinguistic processing has been a really interesting tool for me, because how I communicate to the group is largely going to be influenced by the words that I use.
Melinda: Yes.
Jimmy: And the words that I use are going to point them in a direction that I think would be helpful for the group. And also in watching them and like, what's the syntax that they're using and what kind of sense is it giving me of, what's happening with this group and what they need and what they want?
And what words can I offer to that pool of language that will also have an effect on how they're feeling about what's happening in the room and what's possible? So neurolinguistic programing is one example of how, I can use or listen to their words, to let that tell me or give me impressions about what they're experiencing.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: And then I could use that in turn to affect them in the ways that I think would be helpful. And a hard example of what that looks like… there's this activity that I like to do with folks, where I give them a sort of ethical dilemma, and at the end of this ethical dilemma, a woman dies and they have to decide who's responsible for this woman's death.
Melinda: Oh, wow.
Jimmy: And so I can ask the question, who's to blame for this woman's death? Or I can ask the question, who's responsible for this woman's death? Those two things are likely, not totally, it's not guaranteed, but they are likely to elicit different responses from the group.
Melinda: Interesting.
Jimmy: If I say who's to blame for the death versus who's responsible for the deaths? Because for me, as a facilitator, blame implies relationship. Blame implies social contract.
Melinda: And judgment.
Jimmy: And judgment. Responsibility implies power. Implies structure. Implies all of these things that will elicit different kinds of responses from the group. And different kinds of interactions with each other. So that's an example of how, like, neurolinguistic programing can, like, play, is a technical tool that you can use to help give you impressions of what's happening.
Melinda: Yes. And actually on that note, it's interesting what occurred to me when you were describing that, is, I would imagine, depending on the group and the context and the composition of who's in the room, you know, people may be communicating very differently. Right? And like, do you have to adjust how you're communicating based on the particular group that you're working with?
Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Most definitely. There's this one tool that I teach, it's intercultural conflict styles and communication styles. But so a lot of the time, I'm working in DEI spaces. So we're either having conversations about race or gender, or power dynamics in general. So identity plays a role in all those things.
And there are styles to how we engage in conflict and styles for how we communicate. Now in most working spaces, they are going to be, high on directness and very low on emotional expressiveness. So that's what's considered like in American society is what’s considered...
Melinda: Workplace behavior.
Jimmy: Yeah. Workplace. Yeah. Yeah. Like professional. That wasn't professional. Very often when people are saying that wasn't professional, or, I need you to be professional, they're saying.
Melinda: There's too much emotion.
Jimmy: There's too much emotion is what they're talking about. We are low emotional expressive of high directness. So there are certain styles and there are certain expectations for people who don't communicate in those styles.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: So if I am low on emotional expressiveness and high in directness in my delivery, they're going to assume that the way that I'm communicating is allowing whatever culture is there to persist. But I might come in with a different style, to invite more openness. Invite more emotional expressiveness. Because I need that data to figure out what's happening right.
So I'm going to use a different style. Or I might use, a very high emotional expressiveness with high directness because it compatible with, with the high directness of, of American workplaces. But I might be really expressive and use my hands and my body language a lot, and show my palms to create and foster more openness in the subconscious mind.
And invite them to participate in different kinds of data gifting to one another.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy: So it's a pulling all those things together.
Melinda: Yeah. And are there some other techniques that you bring in as well?
Jimmy: Yeah. there's one tool that I, I am familiar with that I like to use especially if I'm doing observations of groups. So if I'm in discovery with a client, because they come to me to do some facilitation about a problem, and they want me to see the problem before we go into figuring out how to problem solve it. I will use this tool called Structural Dynamics, which is like mapping out the different kinds of talk moves that people use in conversation.
So this idea that there are only four vocal expressions in language: there’s move, a bystand, a follow. And there's a fourth one that I can't remember. But you can use these tools to sort of map out what these vocal expressions are and see what patterns repeat themselves in a group.
So it's sort of like coding people's language over time and seeing what emerges and what structures are there. What do people engage in? Why do they engage in these patterns?
Melinda: And are those styles? You mentioned power dynamics. So I would imagine those communication styles are related with power dynamics.
Jimmy: Yeah. They definitely inform each other. And there are patterns. Like most leaders tend to be, you know, tend to live in directness. They also tend to live in more optimism, generally speaking, than most other folks who play different roles. So that like, there are patterns to how people show up when they're playing those roles for long periods of time. And what's interesting is when those patterns still persist, what does it tell you?
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So is there an example maybe of a group that you've, and not to name any names or anything, but just trying to get at the dynamics of this, a group maybe that comes to mind that you've worked with where, you know, you were able to walk them through this facilitation process and they were able to find their way to a really positive solution from, beginning with a really sticky situation? Yeah.
Jimmy: Yeah. There's one example that I'm thinking of that happened recently within an agency that I've been working with for about a year now. And they are, the nature of their work is conflict, conflict, conflict. They shelter families that are going through high-stress crisis situations. So they're constantly sort of like processing and catalyzing conflict.
Melinda: Yes.
Jimmy: And so when they're working with each other, it's helpful to have me who they've hired to be, just sort of be like a person who participates but is not involved in their work. I’m just hired to sort of be there and listen and to name what I see. And then maybe they can decide what they want to do with that observation.
They were, they had just decided on some new norms for working together. And one of the norms was, is that no decision should be made outside of the manager's group unless it's been discussed with the managers. But you know, some somewhat down like there were people away at conferences and some people were home sick.
And so a decision needed to be made about something really quickly. And all the parties and stakeholders were not present in this new norm that they had just enacted. And so they went ahead and made the decision. And there were a bunch of people who really would have wanted to be a part of that decision that were not there, and they were pissed, because the whole reason that they enacted this rule was because the people who weren’t there, they made a decision the last time without the rest of them.
Melinda: Right. [Laughter].
Jimmy: And they were pissed. And they were like, you just gave me all this shit. And you just did what you –
Melinda: You did the thing!
Jimmy: You did the thing that I got in trouble for last time! You just did. And so I'm watching them talk about this because we've, I've been working with them for years, so there's a lot of trust. Like, if I'm in the room, they just have their meeting like I'm not there. And so I'm watching them sort of hash this out, and they seem, the words that they were using, was indicating that they had come to a solution, but they were still talking about the solution over and over and over and over.
And I was like, I just want to notice that there's some incongruence like, it's, the words you're using are telling me that you've come to a solution, but the patterns that which you're speaking is as if somebody is not satisfied with this solution. So, like, can you help me make sense of the incongruence here.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: And so they then figured out that they had to like, talk about how it made them feel, the fact that this pattern had happened. That was what they were.
Melinda: And that was the unresolved part.
Jimmy: They didn't feel heard. They came to a solution, but there were people who did not feel heard. So they were still talking about it and moving over this thing that it seemed like they solved like ten minutes ago. [Laughter].
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy: And so just making that observation and giving it back to the group and like, that's the using yourself as an instrument. It's like, I'm feeling these things happening that don't seem to be making sense together. I'm not going to say what it means, but I'm going to give it to the group and see if you can figure out what this looks like. Or why it exists.
Melinda: Yeah. And sometimes just being there as an observer and just naming what you're seeing helps them to see what they're not able to see from inside. Right?
Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. So I always like to, you know, kind of try to find a way to like, you know, bring these things home for people. So, I like to do a Creativity Pro-Tip toward the end of each episode. It's like, okay, how can you take what we're talking about and put it into practice? So do you have any, like, maybe a practical tip for people who just find themselves in the midst of, you know, there's, conflict is inevitable, right?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Melinda: And we always, can, we always have chances to practice. So, like, what's one thing, maybe a grounding practice or facilitation tip that people could use to, you know, next time they find themselves in a tense situation?
Jimmy: Yeah. I would say, for being in conflict, I would say the most helpful thing you do is probably, and probably the hardest, is to never succumb to the need to move quickly and expect that a good, thoughtful, and nuanced answer is going to come from moving quickly. You've got to move slowly. Sometimes you have to move quickly. But don't expect that, like, the answer that came out of your awareness when you were moving quickly is going to be the answer that should persist. Like that answer might need to evolve.
Melinda: Yes.
Jimmy: Move through some meaning-making, move through some creative processes before it really becomes something that's sustainable and thoughtful and takes in to account all the stakeholders.
Melinda: Yeah, I love that. I heard a phrase once, actually at a meditation retreat, which is like, speed produces aggression. So, like the antidote in my mind, one of my little mantras is when in doubt, slow down.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Melinda: Right? And that applies to conflict, that applies to creativity… Like, if you don't know how to proceed, maybe time to step back and like, take a little space from it, come back and maybe see the problem with fresh eyes. Right? So yeah I love that. Just slowing down, taking space, not being like too hasty to come to a solution.
Jimmy: Yeah for sure. And I think the other thing that I would give to people, like, in the moment, is people always use the phrase when they get upset, like, ‘just take a deep breath’ to sort of calm things down. Which is actually, as condescending as it sounds [Laughter]…
Melinda: You're right [Laughter].
Jimmy: It's actually what you should do when things get stressful, but there's a way to do it. And it isn't just about taking a deep breath, but there's a way to do it that can sort of get your nervous system, back to, a sort of, homeostasis and allow you more access to, like, the executive network. And that's just taking two really quick breaths in and then let it sigh out.
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: Like dogs do this a lot.
Melinda: Yes.
Jimmy: Or babies do it when they're crying or calming down. Like, they’re coming down from the peak of their tantrum. And like, they do that like slurp and come back down. That's their nervous system, like, calming itself down. You can do that in moments where you're like, I am feeling more disembodied than I would normally be.
You can bring yourself back or closer to homeostasis and make it much easier for you to, like, transition to, like, the executive functioning that you need so that you can decide what happens next and not react to what happens next.
Melinda: Exactly. Yeah. I love that. So we're kind of getting toward time, but I just wanted to sort of open it up here at the end, you know, is, if there's one message that you'd like to get out there to the world, to our audience, anything we haven't touched on yet, what would it be?
Jimmy: I, I would say, I had a friend, a professional friend from a long time ago, who would hear me out when I was going through really challenging times. And she would say, you know, you just gotta show up.
Melinda: Yes.
Jimmy: And I would say that for these, when you are in conflict with people for whom you care about, it's a really good idea to assess, like, do you care enough about the people that are in the room that you would show up when things are challenging?
Melinda: Yeah.
Jimmy: That's an important question to ask. Asking that question pretty regularly I think is helpful.
Melinda: Yeah. Like am I willing to show up for this?
Jimmy: Yeah. And that doesn’t, that implies that, like, you should be willing to show up. That's not what I mean.
Melinda: But maybe sometimes it's, yeah, maybe sometimes you just got to walk away.
Jimmy: Yeah, maybe. Yeah. That's fine. You can be done. That's helpful information.
Melinda: That's right. Like, there is always a choice.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Melinda: Yeah. No, I love that. I love that so much. So, well, thank you so much. This has been great. And so if people want to connect with you, find out more about your work, how can they find you?
Jimmy: You can find me on Instagram. @jimmyjohnnyjuste is the handle. My website: www.innerveconsulting.com. I'm holding a facilitation training soon: July 29th-August 1st; it's going to be at the Brook School in Andover, Massachusetts. There's only ten spots, so you can find that through Instagram and all the social medias.
Melinda: Awesome. Love it.
We're recording today at record ATX Studios in Austin, Texas, with Jimmy in Boston. Thanks again for being on the show. And the show is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. If you enjoy the show, please connect with us. We're on social media, YouTube. Like, subscribe and drop us a line. Thanks so much. And we'll see you next time.
