The other week I ran a poetry workshop on low level interpersonal conflict for Rising Arts Agency at Artist Residence Bristol. Here are some thoughts on this new creative journey.
We all have times when we look back on a conversation and think it could have gone better. Maybe with the benefit of hindsight, we realise that we should have spoken up and we didn’t. Or maybe we spoke too quickly and said something we regret.
Mother of Ruminations
I can be a bit of a daydreamer and perhaps there’s no more creative potential in my daydreaming than in my interpersonal conflict. When we ruminate, we drag up situations that have deeply affected us. These thoughts come up and it literally comes from a word that is related to cows churning their food again and again. I’m there, turning the conversation up and over in my head, chewing it, swallowing it, and bringing it up again. It’s a bad habit I have. I’ve gotten better over the years, but it still is my default and I have to put a lot of effort into not taking the going down the rabbit hole of woulda shoulda coulda’s in my head. I want to ruminate less and get to a place where my rethinking of a conversation produces something good. What I’ve realised is the power to take these thoughts and make them into something generative. Something that has potential to bring about healing and even the possibility of reconciliation.
Mother of Pearl: relinquish control, reclaim agency
Ruminations are a fantasy, a way to control the situation - they are very creative, but they produce bitter, stony residue that gets lodged and leaves us feeling stuck. In my ruminations, I often paint the other person as a shrivelled caricature, whilst I’m more savvy, more confident, more sharp - all at the same time being incredibly kind and attuned to the intricacies of the situation, because you know, I’m perfect. But this isn’t me in reality, this is fantasy Leeza. There’s a better way, and that usually happens in community, guided by someone who has walked the path of relational pain. I want to produce pearls with my memories of conflict and help others in their journeys. This happens only through being guided through with the right space and time.
Oysters produce pearls as a defence mechanism and need two things to do this: time and to rightly identify the threat. They’re are able to take an irritant, such as sand or even a parasite and wrap that intrusion in something called nacre. This is the iridescent substance which, when layered on top of each other, forms a pearl.
We can do the same, but we need time and to properly identify the threat in our relationships. Ruminating with no creative guidance keeps us stuck and hinders our ability to properly identify what the real threats are.
I believe part of what it means to be human is to properly understand our God-given agency. I distinguish control from agency. Control has to do with establishing the boundaries of reality and setting the rules of life. Agency has more to do with making meaningful choices within the realities we find ourselves and influencing our environment. Inasmuch as we’d like to think we’re in control, we’re not. We’re thrown into families we didn’t choose, bodies we didn’t choose, societies we didn’t choose and a whole host of other variables which make up who we are. But we always have agency. The moment when we grasp for complete control of a situation, like through ruminating, we denigrate our agency and lose an opportunity to create something beautiful.
I get this idea about agency from the Christian story of Eden. Whilst Adam and Eve weren’t in control, they had God-given agency. God told Adam to name the animals, which is a creative act of agency. God could have named the animals and told Adam what they were, but he gave Adam the dignity of naming things. What an amazing privilege!
So, back to poetry and conflict. Let’s make pearls of our pain - creatively and communally.