Continuing on from my previous blog on Attention, in this series on the Thinking Environment, I share my thoughts and experiences on the component of Ease in this one.
Definition
From Nancy Kline’s explanation: Discarding internal urgency.
Ease creates; urgency destroys. Ease, an internal state free from rush or urgency, creates the best conditions for thinking. But Ease, particularly in organisations and through the ‘push’ aspect of social networking, is being systematically bred out of our lives. If we want people to think well under impossible deadlines and inside the injunctions of ‘faster, better, cheaper, more,’ we must cultivate internal ease.
What does this definition mean to me?
The concept of ease evokes a sense of inner cleanliness for me. The fact that Nancy herself uses the word “discard” in the definition, adds to my sense that urgency, for the most part, is an energetic toxin. It almost creates a cloudiness in perception - where everything one sees just isn’t what it seems. Like driving a car with a dirty windshield.
There are spaces in our world that need urgent action and delay in those actions can cause genuine harm to people or the planet. But if we look closely enough, we can see what the pervading and unchecked cultural narrative of “faster, cheaper, more” is leading to. A bleeding planet, a burnt out workforce and a psychologically traumatised society.
Korean-born German philosopher Byung-Chul Han dives into what our competitive, service-oriented societies are doing to us in his book The Burn Out Society. I find his take both enlightening and troubling - because in modern organisations, we seem to reward just about everything that leads to toxicity and burn out - relentless speediness, overemphasis on competition and performance at the cost of mental and relational health, productivity over reflection & learning, and a culture of urgency that leaves no room to pause and discern the validity of ambitious deadlines.
The word deadline itself holds such a dire sound to it and this is what I found about its etymology.
“First recorded in 1864, the word 'deadline' has its origins in the American Civil War. During time of conflict, a 'do not cross' line was circled around prisons. Guards were told to shoot and kill any prisoner who might touch, fall upon, pass over, under or across the said 'dead line”.
This horrified me as much as it made sense to me. I believe that while we consciously know we are not in a war zone, the overemphasis on speed and productivity tends to create war-like conditions in our minds. I’ve seen organisations where meeting rooms were called “war rooms” - where teams were meant to go solve urgent problems!
The culture across our organisations and institutions in modern society, is evidently creating toxicity and disease, both of the body and the mind. You just need to do a cursory google search to know, that we are struggling to cope as a collective- the rates of anxiety and depression have been rising dramatically over the past decades and burnout has become common in the the 40+ years population. This is alarming to say the least!
Perhaps our spirit remains untouched still, and I rest in my hope that we can tap into its infinite and wise nature to live more discerning lives. The injunctions of ‘faster, better, cheaper, more’ must be challenged and tempered. Much is being said about slow living now and as people are realising the fault lines that the “performance society” is creating for us. The promise that “more means better and success equals happiness” has visibly failed. Creating a change in collective mindsets and practices towards a healthier and more sustainable culture, according to me is a core responsibility of organisational and institutional leaders in the coming years.
That being said, as of today the environment we work and live in remains fraught with the malaise of artificial urgency. So on a practical level, we must find ways to navigate this system with awareness and discernment. Thus Nancy’s words “we must cultivate internal ease”; are an elder’s call we would be wise to heed.
In my practice of the thinking environement, the component of ease comes alive just by virtue of using the building blocks of rounds, dialogue, open discussion and thinking pairs. They create spaciousness and make the invitation of inner ease a potential that’s truly within reach.
While leading several strategic change programs at Thoughtworks Inc., we used “Reflective Dialogue” as a core ritual for my team of change leaders. We designed these reflective gatherings consciously as thinking environments. We were leading several high stakes changes in the organisation at the time, many of which presented complex problems and difficulties, as org. change programs often do. We also had to contend with ambitious goals and timelines. Creating learning loops was incredibly important in our change programs, where the change leaders and agents could slow down amidst the urgency and tensions of change, and really look clearly at what is happening, both in the org. system and within themselves. Once they did this, they were able to disentangle from the drama, and reorient themselves to their collective and individual intentions. This allowed them to keep moving forward and pivoting as needed, but in a conscious and authentic way. Cultivating a sense of internal ease in the midst of difficult changes became a critical aspect of change leadership for us. And most of our meetings and rituals embodied this component consciously.
“Nature does not hurry, yet all is accomplished.”
~ Lao Tzu
I am also beginning to make a connection between acceptance and ease through both my practices - Mindfulness and Time to Think. There was a moment with my Time to Think teacher Maryse Barak, where instead of following the original agenda of a Thinking Session, she simply accepted the fact that I was emotionally disturbed at that point. She said “let’s just work with the moment and do what you need”. I took a few minutes to acknowlege what was happening for me. And it was as though someone threw open a door I assumed was shut and a few moments of walking through it led me straight to a place of clarity and intention. We resumed the session exactly as planned, without me feeling like I was fighting my own needs. Accepting where the thinker is at, and working with what emerges in the moment seems a key skill to develop in cultivating ease. This also enlivened the principle of the thinker maintaining full agency over their own thinking and direction in a Thinking Session.
In my Time to Think practice, with groups as well as individuals, I’ve found that when the component of ease is alive, it has allowed people to peel back superficiality quite quickly. The thinking tends to become more intense and often speeds up, but it’s the thrilling speed of adventure and exploration rather than the exhausting speed of deadlines.
The paradox I witness in my practice is that “ease requires slowing down and becoming relaxed and yet it has the effect of creating results much more quickly than usual.”
Lately, I’ve also found that mindfulness practice is another powerful way to cultivate internal ease. It generates inner clarity for me and clear the windshield so to speak - I have found them to be incredibly potent tools to cultivate both attention and ease. Perhaps that calls for a blog of its own! :)
For me, this is perhaps one of the hardest components to embody so far. Much of that has to do with some archetypes I find alive (and kicking) within myself - the achiever, the seeker, the perfectionist, the warrior, the rebel. Having grown up in a less than ideal reality, I can go on autopilot quickly to assert my will and fight for change, which is’nt always the appropriate response and puts me at war with things as they are. Learning to internalise acceptance as a mindset can feel counterintuitive and almost perilous. The more I practice inner ease consciously though, it helps me touch the fact that acceptance simply means not being at war with reality; accepting things as they emerge and unfold whilst discerning what meaningful action can be taken to create change when necessary. They are not mutually exclusive. The action comes from a place of silence and wisdom, rather than anger and confusion.
I am also reminded of Tara Brach’s teachings on “riding the waves” of life . The idea that life unfolds in its glorious ups and terrifying downs and we often mistake ourselves for these waves - feeling like we are constantly splashing about helplessly. She says that we are instead the ocean that has the capacity to both witness and contain these waves. Seeing myself this way helps me become an easeful container both for others and for what is happening in my own life.
In my next blog, I share my thoughts on the component of Appreciation.
Credit: Illustration by Chitra, based on drawing tutorials by Lisa Glanz