Minding Our Blind Spots

In the first half of his poem, "At Lake Scugog," Troy Jollimore writes:

Where what I see comes to rest,

at the edge of the lake,

against what I think I see

and, up on the bank, who I am

maintains an uneasy truce

with who I fear I am,

while in the cabin’s shade the gap between

the words I said

and those I remember saying

is just wide enough to contain

the remains that remain

of what I assumed I knew.

I loved this poem—once I figured out what he was saying. It got me thinking about the work I’ve done with Essential Partners over the years on highly polarized issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and the environment.  Among the core factors that may coalesce to change the nature of such conversations I would include: creating a safe environment, looking for the “new” conversation, allowing time and space for reflection.

However, Jollimore’s poem suggests another key factor. In any dialogue, there are so many stories in the room about “who I am” and “who I fear I am,” who you are and who I fear you are, “the words I said and those I remember saying.” Knowing how hard it is to pick up on one’s own misperceptions and false assumptions and keep them from getting in the way of listening to others, I would include self-awareness as equally critical.

In fact, one of the most powerful moments in a dialogue I facilitated occurred when one woman came face to face with herself. The project¹ involved a series of dialogues in a local elementary school on how to talk about same-sex marriage and same-sex families.

In spite of efforts to balance the viewpoints, the dialogue group she was in turned out to have mostly “liberal, progressive” participants, which raises the question: “Why do conservatives seem to be less likely to participate in dialogue processes?” (NCDD’s Sandy Heierbacher addresses this on their web site). This mother expressed her disappointment about not being able to talk to someone from “the other side” and suggested that the group end.

Before stopping, I encouraged her to come up with the questions she would have asked “them.” To her horror, she discovered that her questions were loaded with implicit judgments and that she really did not want to hear what they had to say because she thought they were wrong. It was a personal moment of truth that opened the door to others in the group to explore their own blind spots.

This kind of moment of awareness seems to me to be one of the hopes for dialogue. I’m not always sure why it happens or why it doesn’t. I know it takes an offer and an acceptance, safety and courage, structure and freedom. What else?

Trish Perry is an Independent Facilitator and Coach.

(1) The chapter describing this project, “The Human Face in the Eye of the Rhetoric: A Dialogue on Same-Sex Marriage” was written by Trish Perry and can be found in a new book, Mending the World: Social Healing Interventions by Gestalt Practitioners Worldwide.  It is available at www.GISC.org.