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An unexpected conflict

25/2/2012

It’s funny how these things come out of nowhere. One week ago, we received an unexpected bill that threw us into regressive stages of conflict with a major telecommunications company. The cold, belligerent manner we experienced left us dazed, upset and angry. We felt unheard, misrepresented and unfairly treated. It triggered subconscious memories of similar experiences in the past, from bullies in the school playground to poor customer service elsewhere. It’s what psychotherapists call transference and human givens therapists, pattern matching.

The thing that left us most confused was that the people we spoke with were more concerned with bureaucracy and rules than with customer relationship or retention. In taking this stance, they were inadvertently working against their own company’s as well as our interests. We will cancel the contract and the company will lose more in on-going revenue than it would have gained from pressing a debatable charge. We tried to explain this but they would not, could not hear. They were entrenched in their views, their predetermined systems and procedures.

After countless phone calls, we spoke with one person, an African man who treated us warmly, listened hard to our story, communicated empathy, took personal responsibility to work for a solution on our behalf. He mediated a resolution, the company dropped the charge and the dispute was ended. It was a tiring and frustrating experience and I’m trying hard now to listen for the voice of God. What was really going on here? At a human level, it was an encounter with an organisation, an institution, that has lost sight of the customer, that appears more interested in processes than people.

But there are spiritual parallels too. I have this flash back to Jesus’ encounters with the religious authorities. They had become so locked in rules, in regulations intended to safeguard God’s interests as they saw it, that they had inadvertently lost contact with God and with people. There’s this same risk in any organisation, in any situation, that we construct a fixed gestalt, a fixed expectation of what is and should be that blinds us to alternative perspectives and realities. In the Jesus case, paradoxically, it prevented the religious recognising ‘God with us’.

By contrast, this African man moved towards us, stepped into our shoes, took up our case on our behalf and mediated a positive result. In effect, he mirrored Jesus by his actions, working to restore relationship where it had been damaged. This is the heart of the Christian gospel. And so as I look back over the week, I feel irritated by the bureaucracy, sad that I sometimes lost sight of the ‘opposition’ as people, relieved that fairness finally prevailed, grateful for friends who helped us laugh in the midst and thankful for the mediator who inspired us to be more like Jesus.

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Why this why now?

30/9/2011

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I'm curious about how the 'teenagers and stones' incident surfaced into awareness yesterday (see blog: 'A counterintuitive moment'). It happened almost 30 years ago and I've hardly thought about it since. What is it in my current experience that resonates with that one? What am I feeling now that reminds me subconsciously of how I felt then?

It's a process known in human givens therapy as pattern matching, tapping into an emotional memory. There's something about what I'm facing, what I'm experiencing in the here and now, that looks and feels familiar at a preconscious level.

It could be, for instance, a troubling feeling I'm ignoring, suppressing or avoiding. Is God prompting me to pay attention to something? On reflection, I've felt unfairly criticised this week, under proverbial attack. I've felt powerless to defend myself. Therein lies the parallel. I've felt tempted to become defensive, to hold my ground, to fight back.

Is God reminding me of what I learned back then, to draw on that experience as a means to addressing this one? To meet criticism with vulnerability, humility and openness; to reach out and seek relationship, rather than shrink back or fight?

I'm reminded of an encounter I once had with a facilitator in a group. I found the group experience deeply frustrating and challenged the facilitator forcefully. The facilitator, a skilled psychotherapist, responded openly and non-defensively and simply said, "It's not the first time you've been here, is it?"

He was right, the feeling of frustration felt familiar, reminded me of how I had felt in similar situations in the past, and I had imported those feelings into this new situation. This is transference, transferring beliefs, thoughts and feelings from the past into the present. It was a fair challenge, and I'm still learning.

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An unexpected conflict

Why this why now?

Nick Wright

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An unexpected conflict

Why this why now?

​Nick Wright

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Nick Wright

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