A little friction

Martin Büber - ’All life is encounter’. 

Connection is a human desire, and life-affirming; but it comes with friction. And we can unconsciously hold ourselves and others back from it, out of self-preservation, ego defence, control, uncertainty, powerlessness, or plain exhaustion. 

When we find the courage and space though, we can sometimes see what might be leading us to opt for smooth and safe over the meaningful friction and real life of full encounter.

A handful of examples this past week of friction-reducing drivers hiding in plain sight:

❤️‍🔥 A close-knit team stating, ‘we are perfectly aligned; there is no disagreement, and all of our experiences and viewpoints are alike’.

❤️‍🔥 A dutiful mid-level manager approaching burnout and continuing to accept every instruction and task thrown their way

❤️‍🔥 A senior leadership team with an ambiguous remit unwilling to make any decision without first asking the C-suite for their answer

❤️‍🔥 A caring senior manager holding back potentially life-changing developmental feedback from a peer, for fear it might upset them

❤️‍🔥 A team in a complex environment, whose focus keeps returning to ‘them’ outside the room, and how things would be simpler if only ‘they’ could sort themselves out

The ingredients of meaningful encounter are punchy - we require courage, clarity, support, capacity, perspective, appetite, and a balance of safety and unsafety to step into unconstrained relationship; 

but the rewards can be just as heady - new learning, expression, action, meaning, growth, connection, feelings, joy. Real life.

Removing the barriers and then gathering the resources for encounter with all its accompanying friction is sometimes intricate, deep and challenging work.

 But we might start by taking a step back in any given moment, breathing in, and asking, for the sake of living more fully, 

‘Are we up for a little friction here?’