Sayings from the Director
1-Never underestimate the transformative power of individual relationships. (1999 Cathy Hurst Belfast)
2-You are either part of the problem or part of the solution- You cannot be neutral and every excuse is a choice. (2000-07 Belfast Orientation Weekend)
3-The listening contract means People will listen to you to the extent that they feel you have listened to them.( Presidential Plot 2008)
4. Don’t act into the story your opponent is acting out of.
5. We need to find the story that changes the story.
6. Don’t come critical, come curious.
if you can’t come curious, be curious about why so critical.
If you can’t be curious about being critical,
be critical about why you are so critical.
If you can’t be critical about why you are so critical,
best not come at all- stay home. ( inspired by Peter Maurin-Easy Essays)
7. Stories turn walls into windows
(Wall of Stories)
8. If you come with expectations, best be disappointed early so you can replace it with anticipation (work placements) Stories work best when they are full of surprises
9. It’s not what you say that matters, it’s what gets heard
10 Our job is to listen in such a way that we can invite people to tell us the stories that they most need to tell.
11.Our job is to tell the stories that compel our listeners to get beyond their defenses and be open to change. Real stories of witness do not provoke argument but engagement.
12 Calm your biology, claim your biography, commit your soul (Mary Fowler)
13 The distance between a reaction and a response is about 10 seconds in real time- but in history, it can take up to 100 years
14 A reaction to a reaction makes for a reactionary world-
A response to a response makes for a responsible world.
15 What we give meaning to, we give power to.
16 Things will be OK in the end- if they are not OK now, it’s because it is not the end. (John Lennon)
17 The story of power boils down to the power of a story
18 Don’t talk about us without us
19 NARRATIVE ETHICS
Everyone has a story
Everyone has a right to tell it, in their own time and in their own way.
Everyone has that right over anyone else’s right to tell it for them.
We have got to stop stealing other people’s stories.
20 Be a voice not an echo- Tell the story that only you can tell, before you repeat the scripts others have written for you
21 Transforming Conflicts requires we turn a generation obsessed with “If Only” to becoming a generation ready to relentlessly ask “What if?”
22 Leadership needs to shift from looking back in fear crying “Never Again” to looking forward in hope to dream about “Never Before.”
23 The start of any revolution is when people decide to grab back their own story (Barbara Meyerhof-Michael White definitional ceremony)
24 Meaning shifts through time, so do not ask Why or What or Who, ask Where, where have we shifted- we need a new geography of meaning (practice of narrative maps)
25 THE ANALYSIS- Those who want change don’t have power and those who have power don’t want change
26 Old story leaders see the present as the past just repeating itself over and over. New story leaders see the present as the future rehearsing, getting ready for a maiden performance
27 Let your attention always serve your intention. Beware that stories have the power to hijack your attention to betray your intentions.
28 It is easier to act into a new way of thinking than it is to think into a new way of acting (praxis, habit)
29 It is not the stories we tell that matter in the end- but the stories we create that others will tell
30 You have a right to speak but you do not have a right to be heard- you have to earn that.
31 A story with inspiration but no invitation is like hearing about the amazing party and not being invited. (JFK Ask not”)
32 You can either understand or you can judge but you can’t do both. If you judge, then you will struggle to see beyond your own “righteousness.” If you strive to understand, you will find that there was nothing to judge in the first place.
33 Certainty comes easiest to those who understand everything or those who understand nothing (the Knowledge illusion)
34 Stories take us there. They can travel such that no wall can shut them out and no checkpoint can lock them in. Stories don’t need a passport or a visa.
35 You will hear bold assertions “The facts of the matter,” the reality is,” “it is obvious that…” but refuse to allow another’s opinion to define your reality. Every utterance is situated in its time and place. We must challenge the false certainty that feeds the egos of war.
36 Appreciation is the soul force of peace – those who take and take and take soon bankrupt the economy of grace
37 “You are all terrorists” he screamed- Was it a threat, an insult, or the cry of pain of someone who realizes that the world he has been defending is falling apart and that his story no longer adds up. Rage is is not a tactic-but the last attempt to salvage a fallen world. (Chen)
38 The act of war begins in the imagination. So too the acts of peace (James Hillman)
39 “The greatest weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” (Steve Biko)
40 “There is nothing we can do” is exactly what the powerful want the oppressed to believe. “We can’t do everything but we can do something” is where all revolutions begin and where the powerful know their days are numbered. (Projects for Change)
41 In the end, it is not the results but the memories- did this experience help fund the well of meaning from which you create and give enduring value to your life. Will you tell it as “Once upon a time?”
42 Under stress, remember the three S’s are Soft, Slow, and Simple- conflict feeds on hard, fast, and complicated. (Ron Redmond)
43 Energy is a condition of position-
Beginnings We Create,
Middles are complicated so we correct, clarify and recommit,
Endings we Complete
44 Post It Diplomacy- write a note that Recognizes to Appreciate to Invite and to Apologize
45 Stories are never innocent and the most dangerous are those that pretend they are.
46 The four Windows of Change-
Change challenges the old story of the old story,
to offer a new story of the old story,
to become the new story of the new story,
that even if it is made at the end to sound like the same old story,
no matter- change has changed things such that we no longer notice the change- that is the most profound kind of change
47 Stories run on the engine of human desire and are fueled by memory and dream
48 We refuse to accept that the conflict has to be the defining story of our young people’s identity project.
49 The three shifts, from problem to possibility, from victim to agent, from excuses to responsibility.
50 We refuse to live inside a problem saturated story ( Michael White)
51. What matters is not the story you listen to, but the story you listen through.
52. We must turn our anger into rage and then, connecting our anger to our core, turn our rage into courage.
53. The world is always in flux such that either you are doing change, or change is doing you.
54. God hears all the stories and that is why the great religions all define God as a God of mercy above anything else. To judge simply means you don’t have all the stories. 55.Tell a story once, you are telling it
Tell a story twice, the story is telling you
Tell a story thrice, the story is you
56. If you want to be serious about change- you have to be serious about power.
If you want to be serious about power, you have to get serious about organizing. ( Alinsky)
57. Those who have power don’t want change
Those who want change don’t have power.
