Frida's Notebook

On empathy and imagination (with thanks to J K Rowling)

A little over a year ago I tried to put into words here some thoughts I had on empathy and imagination and what they had to do with activism for human rights and social justice. What I managed to say was:

"Ultimately, though, I believe that the strongest motivator for the defense of human rights is ... empathy. It is because I can imagine how it might feel to be a Palestinian mother who watched her child die because the ambulance carrying him to the specialised hospital in the West Bank was not allowed to pass an Israeli checkpoint that I feel compelled to work towards securing the right to freedom of movement for her and for everyone else. It is because I can imagine how it might feel to be an Algerian asylum seeker in New Zealand, labeled a security risk by the central intelligence agency but unable, even through my defense lawyer to see the basis on which I am accused of being such a risk, that I feel bound to do what I can to defend the right to a fair trial and a defense for him and for everyone else."

Today I watched the commencement speech that the amazing J K Rowling gave at Harvard University. I know it has been emailed and posted in various places, for good reason. It came to me from Blue Poppy, via Swirly. So I took a break from studying about how community psychologists should be committed to working with oppressed people to help achieve their goals for liberation and watched this video.

She puts it so well and I was not expecting it. Although I probably should have been expecting it, her Harry Potter books explore complex themes of marginalisation and social justice, including a fairly intense exploration of racism and xenophobia through the device of the "mud-bloods". But I wasn't. I under-estimated her and expected a speech about how important imagination is to the creative act. Which it is, of course. But she goes on to talk about how that creative act, the ability to imagine, lies at the heart of what makes us human. We, apparently unlike all other species, can imagine what it might be like in someone else's shoes and based on that creative act of imagining we can feel empathy. 

What I said in May last year was that I didn't believe that empathy was a "static quality that we are either born with or without. I think we can generate empathy, I believe we can cultivate the quality of empathy within ourselves."

I also had some ideas about how to generate empathy - they included a certain kind of travel and releasing ourselves to the transformative power of literature, art and film. I think those are still great tools for generating empathy. In fact my very next post was an exercise in using the creative power of poetry to cultivate the moments of powerful empathy that I experienced in day-to-day life in Afghanistan. But what I have been also learning, over and over again. Is the power of the simple practice of letting go, through seated meditation or whichever practice works for you, and revealing our natural warmth, compassion, imagination and empathy. 

We walk the same line

Me and Major Dan in Portland, Forest Park

This week one dear friend and one new friend shared on their blogs honest accounts of their recent experiences of this hard line we all walk.

Another very special woman who walked with me through a hard passage wrote me an email sharing the pain that a certain ongoing conflict is causing her.

I bumped into a colleague in the courtyard of our HQ and we somehow tumbled into real talk, sharing our honest hurts and struggles and before we knew it we were in tears in the middle of the compound.

Another dear friend is tired after another long session with her therapist, working through more loss than anyone should ever have to deal with in any life time.

Tonight I went for dinner and a very long talk with two women whom I've discovered in very different and special ways here in Kabul. We spoke honestly about this tricky, marvelous, crazy life we all lead and I felt so normal, so connected, so real.

Every day, in different ways, I am reminded that we walk the same line - all in our very unique and irreplicable ways but nonetheless recognisable to each other if we are ready to look beyond the surface and really see each other.

Tonight I just feel so grateful for my tribe of women, and for the knowledge that they are there ready to walk with me through any joy or sorrow and knowing that they will also know that I am here for them.

It's a hard knock life, so tonight I thank goodness for those who walk with us.

What I think...

Self portrait, with a headache.

Here is what I think.

I think that we should be able to adapt our pace to our monthly cycles.

I think that on days like today when everything within me was crying out for quiet, retreat, softness and nuturing - I should not have to go and meet the Chief of Police, the Head of National Security and the Governor to discuss drug trafficking, death threats and the need to reinforce the Afghan National Police in Ghor.

I think that we should resurrect some of the cultural traditions that acknowledge the value of responding to our bodies' natural cycles and taking time to rest, to reach inward and to renew.

I most certainly do not think that this should translate into discriminatory practices or imposed exile.

But I do think that there are periods for letting the seed lie, quietly, in the ground. There are times for absorbing the goodness of the sun. There are moments in which active work is not the best path. There are moments for resting, for letting be, for awaiting.

My job takes no account of these possibilities. I am required to be always "on". I must be always ready for action.

In my 20 years (some days it feels endless) experience in the work environment, I have seen that it not only does not take account of the regular monthly cycle of my body, it also ignores the reality that our general productivity goes in cycles.

The "western" work ethic takes no account of the observed phenomenon that the harvest of outputs sometimes follows periods during which it seems nothing is being accomplished.

Sometimes I simply can't seem to get myself moving. I am a highly motivated, highly disciplined worker, so if I am fair on myself I can say with some confidence that this is not due to laziness or a lack of focus. No, on reflection, I think that every project has it's periods of gestation. Every process has times when the seed has to be left in the ground for a quiet, sunny moment.

But more than all that, today my body was crying out to be allowed to stay in a quiet, safe place. I had no choice but to push it out into the world of corruption and drug-running and threats of violence. It was not a happy day.

But I got through it.

Who knows, maybe I even achieved something important today. Right now it seems unlikely. But these things often come at unexpected moments.

Next month, I promise myself a day on the couch.

Things that make me smile on a bad day

Divina Graca, me and my shadow friend. Portugal, August 2007.

Things that make me smile on a day when the news is otherwise horrible in the western provinces of Afghanistan:

- a local journalist and civil society activist who came to my office today to ask me to write about peace in a book he is putting together for the people of Ghor. He already has a spontaneous poem about peace from my Afghan colleague and a message of peace from the Lithuanian Commander of the local ISAF base.

- this poem, found on the first page of a book by Anne Lamott that I found, of all places, in the recreation room of the American police mentors:

"I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget,
who remains calm and silent when I talk,
and forgives gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain strong when I die."

Juan Ramon Jimenez

- the fact that I went for a run today. I ran around the inside of my compund ten times, it took me 15 minutes. For someone who used to go out for two hour runs without blinking it takes some effort to celebrate this. But the first rule of running (as in life) is to start where you are, not where you think you ought to be. And where I am is: out of running shape, living at altitude and with only a 1.5 minute circuit around my dusty compound as a running track. My goal is to double that over the next month so I can go for a gentle run with MJ and a serious walk with Swirly when I get Stateside next month.

24 hours of peace... and Lessons in Letting Go Part VII

Car ornament, Ghor, 2007

21 September is International Peace Day. The United Nations has focused it's activities this year on Afghanistan. Shit - I just heard an enormous explosion. Perfect. It's the day of peace and I was about to write a post about all about peace and how it is not just a pretty word, how it is the result of a whole lot of hard work and the resolution of conflicts. About how the women who told us on Sunday that they would kill anyone who tried to take their land from them are not blood thirsty warriors but mothers and wives who know that without the land they all die anyway so they might as well fight for it. I had all sorts of thoughts about peace, development, security and human rights today. Instead I hear an enormous explosion.

While on the subject of peace, and my view that it cannot be expected to flower until fundamental human rights are respected and conflicts are resolved. Over at Laila's blog she posted this week about new restrictions placed on civilians in the Gaza Strip. Read it and weep. The PR term for these restrictions is apparently "civilian levers". Civilian levers? How can they say this stuff with a straight face?

For some reason the spin has always been what makes me the maddest. If you are going to cut off the water, fuel, food and electricity supply to men, women and children who are trying to live a life of some minimum quality under unbearable circumstances then at least have the balls to call a spade a spade. These are not "civilian levers" this is a classic, text book example of collective punishment, and there is a reason it is prohibited under the Geneva Conventions. Maybe we should suggest that someone sits down and watchs "The Pianist" to remind themselves of where, when, how and why the Geneva Conventions were developed.

Sigh.

Aside from rants, I'm so full of thoughts and ideas and inspiration today. I can't quite get it all into order in my head to share it here. So this may be a little disjointed.

The lessons in letting go continue. This past two weeks the key theme has been letting go of "unrelenting standards". It's a phrase I picked up on a pop-psychology magazine and I can't get it out of my head. I guess it spoke to me. Little by little and with many relapses I am learning to let go of standards that don't help me, standards that used to hold me back by telling me that everything I did should be done well.

This week I read Keri Smith's post about her dust bunnies and smiled in recognition. It is so good that as well as linking I'm going to go right ahead and quote her here.

my house is never as clean as I would like, but I much prefer to spend time writing reading and making things than cleaning. i keep it at a point which it doesn't depress me, tidy but a bit dusty.

these are truths that a few years ago I would not wanted to have anyone know about. I would try and make people think that everything was pretty and funky and well functioning all the time. I am perfect and you should want my life.

at some point i became extremely wary and suspicious of the notion that people teach in self-help books that we should all aspire to a fully self-actualized high functioning life. this life and all it's messiness is what makes life interesting and intensely creative. i think often that's how creativity arises, in having to deal with things in the moment. the fact that some plans you have don't work out the way you wanted or "planned" forces you into a new way of seeing and operating.

in need of fixing is a perfectly good place to be. at times this is exactly who I am. sometimes life is uncomfortable and I no longer feel the urge to run from that. most importantly i no longer feel the need to live up to someone else's ideal. i can breathe deeper because I am not spending any energy hiding the truth from people.

because everyone else is messy too and has dust bunnies in the corners of their rooms.
some just hide it better than others.

Amen, Keri. My new friend Swirly was full of the same brand of goodness and wisdom this week.

It seems my stranglehold on my own life, demanding only the very best at all times, may have taken a little too long to overcome under normal circumstances so I led myself to Afghanistan. Here, I couldn't pick one day when I measure up to the standards I once thought were inviolable.

I too now miss deadlines, and hand over papers that I once would have never allowed to see the light of day, I drop balls and fail over and over again and - lo and behold - through it all I am still making a positive difference. I am still doing a good job.

I miss yoga sessions and haven't been for a run in three months, I eat what I can get which is sometimes the kind of food I would never have allowed past my lips in a past life. Yet, my health is good, my body has not collapsed or transformed into an unrecognisable blob. I still think that striving for excellence is great, that taking care of my body and meeting my committments to others are important. But in learning to survive here I've learned that nothing is more important than letting go a little bit. Letting go of my unrelenting standards and of my expectations of myself and others.

This week I'm also feeling closer and closer to realising my own power to make my dreams come true. Both Laini and Denise wrote about dreams this week, and I realised that I still have dreams that haven't yet had their day in the sun. I've never really lost my belief that, if I put my mind to something I can make it happen. As a little girl I dreamed of working for the United Nations, travelling to remote and troubled places and fighting for justice. A big dream for a farmer's daughter from small town New Zealand. Yet, here I am. I have more dreams, and now it is time to let some of them out to play. I'm pretty excited about that.

Joy and love

Self portrait wearing my Joy superhero necklace in a taxi in Bangkok.

This week a very dear friend wrote to me in response to my musings on trauma and healing in post-conflict and fragile states like Afghanistan. I've been thinking a lot about what people need in order to recover from the trauma of severe and ongoing violence and violations of their rights. In fact, I've decided to take some time off in the coming years to go back to school and study more about this. I've even discovered that it is possible to study the "psychology of peace and violence", which is an almost perfect match for my personal and professional interests.

So I've been sending out emails all over the world to people who I know and whose experience and insights on these topics I respect and to people I don't know but who are seen to be "experts" and leaders in this field. It is an exciting time, getting responses from friends and strangers alike that show me that I'm not alone in thinking about these topics.

Anyway - back to my very dear friend - she wrote, in reponse to my rambling email about trauma and healing here in Afghanistan, the following beautiful thoughts:

It has been, since the time I spent working through much of this kind of stuff, ... my conviction that the one and only thing that can ever heal the damage done by the cruelty and hatred of humans toward each other, is love.  Without it you can never achieve anything but a sterile kind of survival, but through being shown love people can be healed from the worst of abuses and when people themselves learn to give love they can transcend even the most terrible injustice done to them.

Isn't that wonderful! Now you have some idea of why I love her so much. Like me she got her introduction to this kind of work in the intense and complex the Gaza Strip. Since then our paths have been winding in and out of each other and year by year I have the particular pleasure of discovering that we are learning many of the same lessons, even though we keep conspiring somehow to end up in a country just as the other is leaving.

In her words I saw the reflection of something that has been stirring in me lately. After writing my long recent post about "ahimsa" (the principle of non-violence) and the need to be the change we want to see in the world, I've been starting each day with a short meditation on non-violence and a recommitment to "think no violent thoughts, say no violent words and nuture in my heart no violent feelings" throughout the day. I may not be able to end the hatred and violence which seems to be spreading and escalating here again, but at least I can try not to add to it.

I think that my friend is right - if I cannot guarantee justice or even security to the complainants who approach me I can at least guarantee them that I will recognise their dignity and value and that I will treat them with respect and with loving kindness. 

So when I go off to do my studies next year, do you think I'll be able to design a research project to show that love really is all we need?

Buddha within

Prayer flags outside the monk's cave

I've got some choices to make in the next little while, some of them reasonably "big" life choices. So I wanted to spend time this week sitting quietly with myself listening to my own inner voice, hearing from my heart and my own wisdom. The morning and afternoon yoga practice sessions help me by bringing me very strongly into the present moment and very strongly into awareness of myself, my thoughts and feelings. The evening yoga nidra sessions are also great for slowing and quieting my thoughts so that I can reach beyond the top layer of chatter to the deep wisdom beneath.

But at the end of the day I also wanted some very private time to sit quietly for long enough to hear what my heart really wants. Luckily there are so many wonderful spots here in which to sit.

This is inside the monk's cave -

And this is me sitting quietly and thoughfully in the pool -

A glimpse of myself

A shadow me, originally uploaded by frida world.

There is something about having someone whom you love deeply make the choice to step away from you that brings up all sorts of challenging questions. Under "normal" circumstances I suspect that I would have spent a lot of time in the past week reflecting on those questions.

Instead I'm covering for absent staff in the Kabul Head Office, working from 7.30am until 9.30pm with hardly the time to grab a protein bar and a diet coke for lunch (yes I am quite aware how many hideous additives I'm consuming). By the time I get back to the house where I'm staying I have barely the energy to say hello to my lovely hostess and brush my teeth before tumbling into bed.

There is no risk of lying awake at night wondering where my relationship went wrong or what I should be learning from all this. I fall asleep almost before my head hits the pillow and have to force myself out of bed when the alarm goes off at 6.30 the next morning.

But there are moments of quiet, as I sit in the car on the way to a meeting, or while I stand in line at the cafeteria waiting for my morning coffee. In these moments I get little flashes of knowing, a momentary sense of seeing through the layers of emotion into something that is true about me and about my life.

In those moments I get a glimpse of someone behind the harried and somewhat fragmented woman I've been meeting in the mirror for the past six months. I get a glimpse of myself, strong and loving and with a sense of fun and adventure. It is a relief, because there have been days when I was not altogether sure that I was still in there...

I *heart* books

I've accumulated quite a pile of books here in Afghanistan. Every time I travel I pick up some new ones to add to my collection. The books come in three different types. There are the top-shelf books, the bottom-shelf books and the books that live on my treasured wooden bedside table.

On the top shelf are the novels, some wonderful novels by some great writers. I read them and loved them, but once they are read they go up on the shelf and wait for someone to come along who I think will enjoy them. Then they head out for a little tour of Afghanistan, making their way from one guesthouse to another and filling the long, lonely evenings of many different readers with a little adventure, beauty, drama and joy.

On the bottom shelf are my reference books. They include some reference books about Afghanistan and human rights along with my Astanga Vinyasa Yoga home practice guide, books on meditation and even a book on "drawing and sketching". These books are often pulled down for evening study or weekend play.

Then there are the books that never make it onto the shelves. There are about a dozen books that I refer to on an almost daily basis, or at least several times a week. These include my precious books of poetry - by Rumi, Carol Ann Duffy, Mary Oliver and Janet Frame. These are books that I dip into over and over again and each of which is special for its own sake and also for the sake of the wonderful women who either gave or recommended them to me.

My "close-to-hand" books also include the writings of Pema Chodron, the Buddhist nun whose tapes on "Going to the places that scare you" were my most constant and sane companion in the very darkest days of this winter. I now have two of her books, one of which was a gift from a very wise and kind friend. I read a little of Pema's teaching almost every morning before or after my seated meditation.

I also have two 'self-therapy' books on the go - one is by Fiona Harrold (Be Your Own Life Coach) and the other is by Stephanie Dowrick (Intimacy and Solitude). I brought both these books with me to Afghanistan when I first came because they are reliable and accessible tools for working through complex thoughts and feelings and I long ago decided to keep them always within reach. They have been travelling with me for many years now - Intimacy and Solitude was in Gaza with me eight years ago.

Also on my pile are at least two moleskine journals (for reasons I don't even understand I have two on the go at any given time), Sabrina Ward Harrison's journal 'The True and the Questions' and my newest writing companion - 'Writing Down the Bones' by Natalie Goldberg. My moleskins actually don't stay on the table, they come everywhere with me. I even take them into work meetings in case I get bored with the discussions or I'm simply overcome wih creative energy and have no choice but to whip out the moleskine and let it all out.

Sigh, I *heart* books!

PS:  I was very excited to get a comment on my recent post from a very special old friend from my days in the Gaza Strip. He said something very true and very on-the-button so I wanted to repeat it here in case it is as useful to someone else as it was to me (Thanks M x):

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man."

Something to be thankful for...

If you are going to be dumped and heart-broken then it might as well be at the beginning of mango season. I can tell you that it is very hard to feel sorry for yourself when you are sitting in the sun eating a mango.