How Am I Changing?…Or Not!

After I began looking at the man in the mirror, and seeing him, I wondered what I could do to still be me and honor the anger I knew was a big part of who I am. But, I would do this in a healthy way as opposed to just letting it leak out whenever and wherever.

I learned one way on a weekend in June of 2002.

It was the first time I chose to staff a New Warrior training. I had been working on how to be a better me for about 18 months. I felt it was the right time to share what I was learning with other men who might  benefit from  the lessons I was learning. I wasn’t really clear, going into this weekend, how to really be angry in clean, healthy way, though. Not until I saw a man named Turpin do some of his own work in a group of 35 other men.

I had learned a method, sometimes called a process, of dealing with issues where my emotions were running high about something someone else around me was doing. It might appear as something someone said and I had an emotional reaction to it. This method is referred to as a clearing. It’s also been labeled as using “clean talk.” Let me attempt to break the process down.

It begins with recognizing my emotions are churning about something. Once I’m clear about that, I would ask the person I think (pay attention here, this is gonna change later) is the core of my churning to step out to “clear” with me. If that person agrees, both of us go to the center of the group we’re meeting with. A third person is picked to facilitate the clearing. The facilitator acts as both a guide and a judge for the clearing being done.

The clearing is very specific about addressing four areas: data, feelings, judgments or opinions and wants or desires. The first part, the data, is almost always an area persons get tripped up on. In this context, data is indisputable fact. Neither party in the clearing should be able to argue about the data. For instance, if someone says something to which I have a reaction, the data would be to replay the exact language which was used. “Roy said I’m a contrarian.” If in fact Roy did say to me “You’re a contrarian” neither of us can argue that. What’s not data might look like me saying, “Roy said I’m a contrarian and that makes me a bad person.” Adding the additional phrase, is my judgment or opinion about what he said. It’s not fact. The feelings are also well defined in a clearing. Do I feel mad, sad, glad, guilty or ashamed concerning the situation. For me, the last two guilt and shame are areas I have to be very careful about. As I see it, guilt is about something I did or didn’t do; I made a mistake. Shame on the other hand, goes much more to my core. It’s about who I am. Not, I made a mistake, but I am a mistake. Something about me isn’t right. Very distinct and different feelings, in my opinion. Judgments or opinions is where things are fairly relaxed. When I give my opinion on something, I offer a conclusion or a judgment that, although it may be open to question, seems true or probable to me at the time. Lastly, there’s wants or desires. What outcome do I want or desire from this clearing?

Remember I said earlier something would change in the clearing? Here’s how. What I’ve come to believe is a clearing or engaging in clean talk with someone is never really about that other person. It’s about me. The other person is merely a catalyst for something really internal. During the course of the clearing, a good facilitator (this is my opinion here, not data) will help me see how this is really about me. Going back to the example of Roy calling me a contrarian, it’s very likely I don’t like others I consider contrary therefore, someone calling me contrary brings up emotions about other things I don’t like about me. I’m probably not fully aware I don’t like the contrary side of myself, so someone saying it out loud….well, you get the point.

I hope at this point, I’ve managed to help you understand a clearing. So, how did watching Turpin help me? Well, something happened during the course of the weekend he and I were on which caused emotions to stir in Turpin. He asked the other person to do a clearing with him and the other person agreed. It was during the feelings portion of the clearing where I learned something. Often, someone will say, “I’m angry” in a tone one might use in church. But in this instance, Turpin, who had a flowing mane of blond hair, bent over and whipped that mane as he stood back up. He screamed, “I’m angry!” It was like watching an actor in a play. His anger came from the depths of his soul. It was loud. It was messy. But, it was controlled. Watching Turpin, I had no doubt he was mad and neither did anyone else in the room.

From that day, whenever I did a clearing with someone where I was angry, I let my anger come out full force. No holding back. There was always an imaginary line in front of me I wouldn’t cross. But, whoever stood in front of me had no doubt how I was feeling. Eventually, the way that helped in my everyday life was finding a place I could go away from the person I was angry with, and yell; letting my anger out safely and without negative repercussions. Sometimes, I wouldn’t be able to do that, so I would just play a scene in my head of how it would look if I could go yell somewhere. It wasn’t quite as satisfying, but it did work.

I found an outlet for my anger in the clearing process. I did it a lot for several years. Someone came to a meeting late, I did a clearing with that person and screamed. Someone said something I didn’t like, I did a clearing. Someone behaved in a way I didn’t like, I did a clearing. There were some persons I scared so badly with my anger, they were ready to fight with me if I did lose control and throw a punch. I never did and never will. After several years, I found I didn’t need to scream and yell so much. I did a lot of work around my anger. There are times, though, when that’s what I want to do to release something building emotionally within me.

Oh, I did learn a couple of other things, too. My anger was almost always about sadness or fear I was not expressing. And, whenever I did a clearing, I began realizing it really wasn’t about the other person. It was always about me.

How Am I Changing? For the better!

 

 

I want to share some background, highlighting an event or two which may have been the wakeup calls I didn’t want to pay attention to.

From either late summer or early fall of 1980 for nine, long miserable months, I worked as a photojournalist at the Walla Walla (WA) Union-Bulletin. Talk about ID10Ts! The managing editor was a nightmare.

One incident there involved a riot at the state penitentiary. We knew about it the day before because one of our reporters had obtained info it was going to happen. The morning of the riot, I climbed a sort of fire escape near the prison which would allow me to see over the top of the prison and shoot anything newsworthy. I got some great pics!

When I returned to the paper, late for my shift, the ME was furious. Now, understand, the paper didn’t give much play to the penitentiary because the towns persons, the subscribers, didn’t want to read about it. I pretty much ignored his ramblings and went to the darkroom to develop and print my photos. The ME calls me down to his office and chews me a new one. “We are not going to be running any of your photos!” he proclaimed. Pretty calmly, unusual for me at 28, I said, “Well OK. But I want you to understand we are an AP (Associated Press) and UPI (United Press International) affiliate paper. As such, we are under obligation to share what we have to those organizations. It’s going to look a little funny when our photos appear all over the region, but not in our own paper, don’t you think?” He became even angrier. Red as a beet, he yelled at me, “Give me your best two photos!” They ran front page.

Ultimately, I was fired in Walla Walla, a week after I’d quit,  because I’d been using the company phone to call my girl friend in Missouri. I think I ran up a  $500 bill one month.

I had quit the Union-Bulletin to take a job in Cedar Rapids, IA. One I didn’t really want. When I was interviewed there, I thought I had nothing to lose by telling the ME at that paper what my reputation was like. “I want to be clear with you, John. Probably within the first six months, most of your staff will hate me and the photo staff (the short term guy on the photo staff had already been there 12 years) may get stirred up before that.” The ME said, “Good, this place needs some stirring up.” Still apprehensive, I asked, “Will you stand behind me, then?” He responded in the affirmative and he did….for three years.

Almost immediately in Cedar Rapids, I started pissing persons off. Towns people in addition to the staff. The ME didn’t understand the part about the towns persons, and called me in one night to discuss it. “You told me there’d be problems with the staff, you didn’t say anything about problems with our subscribers.” I tried explaining there had been situations where someone I was photographing, or their child, was attempting to direct how I was making my picture. In no uncertain terms, and with no sense of being polite, I told them to get out of my way and let me do my job the best I knew how. Those folks didn’t hesitate to call the paper and give someone an earful of how rude the new photographer was. Incidents like this continued for the duration of my tenure in Cedar Rapids.

The straw that broke that ME’s back came in December of 1983. I was shooting a University of Iowa football game. It was raining cats & dogs and Iowa had astroturf on the field. Perhaps you don’t know about astroturf and rain, but when it rains hard, astroturf just collects the water on the surface. Eventually, it’s like wallowing through a deep puddle.

The University sports department had a rule for sideline photographers. While shooting, we were supposed to go down on one knee to allow the fans to see the game more clearly. Well, when it rained, no one on the sidelines went down because it would have been like taking a bath in cold water.

Here’s where it gets good (or bad.) I’m standing on the sidelines in the middle of a play and a small, stocky Iowa Highway Patrol sergeant on the sidelines grabs my jacket and grunts, “Get down!” at me. I missed my shot. And I was now wet. Or wetter. Take your choice. I got up, turned to the guy and said angrily, “If you put your hands on me again, I’ll sue your department for assault!” It’s probably not to difficult to imagine the scene which ensued. Unfortunately for me, one of the University’s Sports Department officials witnessed the whole thing.

The following Monday, I was called into the ME’s office, with my boss, the photo editor and the sports editor. “Donny, I’ve backed you for three, long hard years. I just can’t do it anymore.” I was fired on the spot.

For most of 1984, I sent out more than 30 portfolios trying to get another newspaper job. Whether it was my Peck’s Bad Boy reputation, or the fact the economy wasn’t in the best of shape and the papers I was applying to could hire two “cub” photographers for what they’d have to pay me I don’t know. Fact is, I couldn’t find another photojournalism job. And never did. I miss being a news photographer almost every day.

This was the fourth newspaper I’d been fired from. I firmly believed it wasn’t me. It was all the ID10Ts around me. It would be another 16 years before I heeded what the Universe had been trying to teach me.

How Am I Changing? Not!

This is the beginning. Before I started getting tuned in to realizing if I really want to live the life I was meant to, some changes are needed to begin the transformation.