Thoughts a summer’s day…

At last some summer warmth. Am going to try to sit out and write…

I have had some email-exchanges with a friend and this has made me think on a lot of topics. One is the issue “information”.

Not informing is a power tool Berit Ås has said (already many years ago, it can even be 20 years ago I think!!). You can withhold information, both consciously and unconsciously or both/and.

In a Gestalt-group I joined almost ten years ago, there were many bosses or former bosses (and almost all were younger than I strikes me now), one who had been a fairly high boss in a well-known company here. His strategy, consciously, was not steering his staff/the employees under him, by telling them where he stood, what he thought, afraid of stifling their creativity if I remember right and interpreted him right. He kept secret about all this.

He went into the wall. Suddenly felt he had no feelings, no senses, he couldn’t perceive the environment. I think he thought this was fairly scary. And he left his job; got a leaving compensation (avgångvederlag in Swedish), he could live well on for a period (I don’t know or remember how long). Sought counselling, bought a dog… Joined this Gestalt therapy group (four weekends during almost half a year).

And he had got problems in the relation with the man he lived with too… Doubting his whole life? Questioning it? Yes, he had just passed 40 (was 43 then?)!! A 40-year crisis?? Already grey-haired… (a side-track: dad got a crisis when he was 44 and actually he thought it was a 40-years crisis, and that he even had these thoughts and expressed them was VERY unusual, that he confided his inner thoughts and feelings in that way. He got problems with swallowing food or something then, or felt he couldn’t breathe?? I was then 10 years, and got problems me too, similar. Mom wanted to photograph me and dad beside each others, but I didn’t want to be photographed with him, but obeyed. These photos are still left somewhere. I was taken to a psychologist, who tested my IQ, that’s how they handled such things then!!?? The answers to my problems were that I understood too much. “Damn that!!??” Did the child think so? I have weak memories of this test, of one was a cube built on smaller cubes and I should estimate how many cubes this cubes contained. I think I managed it).

On a session the therapist was struck by the thought/feeling that if you aren’t plain or clear (tydlig in Swedish) people don’t know what to react on. So this can be a protection; not to be clear with ones “purposes” (and that you don’t have any purposes either perhaps?)… You protect yourself against reactions, questions from the surrounding.

But this boss didn’t only make himself invisible to the people under him but also to himself!!?? And he was the oldest child of four (four brothers I think. I don’t think he had any sisters?? His father was very strict and demanding, a fairly high boss e too, and his mother very weak and unsure of herself and submissive if I remember right).

Is it the same with information: if you don’t inform as clearly as you can or work on your information people don’t know what they shall react against or on?? And maybe one doesn’t want them to either!!?? More or less consciously? You don’t want reactions, people getting the opportunity to question etc.? But a side-effect might be that the disappointment comes later and very strongly!!?? So you have to deal with it anyway, you just push things into the future? And the confidence and trust in you becomes lower? (maybe this also is a reflection of your own insecurity, both on yourself and in what you want to achieve?? The more insecure the more you are holding things for yourself and maybe also behave authoritative and even authoritarian?? To hide things?)

And I also came to think that small things can be collected in a heap; if you resonate in terms of “what is this to noise about (minimizing things??)” things can really grow to a volcanic eruption!!?? And thus really cause harm, irreparable. As the friend wrote: “small wounds has to be taken seriously too!!!”

This blogpost was triggered more by work-things than by personal things and relations. I thought when I started writing, but now I don’t know… This is true for other relations and circumstances than only work- too, and for me too!!?? The difficulty of communicating!!??

I wonder what is lying in the bottom of my thoughts and reactions and concerns about this issue/matter… I have my thoughts…

To really cooperate, and risk control and power by really starting to communicate (this parents also uses?? Strikes me now. So it starts already at this level?)?? The topic I have discussed with the friend above came to be the topic power and control.

Yes, communication can be scary too!!?? That to “keep conversation alive”!!??

And it is probably understandable why…

But the effects can be destructive and/or self destructive??? And that’s not good. Especially the more power you have; if you are a boss with power over others working-life an working-conditions, if you are a high leader in society, a parent towards a child, a teacher towards a pupil/student or any other relation where you are an authority of any kind!!?? Just some thoughts a nice summer’s day…

About Berit Ås: in English (Wikipedia).
In Swedish, here and here and here.

Addition July 24: I read on a site about symptom-fixing, addiction in doctors and experts and gurus and their treatment… (I dropped the link to the site, is in an email, but nmow I have ligged out from my email-box). Apropos treatment of addictions. Replacing one addiction with another... I can well understand if people do... So this you shall not moralize about!?? But do the helpers need to be a sort of... how shall I express this? The stronger? The upper? This I can be much more ironical about??

The photos taken yesterday, in Hälsingland. Today it's Norrbotten next; a tour on 850 km. By car. I am driving on my own...