A Mason's Work

[00:00] So yesterday I said we'd talk about how to interrupt the meta conversation without kind
[00:05] of blowing up the room or damaging relationships.
[00:08] And that's today.
[00:10] So before we get into the techniques and the ways we might solve this problem or address
[00:18] the challenge, because it's not really a problem, it's not a problem until it becomes one, is
[00:24] again, I want to reiterate that the cost of interrupting here isn't always obvious.
[00:29] In the moment, the meta conversation feels like it's going nowhere and it usually is,
[00:37] but that doesn't mean it's not doing something.
[00:41] The meta conversation is not static, it's moving.
[00:45] And every time you take a statement of the way the world should be, if only things were
[00:51] different, every time that sort of makes it through the conversational dialogue, that
[00:59] feeling begins to fester into fact.
[01:05] It's this soft, squishy perspective that begins to edify into this thick fog for the conversation.
[01:17] And then that fog turns into a mire and that mire turns into an implied assumption about
[01:26] the way the world works that everyone in the conversation collectively absorbs.
[01:32] It's, it becomes a fact.
[01:36] It becomes a felt fact.
[01:39] And this is where stuff gets very difficult because you can't then address it when it has hit that
[01:47] level of communal sort of reality.
[01:51] Change at that point becomes much more difficult to move through.
[01:56] So when it comes time to do this, to make the changes in the conversation that don't turn into
[02:06] violence or madness, the way you have to do that, um, is, is kind of one of three approaches.
[02:17] I'm going to put them in order, but your situation may vary.
[02:21] Um, the order, the first order is this, uh, one, you know, first things first, whenever somebody's
[02:30] expressing a feeling, uh, it's really productive to name that feeling.
[02:35] It seems like you're really frustrated.
[02:38] You sound upset.
[02:41] This seems really important to you.
[02:44] Any of those kinds of sentiments express and acknowledge their felt reality of the moment
[02:49] that someone may be having, you'll find that that alone oftentimes moves the conversation
[02:57] to a different level because sometimes people complain because they just want to felt heard.
[03:03] When, uh, you move past the acknowledgement of feelings and into the next part of the solution,
[03:12] you want to, to then immediately try and drive to an exact in the moment behavior that could help solve
[03:23] the problem.
[03:24] Wow.
[03:25] You sound really frustrated.
[03:27] What's the thing that I can do in the next hour that might help alleviate that frustration?
[03:33] What's the one thing you could do to prevent you from having this feeling again, next time we talk,
[03:42] if we were all to take one step forward towards the objectives we're talking about,
[03:49] what would that look like?
[03:51] And in doing that, we move from the language of these projected systems and projected realities to
[04:00] back to internalizing the locus of control.
[04:04] You always want to do this as a first resort.
[04:08] Uh, if you can, sometimes it doesn't work.
[04:16] Sometimes the lift is simply too great.
[04:20] The grievance is too entrenched.
[04:22] The room is too invested in the commiseration.
[04:25] Uh, and, and I think the next phase of this is naming where the conversation is in the grand
[04:38] scheme of conflict resolution.
[04:41] Say something like, Hey, I want to flag something right now.
[04:45] I think we've moved from solving this problem to describing it.
[04:48] And I'm not sure that any additional description is going to help me change my behavior.
[04:55] Can we talk about ways that we might do that?
[04:59] It's a softer drive to action.
[05:01] It's, uh, a calling out the communal, um, sort of vibe you're creating with the people in the room.
[05:09] And that in and of itself as well allows you to essentially hold the conversation accountable
[05:18] and not the people in it.
[05:21] There's not a ton of benefit to pointing to a specific individual in the room and saying,
[05:28] you keep talking trash.
[05:32] Why do you hate what we're trying to do?
[05:35] All right.
[05:35] Like that's never going to help.
[05:38] Uh, so when we talk about the conversational status or the situation that you're experiencing,
[05:45] you always want to be mindful, uh, particularly in group settings of calling out the conversation
[05:54] as the thing that is having a bad behavior, as opposed to the individuals in the conversation.
[06:00] If you need to talk to somebody privately about how they're contributing to the collective narrative,
[06:07] that's a great use of a private conversation.
[06:11] Your last step is the step taken by the fellow craft masons in the third degree.
[06:18] And that is to withdraw.
[06:19] You can recant and say, this is a conversation that I don't feel is productive.
[06:27] And for my health and for what I think is the best course of action, I'm going to have
[06:32] to take a step back.
[06:34] This is an okay response.
[06:36] It's not the first line of defense.
[06:39] It's not the place I would go immediately.
[06:41] Uh, it does have some consequences associated with it.
[06:46] However, you can always control how much you contribute to it.
[06:51] And if you can't change it, if you don't have the social capital to venture in a conversation,
[07:00] to, to say these things or to take these actions, withdrawal is entirely appropriate.
[07:07] And sometimes you don't even have to explain that and you can just stop contributing.
[07:13] And that's okay.
[07:16] As you go through this process of trying to change the narrative from the meta conversation
[07:22] to something that's action driven and helps move your environment forward, your lodge,
[07:29] your home life, your, you know, conversations with your sick of living, other kids, every conversation
[07:35] you're ever going to get involved in has this sort of meta risk.
[07:38] And these processes are great ways to start mitigating that meta conversation and moving
[07:45] your collective environment forward.
[07:48] We'll talk a little bit more over the next couple of days about other ways that you can
[07:53] take this and run with it and move that forward to create better outcomes for your family and
[07:58] the people around you.