Getting in my own way
I get in my own way. A lot. I’ve been watching me doing this for a while. Noticing. Observing. Reflecting.
Most often it’s my Righteous One that cuts me off at the pass. She’s the one who insists on holding her ground around her values, who has a hard time seeing any other perspective than her own. She fears that if she bends, she might break.
No, actually, that’s not it. She fears that if she bends, people will think she’s inauthentic. Authenticity is a big thing for her. Apparently. For me, that is.
Unexamined, Righteous One becomes Dead Right. As in dead in the water. Because I’m so busy tending to my authenticity that I lose sight of the bigger picture, the long game, the other things that are important to me.
“What do they say? Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good,” my friend, Karen, said to me as I shared reflections on Righteous One with her.
Let me tell you, this coming into relationship with your fallback takes a damn village. I count my blessings that I have one that is willing to reflect back to me that which I cannot see…or even that which I can’t help but see but with a different filter, new language, and love for me in my fullness.
So there it is. I’ve named it for myself, shared it with a few, then with several, and now I’m sharing it, me, here, with you. And I’m inviting you into my process, my practice, of coming into relationship with my Righteous One/Dead Right. Let’s see what wishes to reveal itself.
***
I’ve spent the last 15 years attempting to understand the phenomenon of fallback in human development…when we are incapable of accessing the features of our bigger self, usually in contexts where those very features would be super helpful to have at the ready. Why was it that sometimes my actions, my emotions, my mental capacities, my whole being could be in flow, aligned with what I stood for in the world, in service to my intentions…yet at other times, I could out-tantrum my 2-year-old, tumbling into the deep trenches of my [supposedly] long ago transformed-beyond younger, smaller, more juvenile, less capable self?
And if this was a phenomenon that I wasn’t the only human experiencing, where was this in developmental theory? Everywhere I looked, I saw development posed as a journey of growth, of moving beyond that which held us into something new and expansive. I saw this in the writings about theory. I saw it in the assessments and debriefings that identified a point on a developmental line to which we were hooked…by gravity no less… “This is your developmental center-of-gravity,” we are told. Once I have arrived, there I am. I saw it in the research that had been conducted on the connections between a leader’s developmental stage and their leadership effectiveness; on the connections between an executive coach/consultant’s developmental stage and the effectiveness of the leader. Later stage = more effective. Ergo, we must grow.
Even as I set out to conduct research on fallback, when our center-of-gravity stage is nowhere to be found, when our leadership effectiveness has plummeted, when we are more constricted versions of who we had been just two minutes before – my goal was to name it, to figure out what it was about, so.we.could.get.rid.of.it. So we could grow. I wanted to tidy up what I saw as the frayed edges of a theory that I believed hadn’t fully explored and accounted for and articulated how and when and why development was not forward-moving. I wanted to do this so the theory would be more complete, more truthful, more representative of the actual human experience of development, more authentic. And then I wanted us to get back to the business of growing folks.
What authenticity in the theory of development looked like to me was that it accounted for the ways we both move forward and stumble back in the process of development. Instead of guiding folks on a tour of the stairway to heaven that marked transformation, we could now let them know that those stairs occasionally got slippery when the rain came, alert them to the absence of a railing to hold onto when the wind kicked up, let them know that there would be mis-steps and missed steps that caused them to stumble. Development, in truth, was a moving forward and tumbling back process.
So, when the prevalent language around what I had been calling adult development and human development was overtaken by the “vertical development” nomenclature, and that vernacular was, indeed, what was being taken up in businesses and organizations as the rallying cry, my righteousness was triggered. The adjective vertical conjured for me, again, the sense that development was onward, upward and also hierarchical, much as we like to disclaim that later is not better.
It apparently conjures this same sense for Merriam-Webster which defines vertical as
“situated at the highest point: directly overhead or in the zenith” and “of, relating to, or comprising persons of different status.”
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the adjective vertical similarly to Merriam-Webster --
“Of or pertaining to, placed or situated at, passing through, the vertex or zenith;”
and then goes beyond with
“occupying a position in the heavens directly overhead or above a given place or point.”
A position in the heavens?! Who wouldn’t want to hold that?
Oxford Languages, in its first definition is a bit more humble. The adjective vertical is defined as
“at right angles to a horizontal plane; in a direction, or having an alignment, such that the top is directly above the bottom.”
Of course, this pointing to a top and a bottom, I could interpret as up and down, a representation of both directions with neither possessing the preferred spot. Nonetheless, for me, inevitably, the moniker of vertical reinforces that imagery of a thing that is upward, to the top, toward the zenith. Which doesn’t feel authentic to me.
Enter Righteous One.
Righteous One refuses on principal to use the language of “vertical development” for fear that I may contribute to the undoing of an understanding of development as multi-directional, of an undoing of my own efforts to make the theory more complete, more human, more honest, more authentic. And to risk those who have watched me on this development=forward+backward soap box tour, to now see me as “selling out” by using the vertical language…well…my sense of identity, of who I know me to be, of who I wish to be seen as, feels threatened.
What if they think I am inauthentic? [Gasp!] To which the next questions might be, “Well what if they do? What would be the worst part of that for me?”
And from this mark I go to my desire to control the narrative, my naïve belief that I actually might be able to, if only I hold my ground. Who represents this value for me in these scenes? The Screenwriter? The Grip (as in those who handle the lighting in the film industry and also as in the kind of hold I wish to have on things)? I’m going to go with The Grip for now, since it seems to conjure the more constricted (reactive vs. creative) self that is cued onto these scenes. But of course I know that I can’t control the narrative. So I double down in my righteousness, The Righteous One morphing into Dead Right
Why Dead Right? Why do I feel I am dead in the water? Because if “Vertical” is the language that resonates, even if growth alone is the motivator, if I refuse to engage, to speak in a language that people outside of the fields of human development and adult development can understand, then I will not reach them. There will be no opportunity for me to share that vertical actually refers to being “at right angles to a horizontal plane; in a direction, or having an alignment, such that the top is directly above the bottom;” no chance to show why and how that matters. I’ve just removed myself from the conversation. If my intention is to make the field of adult development more complete, more truthful, more human, and more authentic, absenting myself from the dialogue by refusing to speak in a language that makes sense to most of the population sure ain’t going to get me there.
So here I am. Speaking the words “vertical development”. Writing them. V e r t i c a l D e v e l o p m e n t. Hashtagging them. #verticaldevelopment [just an aside that social media itself is a significant cue for my Righteous One to storm the stage…we won’t go there…not now, at least.)
So here I am, naming Righteous One mashed up with Dead Right now entangled with The Grip. I’m claiming my fears around inauthenticity. Owning my inability to control the narrative. And also honoring my intention, looking to the long game, as I step into this vertical space and amplify the definition of the adjective vertical as describing our trips to the top and the bottom of development.
