Presence

The value of being with

TW: This essay discusses sexual violence

This weekend I watched Women Talking. The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Miriam Toews, and was written by Sarah Polley who won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for her script.

The movie is, indeed, about women talking. A group of women sit in a hayloft and try to decide how to respond to a series of sexual assaults in their religious community. The novel was inspired by a true story. A group of women in a Mennonite community were drugged with animal tranquilizers and raped while they were unconscious. They were told that they hadn’t been assaulted, but attacked by Satan, or that they were making it up.

What struck me was the dynamic of how the women talked. This particular group of women has been empowered by all the women in the community to decide what their response should be after a vote is split evenly between “Leave” and “Stay and Fight.” The women can’t read or write so they vote by making an X under pictures of leaving or staying and fighting.

They listen to one another. They are forgiving and open when one or more of them has a strong emotion. Anger and frustration are tolerated and not shamed. Women with differing opinions are allowed to speak.

And they are close to one another. Literally close. One woman has what appears to be a panic attack, and the others rush to her, offering comfort in different ways. One woman prays over her, another lights a cigarette because the woman having the panic attack smokes. She then waves the lit cigarette under her friend’s nose, like a kind of offering. They are touching her, holding her.

In another scene, one of the younger children of the women comes in and is upset. Her mother picks her up and sits with her arms around her daughter. She sits on a hay bale, and the other women quickly surround her. They don’t say or do anything. But their presence is intense, they lean in, and you can feel their presence as a kind of hymn of support.

And they sing. At times, for a break, they sing hymns, joining hands. At one point they bring tea or coffee, and pass out mugs to everyone. You can imagine the warmth of the cups pressed into hands by the women around them.

It reminded me of the gift of presence. How powerful it can be to just be with, to accompany. We are built for community, after all. I think of the way in which any woman who has cared for an infant will start to sway when she holds a baby, even someone else’s child. Kid on the hip, we start swaying rhythmically back and forth.

Presence is one of the unsung strengths of good leaders. The ability to sit with someone who is learning, or struggling, or having a hard time. Presence is quiet. It’s not about fixing or admonishing or advising. It’s not about words or skills, beyond the skill to be next to someone. I think that’s why the phrase “making space” became so popular – making space is another way to say being present.

One of the best bosses I ever had was a woman named Linda Weaver. She was my boss at one of my early jobs. She was a great boss for many reasons – she got us lots of trainings, she was attentive and clear and helpful. She was very skilled and happy to pass those skills on.

And she showed me how to do presence. One day we were at an offsite sales team meeting, and I got a call that my son had broken his arm in after school day care. One of the teachers had taken him to the ER, and I was to join them there.

Linda knew I was a single mom. She was also a single mom. Somehow, she knew I didn’t have any family around and that my ex-husband lived in France. She ended the meeting early and drove me to the hospital. I don’t remember who I got to pick up my daughter, but I remember Linda sitting with me. I saw my son, we waited for x-rays and getting a cast on and all the other things that happen with a broken arm. I told Linda she didn’t have to stay with me, there wasn’t anything she could do. But she stayed. Because she understood the value of presence. And I could feel her, sitting silently on the other side of the room, a kind of emotional background music that kept me calm and grounded.

That happened over twenty years ago, and it’s one of my strongest memories of that job, that boss. I write and talk often about bad bosses. But there are good bosses. A good boss, especially early in a career, can have the same impact on a life as a really good teacher in school, someone who believes in you and encourages you and molds your understanding of the potential you have in the world.

Any of us can practice presence. Step away from your electronic devices. Focus on the person you want to be present to, and see what they might want. Children may want to play and talk. Teens may need the protection of adjacency – I found mine to be most talkative in a car sitting to my right. An adult might want to walk or do a shared activity.

Try to find a calm center in yourself and imagine yourself just making space for this person; space away from the clutter of your thoughts or worries; space apart from thinking we need to fix or control or manage anything. Let go of any expectations you may have about how this other person will react to your presence. And just wait. Be. Listen deeply. Keep appropriate eye contact. Consider what words, if any, they use as information, not as the prelude to your speech or a question to which you need to respond.

It can be hard to do, like a kind of meditation. But it also is a skill that gets easier with practice.