It’s funny how life works. Or, rather, it’s funny how when you put your attention on something, it suddenly seems to be everywhere.

My focus has been on the idea and practice of building capacity. And it’s been popping up in my life in various ways -- from having my own capacity challenged to watching others struggle with their capacity to being on a consultant call where we were talked about the impact of work culture on people’s collective capacity.

However, building capacity is not necessarily an everyday term. When we say “we help people build their capacity”, people’s heads kinda tilt and their eyebrows furrow.

“So, do you mean you teach communication skills?”

And then our heads kinda tilt. Um, no. But not unrelated.

Building capacity is, in a way, everything that happens around communication.

Capacity is what you need before, during, and after communication has taken place. Building your capacity helps you use all the communication skills you’ve learned about -- “I statements”, active listening, being empathetic when challenged, seeking to understand, etc.

Building your capacity helps you deepen your ability to be more grounded and more present in a wider variety of stressful situations, particularly stressful interpersonal situations. And being grounded and more present does not always mean you will be comfortable. Building your capacity helps you get better at being uncomfortable.

Here are some examples of what building capacity makes possible:

Making it through family gatherings without losing connection to yourself or connection to your family
Responding to really challenging team or organizational relationship dynamics in ways that keep you in integrity with yourself and your colleagues.
Being upset by or in conflict with someone without making them or you “wrong”
Sitting with ambiguity, uncertainty, and confusion because you have learned how to care for yourself in these situations

Practically speaking, we want to strengthen our ability to stay connected with ourselves and others even in the face of discomfort and stress. To stay in relationship and not “other” the other person. To not have to make anyone or anything wrong*. To stay in, explore, and be guided by relating to ourselves and others rather than lashing out, shutting down, or disconnecting.

*(Yes, of course, there will be situations where something is definitely wrong and you will need to protect yourself but I am not talking about those situations here.)

Here are a few questions that help us understand our capacity:

To what degree can we stay present with ourselves and another?
To what degree can we “stand with ourselves” without feeling the need to “stand against” another?
To what degree can we be aware of what is happening in us (our, hearts, bodies) and aware of another of what might be happening in another?
What tends to “take us out”, “shut us down”, “push our buttons”?
How skilled are we at knowing how to recover our ground or center?
What is our ability to initiate and navigate repair?

At this point, you might be thinking, “So, Shannon, isn’t building capacity the same thing as developing our ability to be mindful, empathetic and/or emotionally intelligent?”

No, it’s not the same thing.

While these abilities are absolutely involved, I’ve found I can practice all of those things while staying completely in my head. Even after bringing yoga and meditation into my life, I was still in my head. And I’ve seen and experienced this with others, too.

Building capacity takes it deeper -- deeper into our bodies, into our nervous systems. Making it so we can go from noticing the state of our nervous systems to staying present to it to regulating and even co-regulating ourselves. There are whole books written about this -- I’d recommend starting with The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Ven Der Kolk, M.D..

Here’s a question I ask people in the programs I have around building capacity:

How is your nervous system doing?

This question tends to be new to people and helps them tune into their bodies and whole beings more, in deeper ways. To get beyond the increasingly mainstream understanding and practice of mindfulness or embodiment.

Developing this kind of capacity in myself has changed everything for me.

Truly. I mean, I will be building my capacity forever as I have barely scratched the surface AND I have strengthened my ability to notice and take care of my nervous system so that I can be with more discomfort of all kinds while staying more connected to myself and others.

So, a question or noticing to add to the others above is:

To what degree can you attune to your nervous system and how you are doing on that level?

I was in a moving and beautiful song circle and workshop just recently with Aaron Johnson and other amazing people from Holistic Resistance and throughout he said, “Let’s pause and notice one another. See if you can.”

And I’ll leave you here.

More soon. Building capacity is increasingly becoming the focus of my and Greg’s work.