Ep.11 Evolution through Relationship

In this episode, Katie talks with CRR Global co-founder Faith Fuller about evolution through relationship, which is a major theme in your upcoming book Relationship Matters: A New Paradigm for an Evolutionary Leap in Relationships. Across the conversation, they discuss:

• Why relationship is essential for human evolution
• What gets in the way of relationship?
• Slowing down to be present with the relationships in our lives
• Our relationship with nature
• Faith’s high dreams for relationship work

Faith Fuller is a co-founder of CRR Global. She is a psychologist and experienced trainer and coach, with over 20 years of experience working with organizations, couples and communities. Faith takes a systems approach to coaching, namely that all aspects of the system need to be addressed in order for effective change to occur. Her particular skill is empowering powerful, productive and joyous relationships in couples, partnerships and teams. She also has a background in consultation, team building, conflict resolution and community crisis intervention.


For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time

We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

Transcript

Key 

KC – Katie Churchman

FF – Faith Fuller 

[Intro 00:00 – 00:06] 

KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast. We believe relationship matters, from humanity, to nature, to the larger whole. I’m your host, Katie Churchman, And in this episode, I'm talking with CRR Global co-founder Faith Fuller about evolution through relationship, which is a major theme in her upcoming book Relationship Matters: A New Paradigm for an Evolutionary Leap in Relationships. Across this conversation, we discuss why relationship is essential for human evolution; what gets in the way of relationship; slowing down to be present with the relationships in our lives; our relationship with nature; and some of Faith’s high dreams for relationship work. Faith Fuller is co-founder of CRR Global. She is a psychologist and experienced trainer and coach with over 20 years of experience working with organizations, couples and communities. Faith takes a systems approach to coaching, mainly that all aspects of the system need to be addressed in order for effective change to occur. Her particular skill is empowering powerful, productive and joyous relationships in couples, partnerships and teams. She also has a background in consultation team building, conflict resolution, and community crisis intervention. So I bring you Faith Fuller talking about evolution through relationship.

KC – Hi Faith, welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast, I'm always so happy to have you on the show. 

FF - Well, it's always delightful for me to be here. 

KC - And today we've got a big topic evolution through relationship. And I know this is a major theme of your upcoming book Relationship Matters: A New Paradigm for an Evolutionary Leap in Relationships, and I want to start by asking you what you mean when you say evolution through relationship? 

FF - Well, that's an evolving topic for me. I think I wanted to write this book because I'm feeling like, we do a great job of coach training in ORSC but relationship is the province of everybody, we all are in relationships and I wanted to write a book that got the concept of the importance of relationship in our lives as human beings, as members of the globe, that's more than just for coaches. This is something that I hope will speak to people on the street, not just coaches, and it's a concept that I think we powerfully need to get behind as people, as a species, if we're going to keep our planet intact and survive as a species. 

KC – So, with all the technological advances, and the speed of change so fast in those domains, why do you feel that relationship is so essential for human evolution? 

 FF - Well, that's the point, I think, is that we do have all these technological advances, we have a lot of science, you know, I barely get an iPhone before the next version is out. We have plenty of scientific and technical knowledge. It's not doing much that knowledge to improve our relationships with each other, with a planet. We're obviously living through a time of incredible strife, particularly in the United States, partisanship, hostility, wars - we are not a happy species at the moment. And technology and science is like, you know, an analogy I use in the book, it's like being handcuffed to somebody with one arm and a knife in the other. So, we cannot get away from each other as a species. But we have the capacity to destroy ourselves simply because we don't know how to get along. In some ways it's as simple as that. We don't know how to get along with the different aspects of ourselves within us. We don’t know how to get along with our families and work colleagues. We don't know how to get along across nations and we certainly don't know how to get along with nature. So, the one main theme that we have not really tackled as a species is how do we do relationship better? So, that's why I wanted to write the book. 

KC - And what's interesting is my question was around why this is essential for human evolution, and yet it doesn't seem to be just about us thriving but surviving as a species, 

FF – I think so, yeah. I think the capacity to be aware of and competent in relationship is the basis of just about all the pain there is in the universe or at least in the world and also the source of joy, and we're not tapping the source of joy that is possible if we were to be in full and intimate relationship with, say, nature, it’s not something to be manipulated but it's something that brought us profound sense of belonging and joy. So, we're not thriving, and we may not survive if we don't get a handle on this sense of how we are separate from everything in the world and it's that separateness that leads us to abuse others, whether it's the planet or ourselves. 

KC - Well, I wonder if we can touch a bit more on that separateness, you mentioned offline, that you were just on a beautiful nature, immersion, and you felt this sense of oneness, and do you feel that it's our sense of separateness that is causing us to ignore relationship, because it's always been there, and yet, it doesn't seem so obvious to us in our day to day lives?

FF – Well, absolutely and I just want to do a small side trip to the fact that, not only the natural but also the scientific perspective, everything is relationship. Molecules are in either repulsion, attraction or neutrality. Galaxies swing around each other according to the great gravity webs - everything is relationship in terms of a reaction, attraction, or neutrality around something, and if we can't grasp that then we cannot feel that sort of sense of how everything is interconnected with everything else. So, when I went down the river, I just suddenly realized that I was in relationship with every rapid on the river. I was in relationship with ospreys, the herons that were there, each one was vividly present for me and connected to me and impacting me. And of course, I was impacting the environment, too. As I went down, as I scared an osprey away or noticed a bear gathering berries, I was in relationship with all of it and I did not feel separate. That sense of this is over there and I'm over here and I could manipulate it in some way. We were one at that time. 

KC - What a beautiful, powerful experience that must have been. 

FF - Yeah, and I think it's possible to have that all the time. I hope, I hope. I want to have that all that time. All the time where I'm in the third entity of you and me, right now I'm in the third entity with a river, I'm in the third entity with my child or my spouse and that brings an enormous sense of belonging, connectedness, and of being in a web of life. 

KC - And we speak to the web of relationships, and yet, it's so fundamental, yet it seems to be something we so easily forget, which, when you think about relationships, just in terms of ourselves, I mean, we aren't just one thing, there are so many microorganisms that live on our bodies and yet often we think of ourselves as I am over here, I'm Katie, and you over there, behind your screen, you are Faith, and yet, I guess at a scientific level, there's just lots of particles bumping around and making the energy with which creates our interaction. I wonder how do we focus on this more because it's hard to be so meta about this in our everyday lives? 

FF – That’s a really good point, well, one of the things I tried to do in my book is provide a lot of stories, many cases, lots of stories of interactions with teams, interactions in my own relationships and family, because I think I wanted there to be a practical application for this stuff. So, the book begins with the concept of a model that has a mission which is evolution through relationship which we already talked about and there's a path, In other words, how do we actually do that? And the books divided into two sections there - relationship warriorship which is about the being aspect. I'm doing relationship, how do I evolve in my being in terms of how I relate to my world? And then the final bit is right relationship which is the somewhat elusive because it is the mysterious goal of all this is to be in right relationship. So there's ways in which we need to think about how do I need to be, what do I need to have as my intention in order to move through and what the hell is right relationship anyway in this very moment? Because it changes. What's right relationship when my teenager comes home two hours late for curfew because she just broke up with her boyfriend and she's completely a wreck - is right relationships sticking and being strict about the rules? Is right relationship about being there with her for her pain? What does it mean to be in right relationship? And it's a constant evolution to try to discern what is asked of me right now to get as close as I can to right relationship with my daughter or whatever else is in front of me. 

KC – So, I'm struck by the way you're speaking, it feels so much more like a journey, this evolution through relationship, as opposed to a destination. Do you think that action orientated destination focused way of being gets in the way of relationship in many ways? 

FF - Yes, I think we need the tools and the skills which is why we did the ORSC series in certification, it’s precisely because there are things you can do. 

KC – Yeah. 

FF – But, I think it is also… wow, I'm just gonna come on out there and say it - it's a spiritual path. Right relationship is a spiritual path and I don't often use that word, because spirituality is so ‘woo woo’ for a lot of people, but the fact of the matter is it's a vertical development that has to do with evolution, with becoming the best who I can be. And I think all of us want to be. There's a natural drive to be the best we can be and where is it more important to be the best I can be then with my own co-workers, than with my own family? So, I think there is a being aspect, an aspiration that is similar to spiritual development. How do I aspire to be? What is my evolutionary growth pattern here in relationship that can be as powerful and as meaningful as any other kinds of spirituality, and frankly, more practical. It has to do with, with you and me, with my family, with my community, with my globe, my world. So very practical, as well as being deep personal growth. 

KC - One thing I've become aware of more and more is that it seems that relationship doesn't necessarily operate at the pace of change that we're living through. An example that comes to mind is I was working with a client the other day, he works in quite a high pressure law firm, his goal is to improve his impact around communication. In the session he actually had his camera off and I could hear him tapping. And he, he was taking ages to reply to questions. And so eventually, I revealed that back - I'm noticing something around your communication. But it's interesting how his goal and then his intention and his impact, there's a huge gap. And I wonder, with many of us, we might really want to be the certain father or the certain friend or the certain leader in our community, perhaps, but actually, the reality of that is quite different because life is telling us to go, go, go, and actually relationship can't keep up. 

FF - Yeah, you know, I so agree with you. I'm just thinking about myself, I would say the biggest obstacle to my own personal growth is my speed and impatience. 

KC - Oh, interesting. 

FF - Yeah, I realized how difficult it is to stop with your child or your sick dog or whatever, when you are rushing, because you're late for work, or how I'm constantly not where I am, but where I need to be next in terms of how I think about my life. So, I'm not really present with where I am which is where the growth is because I'm thinking about where the goal, how do I get my employee to do this for me the fastest way possible, preferably. How do I get to the goal without doing the process of the work? And I miss my whole life that way, I miss my whole life because I'm never where I am and I'm never learning from the moment. Instead I'm rushing to move forward to the goal. And there isn't any goal in the future, there is only now, there's only this moment. 

KC - So, what has helped you to slow down and be more mindful because it's really hard to resist that pull of the pace of life. 

FF - Yeah. The best answer for me was getting cancer. I'm not advocating that for others. But a part of it also is where we are in our own lifecycle. I think it's natural to be impatient and in a hurry when you are in your 20s, 30s and 40s and there are things you're trying to achieve and we're achievement oriented, and that's appropriate. I don't want to imply that that's not correct, I think that's the drive of human nature is to get stuff done. The advantage of when you get older is you hit some sort of a wall, whether it's a choice your body gives out in some way, or your mind gives out or you're forced to slow down, it's the nature of getting older. And it isn't until for many of us that we hit that wall that we can stop and reflect because that forward motion is so intense. I do think any kind of practice that helps you to slow down and be, it can be a meditation practice, it can be walking,, running in the flow, it can be just sitting outside and having a cup of coffee - anything that slows you down, where you're not rushing to do is how we can get in touch with that and slow down. 

KC - It's so interesting you say cancer, because for me it was having four knee surgeries in my early 20s. I’ve got a cartilage defects in both knees and I think for me that was such a shocker because I was always, literally and metaphorically, on the treadmill. And suddenly… and it's a little bit uncomfortable initially, when you're thrown off that treadmill and you're sort of forced to sit, but then suddenly, there's this joy in the simple things like taking a bath and eating foods slower, not just scoffing it down while you're doing something on the laptop, which many of us do. 

FF -Yes.

KC – That starts to reconnect you with those simple pleasures, but also, those huge parts of life that often we're missing. 

FF - I love what you're saying about that. And it's funny to say thi but in some ways having that kind of injury has huge gifts to us. This literally slowed you down and then we have to pass through the frustration of this is my body, it's not doing what I want, my relationship with my body is messed up, and you want to get it better so you can go back to the forward rush and I'm still on the question of whether it's necessary to be in the forward rush during that time of achievement in our life. Maybe it is. I don't know, Katie, what do you think? 

KC - It's tricky, because I wonder if we get to the other side and then we look back and we realize we haven't really been present for much of it at all. So, I think a lot about, so I'm currently pregnant with twins, as you know, and a lot of people tell me that the first year goes by in a blur and that might be my reality but I kind of hope it's not because I really want to be able to remember some of these special moments, even if I am tired, even if I am really unsure of what I'm meant to be doing, I don't want it to go by in a blur and so it sort of makes me think about when you're driving really fast in the car and you can't really see the landscape, it's just the sort of blur and I don't want my life to be like that, even if it is the busy time of life, I want to be able to see the trees and the forests, I guess.

FF -  You want to be in relationship with your world, you want to be in relationship which is in the present always, with your babies, with your husband, with this time in your life and I think that is part of the evolution of human beings, is to be present and connected with what is happening in their lives instead of constantly dashing to the next thing and never actually landing in any place and being there for it. 

KC - Because one thing that struck me when you said about cancer and I mentioned my knees, those relationships, too, are really powerful paths for evolution, and they don't always seem that way initially and yet, those unexpected curveballs, we could call them, they can be assets for evolution to. I wonder if you could talk more about that. 

FF - At this time in my life, I think this is something that is a truism that becomes almost trite but every single thing, if you believe in what we call the lion's roar in ORSC which is the everything is the beginning of something trying to happen, everything has a wisdom aspect and it's almost trite to say that, but we we seem to need to rediscover that truth over and over and over again. So, although I don't wish I had cancerx the impact of my relationship with it and its relationship with me has changed me in profound ways that I don't want to miss. I'm glad for the awareness it has brought, and certainly everything that happens to us impacts us and changes us in some way. And the question is, how do we find the wisdom in every crappy thing that happens to us? And I don't want to be all Pollyanna-ish about this. A devastating loss, a death, the loss of a child or a bankruptcy, these things are devastating. Yet if we can hang in there through them and be open to what changes in us as a result of that, the initial thing that happens is not the end, it's the beginning of a path that takes us somewhere. Is that path always opening us in a good way? I don't know to be honest. I think that's partly a choice and partly our experience, but it is a journey. It is a journey. When you lose your knees or you get a cancer or even someone dies that we love dearly, it's a terrible thing. But terrible things deepen us in unexpected ways. So, how do we remain open rather than shutting down into frustration, or bitterness or depression. And I think that is the ongoing evolution of how to move forward through the different relationship events that happen in our lives. 

KC - The relationship events, and I think that's so important because it's not, as you say, you wouldn't pick cancer and you wouldn't wish the death of a loved one on anyone and these things happen and when we look at the relationship it gives us, I guess, some locus of control back because then we have something around, choice around… well, we have our choice around our response, in some ways, as we move through that and I wonder, because a lot of people have said to me they hate it when people say ‘Oh, everything happens for a reason’, if something awful has happened to them. 

FF - Yes.

KC - And that seems to disregard relationship in some ways, it's like, oh, it just happened to you, and it's very much that external locus of control. Do you think this brings us back to a bit of locus of control? 

FF - That's a really good question because I think everything happens for a reason would irritate the living shit out of me. No, that’s just the most unskillful thing you can say to anybody who's had a loss or cancer. It's victim blaming. But what I am saying is that everything that happens to you open the door. So, your life has pushed off its path. It's ordinary, day to day path by these events, even terrible events. And then I think it's up to us to decide, there are many doorways to go through - do I go through a doorway of bitterness and resentment? Well, maybe for a while, but there's always another doorway, you know? So ultimately the magic is, can we do the vertical development to come to terms with something that happens to us in a way that we learn and evolve? Or do we retreat into bitterness? Do we retreat into rage or frustration or depression. And even there, I want to say sometimes we do have to retreat into rage and depression or miserableness. But there's always the next possible door. I think something's not as flat. Cancer knocked me flat for a period. And then the next day comes, and the next day comes and there are more choices to make about how to hold the event that is happening to you. I think the universe is generous in opportunities to change our relationship with events that happened to us. The first early parts that are devastating are sometimes a necessary first part. But we don't necessarily have to stay in the devastation. We can begin to harvest it, to find something in it that can be transformative. 

KC - Yeah. And it makes me think about our relationship with that devastation, or with that depression, or with that anxiety that shows up. All of that, if we can then start to look through the lens of relationship can, as you say, transform us. 

FF – Yes, because that depression or anxiety is a relationship. I'm in relationship with that anxiety. It's impacting me, how do I feel about it? Do I fight it and curse it and hate it and still feel anxious? Do I get curious about it? What choices will I make about the relationship I have with my own mental health? 

KC - Well, I think that's what was so powerful for me and what continues to be so powerful for me in this work. It’s the idea that when we apply the principle of relationship to anything it gives us some agency, it's not just this is happening to me, or I wish there was more fun in my relationship. Well, I can also bring the fun because I'm part of that relationship. I think with many things, particularly when we think about nature, or global warming, it often feels like well it’s out there, what can I do? It's a really big problems. And yet, when we bring in the relationship lens it's hard to deny that we are a part of that, too. 

FF - Yeah, I think something that gets hard for us is when we take these huge concepts like global warming, I think it just makes a lot of us feel small. It makes me feel small. Now how can I do anything about global warming? But, you know, one of the principles in the book is very much that when you go into relationship with something you start to care for it. If you love something you care for it. it could be something quite small. Filling the bird seed feeder out for your neighborhood birds is an act of relationship with nature in your backyard and it doesn't all have to be don't drink out of plastic bottles, you know, it also has to do with your delight, your local park, and because you delight in it you pick up the pieces of trash that you see there, not because you're trying to work with global warming but because you love that piece of nature. When you love something, you take care of it. I think that is this way to begin to work, in some ways, better with global warming, to simply allow ourselves to love locally, and when we love locally we make the steps to take care of local and local begins to take care of global. 

KC - I love what you said there about just falling in love with your local park because it made me think about the idea of, sometimes how we wonder what would a good person do? What should I do? We're often playing this part of the green warrior or whatever we want to call it, and actually if we look to relationship it becomes easy, actually, the path is already there, we don't have to copy what someone's done on TikTok or someone's suggesting in an article on LinkedIn, we can find our own path in our own relationship with nature. 

FF - Exactly. But if we don't have a relationship with nature at all then there's nothing to do at all. And I think also, we've left out the joy. It's all about how awful things are gonna be and how we're sweltering in the heat and so on. But going down and swimming in the river, makes us realize the delight in it. I think we need to find more delight in nature, and that involve slowing down sometimes, but let ourselves love our garden, let ourselves take care of our dog - find the things that you love in nature and look after them and know that they are yours, you are in relationship with those things and you love that thing, and therefore take good care of it, and let it bring you joy. It doesn't all have to be about how awful we are as a species. It can also be about how much we love the things that are in our own backyard. 

KC - It's making me think of Gottman’s five to one positive to negative ratio.

FF – I love that. 

KC - I know that hasn't been applied to all other kinds of relationship but maybe we should apply it to nature because there are some things that we should be concerned about. And if we don't care, if we don't, as you say, fall in love with swimming down the lake or just walking in our local park, why would we care then to do anything about it? There's a lack of urgency and the same applies with our partner. If we don't have that sense of care, then it kind of falls apart, eventually. 

FF - Yes, there's no third entity or minimal third entity because you don't care. But when you do care about it then you want to look after it, it’s just natural. 

KC – So, I wonder Faith, in terms of evolution through relationship what's your high dream for this relationship work? Where do you hope this takes us as a species? 

FF - Well, one of the things I talk about in the book is I think there are three levels of relationship - my relationship with all the multiple parts of myself; the me relationship; the paired relationships, often with intimates, but not always, my business partner, my spouse, my child; and then there's the ‘we’ which are the larger systemic entities like our business or nature or the globe or our community. And I think we have affinities to work with all of these areas. Sometimes I need and want to work on the splits within myself, the multiple selves that are not getting along with each other inside. Sometimes I need to work on my marriage or sometimes I need to find a better way to communicate with my teams, the ‘we’, so my hope is that we begin to see opportunities in working with the me system and working with the me-you system and working with the we, and I'm curious and interested and look for questions and answers that will grow myself and my relationships, whether intimate or in work. So, my desire is that this book perks up curiosity and interest at agency to change what's right around me. Don't worry too much about the big themes. Start with yourself, work with your intimates and then move from there into the larger systems. 

KC - That's brilliant because it is right in front of us. I was just thinking about some of the relationships right now, you know, what's my relationship with this glass of water? You could start there couldn't you, really? 

FF – Absolutely! The doorways are all around, but we do have to slow down to see them. But treat relationship and the same way you would treat going for your PhD or learning to be a better golfer. Find the path, be curious, move forward into more agency and getting more effective in the relationships in your life. 

KC - Thank you so much faith. This has been such an insightful discussion as always. I can't wait to share more about your book in the next episode.

FF - Great. Thank you, Katie.

[Music outro begins 30:52] 

KC - A huge thanks, as always, to Faith Fuller for that fascinating discussion. Here my key takeaways. Relationship impacts everybody. We are all in relationship. It's a concept that we all need to get behind so that we not only survive but thrive as a species. We need to get better at getting along together with ourselves, other people, and the world. Our sense of separateness leads us to abuse others and ourselves. However, when we look through the lens of relationship, we see our interdependence. No person is an island. Everything is relationship and everything is interconnected with everything else. One of the biggest obstacles to our own personal growth can be our speed and impatience. It can cause us to be absent from where we are, because we're thinking about where we need to be next. And when we're rushing to move forward to the future it can be hard to be present with the relationships around us. When we care about our relationships, we are much more likely to become aware of these relationships in our everyday lives. For example, if we can fall in love with nature local to us, we might find ourselves taking small steps to protect nature. As opposed to focusing on what is wrong with it, how can we also bring delight to our relationship with nature? For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time. CRR Global’s unshakeable belief is that relationship matters, from humanity to nature to the larger whole. For more information please visit CRRGlobal.com. 

[Music outro 32:58 – end]