by Pamela A Mertz

Created on: April 17, 2009

Make The Elephant Dance

Sometimes we have issues that need to be talked about, but don't get talked about. The issue gets attention by not getting attention. It may sound confusing, but is not really.

I once wrote a speech about this for Toastmasters and delivered it with a good dose of passion. I can always talk passionately about what I know best. Because it comes from the heart.

I have firsthand knowledge of "the elephant in the room". On several counts. As a kid, it was my stuttering. No one ever talked about it-it was taboo. Almost like if we didn't talk about it, it didn't exist. We all danced around that for years.

The same with my mom's alcoholism. We never talked about that either. For so long, we thought it was normal - this chaos, uncertainty, fear - but it wasn't. The elephant was screaming to be talked about. He was every color - pink, blue, white - always there, always on the surface, always ignored.

And the same with other stuff going on in the childhood home, that one day will be written about and embraced. The elephant walked a tightrope in our backyard, inside the confines of the eight foot fence that kept us in and towered over us. No one could look in and see what was going on.

I have seen elephants at work too. The place that I worked at for so long was a toxic environment. Morale was bad, communication was poor, and management often managed by intimidation. The elephant in the room was whispered about in the lunch room, in the break room and the smoking area. No one dared ever speak up and talk about the real issues, out of fear. Fear of humiliation, fear of job loss, fear of retaliation. Even though those things shouldn't occur in progressive, enlightened workplaces, they do and we know it.

It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, getting fired from that place. The elephant danced and I started a new chapter of my life.

Sometimes the elephant is there between just two people, larger than life, so painfully obvious. It is there between me and my dad, taking up so much space, that we can't talk. The elephant shows up sometimes between me and my mom too, although this elephant is actually more of a baby elephant. We can push it away sometimes and have a real talk.

The elephant exists within a relationship I have right now. Years ago, I was not honest about my true feelings about someone, and neither was he. The elephant has grown bigger and bigger. Neither of us knows enough to slay this elephant. We need to get it to dance. When the elephant dances, you shake up the unspeakable issue and gradually make it speakable.

My stuttering became speakable. As I noted in a previous post, it has become stutter-eze.

I know I can dance gracefully with an elephant. We've done it before, the stuttering elephant and I. We have danced the two-step, the jig, the electric slide and the waltz.

The elephant was in the room a couple of nights ago when I spoke at Toastmasters. I was stuttering and some folks had not heard that before and looked puzzled. I should have introduced my stuttering and had the elephant do a little jig right then and there. Pink tutu too!

Make the elephant dance. It can be surprisingly light on the feet and light on the heart.

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