Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Listen to your parts, what your parts are saying to you, and also realize that the people that you interact with, they were children once, and they are just children in big bodies.
So they also have those fears of their childhood.
And whenever someone is, like, being mean to you, it's just a part of them that is being mean to you. So the moment you approach life like that, you have more compassion to yourself and the people around you, and the world becomes better.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: You are listening to exploring Satir's legacy, the Virginia Satir podcast. I am your host, Michael Argumaniz Hardin, and together we will embark on the journey of self discovery, empowerment and meaningful connection.
Let's dive in today. Our special guest is Doctor loveness Makunesse. She is an academic, humanitarian and development practitioner with more than 15 years experience.
Her work has specialized in gender, emergency health, resilience building, social protection, inclusion and participation, nutrition, HIV and AIDS. She has special expertise in program design, implementation, evaluation, knowledge management, and joint UN resource mobilization and partnership management.
She is a deputy representative for UN Women Zimbabwe. She is a researcher and author. She has a PhD in sociology from Rhodes University in South Africa. She is also a certified trauma and family counselor from Connect, Zimbabwe. She is a really good friend to the Virginia Satir Global Network.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: Well, today I want to welcome Loveness Maconese. I am so excited about having you on the podcast today, loveness. It has been a delight to get to know you through Virginia Satir Global.
Welcome.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Good morning, Michael. How are you? It was also nice to work with you for the past three years through the Virginia Satir network.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Loveness, tell the listeners, where are you from?
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Based in Harare, Zimbabwe, which is in the southern part of Africa.
[00:02:26] Speaker C: Wonderful. Well, I thank you so very much for making all the things that you had to do to be here with us today.
Well, I want to start off, this is an opportunity for me to get to know a little bit about just how you connected with Virginia Satir in the first place.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: I got to know about Virginia Satir when I was training to be a family therapist, but my training was focusing more on the Bowen family systems that are.
So I was trained in 2003 from Zimbabwe Institute Connect.
Institute Connect. Institute family systems in Zimbabwe.
Then I practiced more of Virginia Satia and some bit of grief therapy and cognitive behavior therapy.
Until 2013, I I was looking for information on working on improving communication in families, communication with clients, even my own personal communication, because I just finished a PhD. And then, you know, the experience that you get when you finish a PhD, you realize it's like you've lost a baby for the four, five years you were working on a project. And as you were working and focusing on that project, there were so many other areas of your life that are also being neglected because of that.
So when I finished my PhD, the day I graduated, that's when I realized. I thought when I finished my PhD, I was going to be happy. I was going to be there. That's when I realized there was this kind of void. It's like you have lost a baby when you finish your PhD. And then I needed to. I realized I had the time now to go inside and focus on things related to myself. On the outside, you've achieved all the outside alcohol, but inside, that's not what I was feeling. It was. There wasn't congruence between what the outside is seeing and what was going on inside myself. So I just went on the Internet. I was, like, looking for, this is what I want. I'm a trained therapist myself, but I think I need something more that can. That is not in the head, that can speak internally to what was going on within myself.
So I saw a.
A slide on Slideshare, the way Virginia satia was mentioned in the four communication stances.
That's when the communication stances, the blaming, the placating, and the others. That's when I realized, oh, my God, this is what I'm like, I want to know more about. So I went and checked the references they had written, they had quoted from the new people making. So I ordered the book the new people making, but when it arrived, I realized, it's more practical. Yes, you can read it and internalize what it was telling me. But I think the most thing that touched me was when they were telling you, you need to ask your family members or the people around you, especially your children, how do they see you? So I tried to test it with my two kids. I think my daughter was about 14 years during that time, and my son was around ten years.
So there was this question, how do you see us as your parents?
And I asked them to go and write everything that they think about that question.
So, one surprising thing, I was sleeping in the other room, it was in the afternoon, and I was thinking, oh, my God, my daughter, who is the eldest one, the teenage, was the one who was going to complain more about our leadership as parents.
But apparently I could hear my son shouting to the sister because the sister was writing, because I said, I want you to write and come and read to me. So my son was like, they do this to us. They don't listen to us. They don't think we met our voicemail.
So as I was listening and I went inside, I realized, oh, my God, I'm, I'm a therapist, but this is what my children are thinking about me. So when I asked them, when they had finished, say, can you come and share that feedback with me? My son was like the most vocal. He refused to come. He pushed the sister to say, go and read to her. It was as if is the sister who wrote. And he was, he was trying to dissociate himself from what was written. But I could hear him shouting. So for me, that was a turning point, saying, personally, if my own son is afraid to tell me that feedback that he was shouting in the other room, what kind of a parent do I want to be? What kind of family do I want to build? And I decided I want to learn more about listening to my children and listening to their voices and being a parent. And from that time, that's when I realized I needed to connect with Satya. So I looked around, then I connected through email, but I was never active until 2020, when we started the Zoom meeting, that's when I started to be very active. But I've been receiving the emails and the updates throughout, but that was just that.
[00:08:25] Speaker C: Well, Satir global, so blessed to have you as one of its members.
You're such a wonderful contributor.
I love your story and how it was life changing, not just reading the book, but actually putting it into practice and asking your children and being open and being vulnerable enough to hear what they had to say and then that making a difference. That's amazing.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Even now, because my son is in the US, he's now in university, and my daughter is in Europe, where she's doing a medical degree.
We have our Sunday meeting and we use the satir, you know, handouts to structure our. To say, today we are talking about feelings. How are you feeling?
So for us, it has really opened our communication channels. We can be vulnerable with each other. We are there for each other, and we can be challenging to each other, which is very difficult, especially when your families and young adults.
[00:09:37] Speaker C: Yeah, that's an amazing story. My children are now 27 and 28, and I still have to use all of this to make connection and love them and be present to them. And they have the same skills to do the same thing back to us.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Yes. So for me, it's like they know all the satir members.
And apart from just that, the satir has become also a part of our family.
When my son transitioned to university.
Steve Bag became like the surrogate parent in the US for my son because I needed extra support and because of the satir teachings, I know I needed to ask for help, and I was open to be vulnerable and ask for that extra help from Steve to say, steve, this is a young man. He'll be on his own. The parents, we are almost 12 hours in a twelve hour, eight hour different time difference on. They need someone there that they can just call whenever they are in a crisis. And he understands the context because even if we are here in Zimbabwe, the context is completely different.
And we are very happy that Steve and his family, they have really embraced our son as their own.
[00:11:06] Speaker C: That's so wonderful.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's all because of Sati.
[00:11:11] Speaker C: And you talk about Steve Buckbee.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:11:14] Speaker C: Yeah. What an amazing man. And, yes, he definitely has that loving spirit that you find with everybody that you make contact with in the Virginia city of world.
Well, let me ask you this also. So you're a family therapist, and you utilize Satir's model in your therapy. You are a mom, a wife.
You utilize Satir's model in how you work with family, your own family.
What about in other areas? Are there other areas in which Satir's model has been useful to you, even within your own culture?
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Yeah, within my couch. I like the issue about the self, the other, and the context.
So you find in our context, it's more about the others and the context.
So the issue of the self, especially for women, doesn't exist because as women, daughters in laws, the best daughter in law in our culture is the one maybe who don't even have a self, who don't have needs. You put everyone else faced before you, and you'd realize a lot of the women, they will be very angry. They will be very frustrated because of that. They can't communicate because of the hierarchical and the power dynamics.
But I've learned, as you teach the young women, to. To have a self, to have needs and to express and even to use the five freedoms, the freedom to feel, to think, and to ask for what you want, to take risks, you find, you see them blooming where you are seeing someone who was, like, shrinking was all full of negativity. You really see the moment. You teach them to say you have the five freedoms. You can still think, you can still feel. So you find a lot of the people will be, like, dissociating what they are feeling inside and what they are portraying on the outside. There will be two. There won't be confluence.
So you'd find there are times when some people blur things out, and then they have a lot of issues behind that. So even for me, that has really worked well to realize I can use my five freedoms, it's okay to feel.
So you'd find these are cultures that don't promote feeling.
You'd rather act, you'd rather pretend, you'd rather suppress what, what is happening within you. So I've also modeled that to my children. I've taught my children to feel and to think and to take risks.
And in my professional life, I work a lot in the feminist movement, and I work in the development sector, where I'm managing programs through the non governmental programs and even with the government.
The temperature ranging, especially, is one of the best tools for me whenever I'm working with teams, and I'm teaching the teams to really trust and journey together, because a lot of the times, people will be pushing for emotional intelligence.
But how, what are the tools that you need to be emotionally intelligent?
So the how to part of it is. Will be lacking in most instances. So the people in their head, they will say, they will be saying, we need self awareness, we need emotional intelligence, but do we have the tools on how to translate that? So, for me, the temperature reading is one of the tools that I really use for people to really connect with what's happening, connect with others, and at the same time, communicate what they want to say, even if it's negative. So that's one of my strengths in my professional life. I can communicate with anything, and we remain connected.
[00:15:34] Speaker C: That's wonderful.
I love hearing from different cultures and how Virginia Satir's model has been useful in different places. But what you're mentioning now is one of the things that I hear quite often is people struggle in different places. Like, even in the christian faith, you're supposed to be giving, giving, giving, and not really seeing yourself as important.
It's not what the Bible teaches, but in, but in churches sometimes, that's the message that gets out, that you're supposed to always self sacrifice and not focus on yourself and kind of be self denying. But people wonder, aren't you going to be selfish if you start looking at your own needs? And. And that's not what I've been able to find, and it sounds like that's not what you've been able to find. That whenever somebody understands themselves better, understands their own needs, they're actually able to give in wonderful ways, but. But not out of obligation, not out of fear, but they could do it out of a core self that is stronger.
[00:16:34] Speaker A: And I think once you have a core self that is stronger, you actually become more compassionate, because when you are giving out of fear, where you should give or you should do things, and you find even the quality of your giving is really compromised.
And even in our culture, the issue of confrontation is even. Especially confronting your elders, even within the church.
I've, like, used satir model where it's okay to risk. And then people say, oh, but if I risk, people will be mad with me. I remember there was a time when I was sharing with someone, they were afraid to confront their pastor because they would say, there's an authority figure. They are anointed. But I just, you know, in Satya, we can use even stories.
Then I said, I want to take you to the book of numbers.
When Moses was coming down the mountain with the first tablets, and then he found the Israelites, they made that, you know, calf, that golden calf.
[00:17:47] Speaker C: Golden Calf, yeah.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: And God wanted to destroy the whole group, and he said, I'll start a new group with you.
But Moses stood up and confronted God and said, you can't do that.
[00:18:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: So I would always, with the moment you visual, you tell them that story, and they visualize that to say there was someone who was willing to even confront God, and God changed his mind, then you can confront anyone. So that's the beauty of Satia. You can use anything.
[00:18:21] Speaker C: I love that, and I love that you even go deeper and connected to emotional intelligence, because by going deeper and understanding that this is not only do you know yourself and you connect with a stronger sense of self, but you're actually putting it into practice to communicate and engage other people in powerful ways. People could be using this in business in all sorts of different arenas.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Yes. And even I remember in my professional life, when I changed in my new role, you know, you are working with very strong women, very strong people. There are times when even yourself as a leader, you become vulnerable and you become scared.
And even admitting that to the people that you are leading to say, you know what? You are stronger than me, and this is what I'm feeling right now, they will support you rather than attack you. So by being congruent, you are communicating what you are feeling and where you need support, you ask for support. Where you need extra help, you ask for that extra help. Because the people have been taught to say, it's not okay to show vulnerability, it's not okay to risk, to even to acknowledge that we are feeling.
But at the end of the day, who are you and who are people engaging. You want know you are dealing with human beings who have got feelings. You also need to appreciate that when you are leading people to say, I'm not leading robots. I'm leading human beings who are going through crisis. We are coming from different contexts. And the moment I engage with them as human beings with feelings, with their own hopes, with their own fears, and I'm also coming in with my own fears, my own vulnerabilities, to find there's more connection and there's more support from both sides.
[00:20:24] Speaker C: Loveness, I'm connecting with that so deeply. As a mexican male, you know, mexican men are not raised to experience their feelings. They're not raised to be vulnerable. And as a family therapist, as I started developing as a family therapist, I realized how important that was. But that was scary to do, even opening up to my wife and being vulnerable with her. And it has just blessed my marriage over and over again.
There are so many things my culture may have taught me not to do that by being able to take some risks and expand my behavior in ways that satir promotes. It's really been a blessing to my family.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Even knowing that people have paths, they have the past that they accept and they have the path. So when you see someone raging, it's not like they've forgotten that there's something that is called emotional intelligence, because the natural instinct is, you're at the workplace, and this is the behavior that is not allowed. But you'd find, despite having that head knowledge, you can't find someone in a moment of rage.
The moment I realized, oh, maybe it's a party.
That's not who they. Who they are.
[00:21:46] Speaker C: Right.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: I can become compassionate to that person, and I can take a, like, extra effort to connect what's happening deeper down. What are they ironing?
What are their issues? And then you realize the moment you go deeper, everyone wants to be loved. Everyone wants to be validated.
But it's normal for us when we see someone portraying even rage, to just judge them. And you want to close yourself away from them. But Satya teaches you to be curious, to say what's behind, what's beneath that raging. Let me take a moment and listen to that and get closer and find out more.
[00:22:32] Speaker C: Yeah. And there's. And by talking about parts, there may be some parts that feel that are unfitting for who you want to be and that. But that doesn't mean that's who you are. It's just a part of who you are. And you can make those adjustments as you develop yourself and people can grow their loving part, and they can, they could pay attention to and nurture and and even find strengths within that part that was really angry.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: And you realize beneath that anger, there is a vulnerable.
[00:23:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Exiled part that needs to be nurtured. And the moment you nurture it, you find the anger and the rage goes away. But you find in other modules, we are saying you should stop being angry.
But if it's a protective party that is coming there to protect you and you are ignoring the positive intentions of that anger, of that rage, you. And you want to focus on the anger to say you do something to stop it, you won't be able to really address the underlying issues behind. So that's the beauty of satir, because you don't pathologize people. You look at opportunities and positive things that you can really work with so that we validate people where they are, and then we see them throwing out and something beautiful coming out over time.
[00:24:08] Speaker C: Well, one of the things that I am always excited to hear about when I talk to people from different parts of the world is how people in their community accept these, these kind of ways of thinking, because especially, like, when you're going through school, you want to always make sure that what you're learning and the theories that you're learning are culturally sensitive. How does Satir, how does Satir meet the cultural needs of the people in your area of the world?
[00:24:38] Speaker A: I think I will start with our context, because you'd find in our culture, there are certain things that we do in our that women do that girls do that, especially the issue of listening to children.
They are supposed to be seen and not heard.
So when someone hears you saying, oh, my child told me to do this, or my child told me not to do this, it's like, oh, you're a weak parent. What kind of a parent will listen to your child and be told what to do with your child?
So you'd find there will be a lot of friction between the adults and the young people. But I've learned when you realize children are feeling, that's the beginning part of it, so you can have their feelings knowingly and unknowingly. And I need to take time to connect to their icebergs. They also have icebergs. They are my children, but they still have icebergs. They are on icebergs.
That really changes everything.
And even as you indicate our culture, the moment I connect with everyone from that perspective, realizing they have an iceberg, this is what I'm seeing on the surface. But what is happening deeper down.
[00:26:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: You form richer and deeper relationships with people, and you don't judge people. I think that's one. That's the beauty of Satya. You find in every culture, it's easy to just judge people. And then you say, this one is worth to be listened to. This one is not worth to be listened to.
And even the issues of self esteem, people want to. They want. They would say, you need to portray yourself like this so that you can be seen to be positive. But the moment you realize, I have to focus more on what's happening inside myself, not what's outside you, you become warm. And a lot of people want to connect. And the more you validate people, the more people really feel valued, feel seen, and feel supported by you.
So every human being in any context, in any culture, they want to be seen, they want to be heard, and they want to be validated. That's a universal feeling.
[00:27:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree with you 100%. But how. How difficult is it for, like, moms that have been raised a certain way to hear this new way of being and that you should listen to your children and you should engage differently, and it's okay to be vulnerable, and you're not going to be seen as a bad parent or. Or a weak. As a. Or you're seeing as a weak parent.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: How.
[00:27:30] Speaker C: How do they.
How do they hear the satir model for the first time? And are they resistant because it's so different from that, what their cultural messages are?
[00:27:42] Speaker A: I think for me, when I'm teaching the mothers, I don't say I'm teaching you satir model.
I will start with the feelings, you know, the validation, the issues of courage. Every culture, they have their own definition of courage and the validation, just letting them know, these are the feelings. You know, a lot of people, they will say, you are angry. But you'd find in other cultures, like my culture, we have limited vocabulary to define anger, to define even sadness, to define even happiness and anxiety.
So when you give them that list of all the feelings that are related with anxiety, for the first time, someone who was thinking, oh, I'm not angry at my children, I'm not angry with my relatives. They will realize, oh, my God. So I've been anxious, I've been angry, I've been sad, but I didn't know how to describe it.
Then the next thing that I've also learned, especially when kids are growing up, the issues of the change process.
Some people, they would want to maintain the status quo. The moment you tell them, no, your family is changing and what is happening is normal.
They want to listen more to say, oh, where are you getting all that? I thought I was in a serious crisis. And you realize it's okay. What you are going through is a normal change process. You're going through chaos.
This is what you need. When you're in chaos, you need extra support. You need to slow down. You need to go inside and acknowledge that this is what is happening to you. So even all those things in every culture, in every context, they are there.
We deal with changes on a day to day basis. We deal with family challenges on a day to day basis, irregardless of the culture and the context. So that's the universalism of versatile model.
[00:29:48] Speaker C: I think that's beautiful.
I love the idea of all of us and how we work together to really spread this out. And it's because it's not just, you're right, Satir's model, but it's a way of being, a way of living. And certainly satir gave language to it, and it makes it easy for us to go into our own cultures and help people really make connection and deepen their emotional intelligence.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: All families everywhere, everywhere in any culture, they are dealing with change.
They keep you, and you need support through all those. You need even to. To figure out what you are going through.
Even when I'm starting a job before, I would struggle a lot when I'm, like, moving into a new position because I want to do it perfectly, but, you know, through the courage, the validation, where I realized, oh, I'm learning to walk, I'm like a baby learning to us to walk. I've. I've, like, realized it's okay for me to make my mistakes. I'm in a learning phase, and I can give myself a six months to one year learning phase in a new position.
And I've realized my. Whenever I change like a job, it's no longer as difficult as it was before. Where I want to go there, I want to be perfect, I want to do everything right. And when I make a mistake, I'm hard on myself. But now I know I'm in a learning phase and it's okay to make mistakes, and it's human to make mistakes. And I also allow other people around me to make mistakes.
[00:31:35] Speaker C: Right. And it's a part about taking risks. When you start something new, you are taking risks on your own behalf. I mean, that's.
It's a big deal. And we certainly want to encourage people with. Into high self esteem to be able to take risks on their own behalf.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: And I remember the other day I was teaching my kids about, we were doing the self esteem toolkits.
So when I was like, teaching them to say, of all the self esteem toolkits, which one do you use?
So my son picked the courage. He said, you know what? And then he said, but you know, mom, every time I want to use my courage, you urge me not to take.
Of course, then you realize I'm a practitioner of satir, but at times, my motherly instincts at times takes over, and I want to be very protective.
[00:32:36] Speaker C: Yes, that's so funny that he pointed that out and that. And that you can see yourself doing that.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Yes, and I've done that because I was like, oh, you can't do that. It's risky. You can't do that. And then you say, no, I'm just trying to use my characteristic, let me try it. If it works out, then, yeah, because he had lost his passport and, you know, after losing his passport is like, it's in Ohio. And then he wanted to go, then the issue is you don't have identity. You want to go to the ambassador, apply for a new passport, how do you travel? Then he said, no, the school has written me a letter and I've made a police report. I can hire a vehicle and drive. And then my point is, you are in a foreign country, you want to drive almost 6 hours away.
But then he said, let me use my card stick. And he drove and he went back. And after the experience, you know, he was the validation that he got from that experience. He was like, he was completely different from the way he was before. So we all deal with family crisis on a day to day basis, and we need the self esteem to get.
[00:33:53] Speaker C: That's wonderful. I love that loveness. You know, one of the things that I want to ask my, my guests before they at the end of each podcast is if they have wisdom that they've developed in. Well, it's obvious there's so much wisdom in you and you have taken things from satir, and certainly that wisdom is there. But just in life experience and being a mom and working as a family therapist, there's so much wisdom. What is some wisdom you would like to share with our listeners that can bless their lives as they go through their week?
[00:34:32] Speaker A: I think for me is getting side, take time to go inside and listen to your, to yourself, listen to your parts, what your parts are saying to you, and also realize that the people that you interact with, they were children once, and they are just children in big bodies.
So they also have those fears of their childhood.
And whenever someone is, like, being mean to you, it's just a part of them that, that is being mean to you. So that the moment you approach life like that, you have more compassion to yourself and the people around you, and the world becomes better.
[00:35:23] Speaker C: It has been. It has been a blessing to get to know you over the years. But this time, just hearing your deep thought on, on just the world and your wisdom, it has truly been a blessing. And I know the listeners are going to be blessed, and they're going to want more of this. They'll want me to interview you again.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:35:44] Speaker C: As we conclude this episode of the.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: Virginia Satir podcast, I want to leave you with a reminder that the journey of self discovery and transformation is ongoing.
Virginia Satir's wisdom continues to inspire us to nurture healthier relationships, foster usually open communication, and embrace personal growth.
Remember, you hold the power to create positive change in your life and the lives of those around you. Well, that's it for today's episode. See you next week. Thanks for listening to the Virginia City or podcast. Be sure to, like, subscribe and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with a friend. Also, for more information on Virginia Satir, you can go to Sadia, tearglobal.com or liveconnectedtherapy.com. Until next time, be kind to yourself and to others. You are a miracle.
