WHEN WE ARE HURT
Thursday, September 20, 2012 § Leave a comment
The hardest moment to invest vulnerability into a relationship is when we are acutely hurt. That’s also the moment with the potential for the biggest pay-off. When we are hurt, our instinct is primitive: fight or flight. If we can create some space for our response, we can find courage for vulnerability.
The flight response is to disappear, or to quit internally, maybe dissing the partner/the boss to other people, while just running through the motions. You know the couple that keeps saying “I love you”, when you happen to know that at least one of them is fuming inside; or the colleague who tells you every day how much they hate their job, while their boss knows them as all smiles.
The fight response is to attack the person that you see as having hurt you. Some attacks come dressed up, wanting to seem like they are investments. Maybe you are asking your partner to go to therapy together, or you are going to your boss’s boss to provide feedback, or you are writing a long letter that describes your understanding of past situations, or maybe you cry. Likely, the strongest message your partner/boss receives from all of these is: “my hurt is your fault!”
The fight response is vastly better than the flight response. Attacking still disguises your hurt, but it gives your partner a better chance of recognizing it. Hiding your pain beneath a veil of normal makes it much harder to spot.
Growth of your relationship can only occur though, when you are sharing vulnerability.
If you are checked-out of your relationship, your friendship, or your job you ought to start by growing a pair.
If you are in attack mode, you are still invested. Then stop searching the faults of the other person, but contemplate instead further why you are so hurt. Communicating that is vulnerability. That creates the chance for resolve and growth of the relationship.
If you are not willing to do that – then that’s on you!
MIRROR MIRROR IN MY FRIEND
Friday, May 4, 2012 § Leave a comment
Friends and colleagues provide us with a constant stream of explicit and implicit feedback on ourselves. Like a cabinet of distortion mirrors, different people play different images back to us.
One friend is like a beautification mirror. It stretches us into a nice shape and maybe bronzes us a little bit, ensuring us that we look fabulous, no matter if we have just lost or gained 50 lbs. Just like our looks our character improves in the reflection, telling us that we are awesome no matter if we have just behaved kindly or like an asshole.
Another friend is the opposite: their feedback makes us look ugly and bad.
Then there is the category of honest mirrors – they more or less accurately reflect us. Amongst these are two very different types of people: a. those that reflect us honestly, but see us as static and stuck; b. those that see our potential.
1. The beautification mirrors are fun, but provide no value. The boost to our ego in the form of false compliments likely will stop us from pursuing growth. “Great friends are those that challenge us!” – that’s not these friends.
2. The making-us-look-shitty-mirrors are uncomfortable, but they can provide value to us. When we recognize someone as a shitty-mirror, we can disregard the value and insight of their feedback. We can nevertheless learn from our reaction – why does one thing really get to us and another doesn’t stick at all?
3. The honest mirrors that see us as static are helpful in giving us a good account of where we are. But their expectation is that we won’t change and grow, so they are not good company for our journey.
4. The honest mirrors that see our potential: that’s what great friends are made of.
FITTING IN SOME INNOVATION
Wednesday, April 4, 2012 § Leave a comment
Fitting in with the tribe was a life-saving necessity for our evolutionary ancestors. Still today, in many instances, it’s a decent strategy to avoid getting kicked off the team, fired from the job, ostracized by the posse or disowned by family.
It is not a strategy for innovation, personal expression, personal growth and personal fulfillment.
Maybe most importantly, making fitting-in one’s guide can have tragic moral consequences when we are in the wrong environment.
WNYC Radiolab did a fantastic piece on the Milgram experiment. You can listen to or download the podcast here and I highly recommend it:
http://www.radiolab.org/2012/jan/09/.
I will write more about it in the coming days.
Business Buddhism 