Problems do not exist. But miscommunications do.
#3 - Life is a team sport, and the outcome of the game depends on how well the players on each team communicate
Look all around yourself. You are not alone here on Earth. You are one of 7.9 Billion people that inhabit this place, together. You are yourself, and that is but one “self” in a sea of “selfs”, all sharing a common home. Our home is a big rock that just happens to be flying through space while orbiting around a giant ball of fire that’s also flying through space at high speed. That, in itself, is pretty wild, isn’t it?
Each individual self on this rock has their own unique lenses built right into their heads to look outwardly at you, and the rest of the world. Each person has their own unique perspective of the world because perspective is built by life experience. The combined experience of every single moment you have lived from the second that you were born until this now moment has shaped your perceptions, beliefs, and perspectives on everything and anything new that you experience, including these words you are reading now.
Life is a team sport. There are other players beside you in this game for a reason. If you were alone all the time, forever, that would get pretty boring, wouldn’t it? How would you learn vicariously from the experiences of other individuals? Heck, at least Will Smith had his dog in “I Am Legend”. Human Beings are social creatures who absolutely need each other to learn from the collective experience of life that we all share. I’ll say it again - we were added together to play this game on Earth as a group for a reason. And, as the old saying goes, “the sum should always be greater than the parts are individually”.
Since we are here together playing this game, it helps to take a step back to look at the whole thing from a higher perspective from time to time, because life on earth looks a lot different at 30,000 ft than it does on the ground level.
Right now, think about your best friend, and I’m sure a memory you made with them will float to the surface. Think about that memory from every angle in order to understand why it is so special to you. Was it a beautiful warm day where you spent time together outside? What did you talk about? Did you laugh a lot? Were hugs involved? Did you share a fun and exciting experience together? Observe every aspect of why that specific memory continues to feel so special to you until you understand all the factors that go into shaping your adoring perspective of it.
It is safe to say that when you are in the company of your Best Friend, you are in a safe environment with someone you trust deeply. That establishes a solid baseline for your ability to truly communicate from the heart with one another. When you are with your Best Friend, you probably often have amazing conversations, right? You feel like you really “get” each other, and it feels amazing to have another person in the world that makes you feel like you are not alone because of the common ground that you both share. When you are with each other, you both feel wonderful, and the feeling is the key. (I am currently working on an upcoming piece dedicated to expanding on feeling.)
If you and your best friend get into an argument about something trivial, it’s easy to resolve once the emotions felt during the interaction settle down. When interactions get intense between people, no matter how close they are, emotions on both ends swell like waves in the ocean, and within those swelled emotional states our judgement is always choppy and clouded, like foamy ocean water during a storm. Sometimes in the heat of the moment you just want to throw the other person overboard into the water, right? Within those charged up states we do not think clearly about our actions which often leads us to re-act in ways we normally wouldn’t when in a clear state of mind. When our mind is not clear, it is impossible to communicate clearly, and what we often call “problems” are merely miscommunications that happen from within that state of confusion.
That said, all miscommunications are a two way street, where calling something a “problem” allowed us to sidestep having to take any responsibility for our end of each exchange. Since we now each first take responsibility for ourselves though, we look into the mirror to see the cause + solution to the old “problems” staring back at us.
Think about how it would feel to be in a small wooden boat in the middle of the ocean while a storm rages all around you. How could you possibly think clearly about anything while you are in that mentally and physically demanding situation? The same type of storm happens within the mind when getting into an argument with someone. Imagine the emotional waves caused during an argument, where the waters in your mind are normally calm and clear. If you’re in the middle of the sea, caught in the storm in that tiny boat, how can you make any life decisions at all from that fragile state? How can you articulate how your heart feels to your best friend in those moments when you don’t know if you will live or die, as you scream and flail about the boat? You can’t do anything but scream at that point because you are focused on one thing and one thing only in that boat - survival.
Remember — we are all that person trapped in the little boat being thrashed around by the stormy sea, from time to time. But the sea is just the sea, and that’s what the sea does - it storms… and does other storm-like activities 🤠. We don’t fault the sea for being the sea - we learn to sail. We learn to glide, unscathed, on top of the waves that once pummeled us, riding them to where we want to go. And we must learn to give more credit to the other sailors here in the water with us. They are also simultaneously trying to teach themselves to sail without instructions, and they are all doing their best to avoid drowning as well.
We all seem to think we are special because we are different, but no, we are the same and that’s why we are special. We all know how it feels to be trapped in that boat and this is something that shows us our common ground, the solid foundation we can stand on together to learn how to empathize with each other as we navigate these unknown waters. We all know how it feels to get our boats flipped by life, yet often when we communicate with each other about whatever our issues are, we fail to take our common ground into consideration. Instead, we’ve been looking only at the things that separate us, and when we do that we can not relate enough to resolve. And you can see where that has gotten us.
When we intentionally hold on to barriers between ourselves while communicating with others, then true communication never takes place during those exchanges, and we are always left without resolution. Since proper communication did not happen, both parties still remain with the “problem” left unresolved in some way in their minds. Since there is no resolution, then we continue to call it a “problem”. Perhaps though, when we stand on the platform of common ground together, this is where the true communication that leads to problem solving happens.
When we get into arguments with our best friends, our quarrels are often easily and quickly resolved. We have years of friendship, we already know the other party loves us, we tell each other how it felt while we were mad, we talk it out, and then quickly we are back in action as if the quarrel never happened.
Now think about a time you can remember getting into an altercation with a stranger online or in person, one that really got under your skin. You know, one of those times where you walked away feeling like you could have been a better human being. We’ve all been there. We’ve all had those “human moments”.
When we square off with folks in passing, and especially online, it can be hard to address them with the same empathy we give to our best friends. We don’t know the other person, or anything about them, so there is nothing immediately available for us to find create common ground with. We must ask ourselves, every single time we get into altercations with these “short-term” people, “am I being my real self right now?” Think about what we’ve established here today, and allow your intuition to show you the way while remembering that kindness is key, always. As long as we are being kind to ourselves, it’s easy to be kind to others. You never really know what she/he/they are dealing with today. That other sailor has a lot going on just like you do, guaranteed.
This weeks practice: we observe our own ability to empathize with other “selfs”. They are just like you and me, after all, woo-eeee. When you are listening to your friends tell you about what’s going on in their lives, at the grocery store, wherever you might be, be a listener of the others. Ask them how their day is and look them in the eye while they respond. Show someone random that you are there with them and that you care about their day and how they are doing. It takes one act in one short second to completely change someone’s day around. Sometimes a little kindness goes a lot further than you might think.
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