I have been contemplating writing a blog for a few weeks now. Normally the idea to write again comes to me just as I am going to sleep. I have some brilliant ideas to write about, then I fall asleep and lose them all.
There are quite a few things I would like to talk about. Being middle aged, leadership, connections and disconnection. They probably all fit together I suppose.
Most importantly I suppose is the rhetoric that seems to being driven and fuelled by the media at the moment. The rhetoric of division and disconnection. Every time I turn on the news or read something on the internet there are people talking about all the problems we face in the world and blaming them on each other. It is human nature I suppose to look for someone or something to blame when things go wrong. We all do it, often thoughtlessly and in the moment. When I lose something at home or stub my toe (normally when I am tired) I will quietly curse Lisa under my breath. Accusing her of tidying away the item I wanted to use, to make my life hard, or leaving something out for me to trip over. These accusations clearly never stand up to scrutiny. But in the moment I do not want to own up to the part I played in my own discomfort. In the cold light of day, it often very clear I played a very active role. Admit it, you all do it. We all have an view of ourselves that does not always depict who we exactly are, and when we are confronted with this uncomfortable truth, whether that is being absent minded, not suitable for the jobs you would like to do, or suffering from poor mental health that results in you bing unable to get a job, it can be very hard to accept and can result in us looking around for people to blame. Add to that someone telling you that you might well be right and there is someone to blame for this, whether that is an immigrant or a billionaire it is all to easy to fall into the trap of believing that story rather than the uncomfortable truth, that you may have paid a part in your own downfall, along with other factors.
The problems we face in today’s society are complex and have many contributing factors, including ourselves so to over simplify these and reach for someone to blame is wrong and dangerous.
If you then add in our amazing capacity for empathy you then have what we are experiencing across the world, the divisive us and them dynamic. Empathy can bring people to together, it can also drive groups of people apart. We find it easy to empathy that share similar experiences to ourselves. We identify with people who share similar, values, who look like us, talk like us, like the same things as us. If someone we identify with is attacked we feel similar emotions to the person who is attacked, and have a strong sense of justice and protection. This strong sense of empathy if unchallenged leads to disconnection and division and ultimately violence.
We do need to pause and check our thoughts and feelings before we act on this empathy and critically look at our thoughts and feelings about what we have seen, and understand where this emotion comes from. This is a time to slow our thinking and engage our frontal lobe before rushing in with our emotional brain. We all behave and act the way we because of what we are thinking and feeling about the event we have witnessed. With that in mind, it is some important to be curious about others and our own behaviours rather than being angry. If we are going to hold people to account for their actions we have to understand what caused that behaviour, rather than simply reacting in kind and driving division further.
If we all spend more time pausing and reflecting rather than reacting to events that make us angry, whether that is, shouting abuse, writing or liking an abusive social media post, or walking past abusive behaviour without intervening. If only we could all practice being more thoughtful and considered we could then spend more time connecting rather than disconnecting.
Connected Coaching 