And you?
When will you begin that long journey into yourself?
Rumi
Steve Ridgley
cultural intelligence trumps empathy
We all like to think we can show empathy.
We like to think we can hear someone’s narrative and ‘stand in their shoes’.
For many of us this might be true. We may have honed our awareness skills, fine tuned our listening skills, twizzled our emotional connection antennae. We are empathetic.
But are we? Really? To what extent is our ability to show empathy merely a product of our ability to find meaning and sense from our lives and relate it to another’s experience? Another person brought up in the same language, the same country or world area, the same belief system, the same society? Meaning and sense making may be intrinsically linked to our own life experience. So maybe empathy has geographic and cultural boundaries?
If you sat down with a Australian aboriginal, or with a Chinese gentleman aged 80, or a native Inuit child from the snowy north, would you be able to truly connect with the meaning in their lives? Could you read the signs in their faces? Connect with the significance in their tale? Understand their underlying value and belief systems?
Over recent years we have added emotional intelligence (EQ) to cognitive intelligence in the form of IQ. Terms we are all familiar with.
Now, cultural intelligence (CQ) is emerging as a third intelligence. Can we really be open to learning and meaning making when we meet another culture, another society, another upbringing? Or do we have to learn to do this? And without it, is empathy merely a hollow aspiration, or a distorted falsehood?
that other ‘to do’ list
Many of us write lists. The ‘to do’ list is a favourite.
Jobs for the weekend, reminders of tasks for the day job, lists of objectives for the project, even a list of things to buy for a birthday…
These lists tend to be full of tasks. Doing things. Activities to complete, assignments to progress, promises to keep.
How often do we create an emotional ‘to do’ list?
Today, I need to feel joyous, curious, excited and relieved. Tomorrow I plan some happy, a bit of stressed (because I will need that adrenaline) and a ton of relief, because I can foresee a few minutes of sad.
I recently attended an event where the group was encouraged to reflect on sources of happiness in their lives. We then shared and told stories of how and why that happiness had arrived for us. We pledged to each other to do more of that in our lives going forward (whatever it was for each of us). Having people bear witness seemed to help.
So, what’s on your long term emotional ‘to do’ list, and how do you plan to get more or less of the emotions you want or don’t?
articulated mind traps
Observing a driver reversing an articulated lorry always gives me a sense of admiration. I notice a desire to be able to do that. It looks satisfying. I feel compelled to stand and watch.
But my brain says it’s hard.
‘I would probably struggle,’ it says. ‘It’s not as easy as it looks,’ it says. ‘Look on and marvel in the ability of these wondrous people, but it’s not for you, is it?’ it says.
Maybe it is hard, maybe it isn’t?
The point is that what my brain says, makes a big difference.
More importantly, what else does my brain say is hard? What else do I avoid or just never get around to experiencing because my brain says it’s hard?
And … why does it do that?
What is my brain’s purpose in telling me it’s hard? How is my own brain serving me, by telling me I will struggle to master that? By putting me off? By putting me down? By creating a limiting frame of reference?
But still I listen. Still I stand and marvel. Still I imagine.
a hanging emotion?
I’ve just been overtaken.
Overtaken on a blind bend.
The car in question then overtook the car in front, also with insufficient visibility for the manoeuvre.
The area and time of day tell me that half a mile ahead there will be a substantial queue at a roundabout. I know this because I am familiar with the area.
The driver in question had earlier been waiting in a side turning and they had slotted in behind me as I had passed them. The side turning I also know would suggest they live or work in the area, so would be familiar too with the upcoming queue.
What motivates us to get ahead? To take risks to get in front?
Is it time? Lateness or a need to get somewhere quickly?
Competitiveness? A desire to win?
Peacock syndrome? A need to show personal power; to showcase capability or self? Look at me, look at my car, look at our potential?
Or maybe it’s a hanging emotion? Maybe work or life had recently delivered an emotional experience leaving the driver with frustration or anger or some other feeling? Maybe the thrill of speed, the rush of risk is a venting of a hanging emotion?
Whatever the reason, I hope they live long enough to enjoy what was a nice car.
I own what I have lost
Listening to a conversation the other day I heard someone use the phrase “my ex”. They were referring of course to someone they were once married to.
The concept of applying a possessive label, a word used to describe belonging alongside something you describe as being previous, being lost, being ‘ex’, struck me as odd.
I no longer have this, it is ‘ex’, but it belongs to me, it is mine.
I no longer have a spouse and so the replacement label for that loss is what I will own instead. It’s as if we wear the label of having lost it with pride.
Yoonjin “Zoonzin” Lee, who took the photo on this post, gives a voice to small found objects with his blog – What small objects think when you forget them on the street. What a fab idea.
one pebble alone
The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by one pebble
Blaise Pascal
Everything you do makes a difference.
are we all cheats?
The Olympics begin tonight.
The lead up has been tainted by the drugs debate. Competitors willing to take performance enhancing aids in an attempt to win at all cost.
I’m guessing many athletes and sporting competitors enter their sport because of a personal drive. An inner desire to perform at their best, to test themselves to the limit. Then it seems some switch to an external drive. An overwhelming desire to win medals, records, titles by whatever means. External objects, which act as testimony to their achievement, for which they are prepared to cheat to gain. Cheat others, but also cheat themselves.
Honesty and integrity sacrificed for a shiny object or piece of paper which draws admiration and congratulation from other people.
When do internal goals trump external ones and vice versa? How does external recognition become more valuable than internal truth? What causes that shift? Or is it there within certain individuals from the start?
Maybe this isn’t just about athletes and drugs? Maybe we are all vulnerable to lying to ourselves and to others so that we can be recognised, admired, valued, loved?
Maybe others have personal ambition trumping the perspective others may have of them – they don’t care what people think, they will just do their best for themselves. People who rob pension funds for example, so that they can buy yachts?
Maybe we’re all cheats?
the hardest simplicity
A friend of mine has just returned from a ten day meditation retreat where they spent the entire time in total silence. Between meditations they ate in silence, walked in silence, much as monks might.
He remarked how much learning he got from just being with his thoughts. For ten days, there was nothing else. He was able to pay attention to how his thinking worked. Noticing patterns in his thinking. Judgements, for example, of those around him. His fellow meditators judged for how they sat, ate, looked, or for what they were wearing. Thinking about conversations and meetings he would have, then reflecting and self criticising past conversations which might have gone better.
I contrasted this with a training session I had facilitated a few weeks ago. We asked the delegates to spend time , in silence, reflecting on their learning. After a short period we asked them how long that had been. The general concensus was seven or eight minutes, some thought more than ten. In reality it was four. Four minutes of silence with their thoughts and many couldn’t manage that. They wrote notes, checked phones, engaged in non verbal communication with neighbours…
We find it hard to notice ourselves. To be with ourselves.
Strange that something so simple is so difficult.
rumour has it…
Skill is only a rumour … until it reaches the muscle and is an unconscious part of you.
Balinese proverb
illuminated dandelion 