Blind Spots

Years ago, my mother in law had cataracts surgery. After the surgery, she marveled at how green the grass looked. Of course, the grass had always been green, but the cataracts had prevented her from seeing its brilliance.

Similarly, a friend told me about two friends of hers who had visited India at about the same time. One friend who was afraid of snakes was appalled at the number of “snake charmers” she saw on the streets. Another, with no particular fear of snakes, was disappointed that she hadn’t seen any.

Several years ago, I was in Olympia, Washington and passed two side by side newspaper kiosks. Here were the headlines on the front page of the two newspapers:

“Rates Of Owning Homes Is Plunging.” USA Today August 6, 2009

“Housing Ready To Rally?” The Olympian, Olympia, Washington August 6, 2009

In the New York Times on December 7, 2010, David Brooks in his column, “Social Science Palozza” cites research in “Psychological Science” in which people were presented with evidence that undermined their core convictions. Rather than questioning their beliefs, however, these people attacked the evidence and argued forcefully for their original beliefs.

Go to http://www.blindspottest.com and take a test that will confirm what I’m sure you already know: Because of a hole in our visual field (a “blind spot”), we are unable to see what’s right in front of us. Our brains fill that hole with our best guess as to what is actually there based on our past experience with that object.

In our day to day experience, what we see and what we don’t see is largely determined by what we believe (based on our past experience). If we’re afraid of seeing snakes, we may see a lot of them in India. If we have our beliefs challenged, we might deny the evidence.

If we were to open our heads and look behind our eyeballs, we’d know that we are literally not seeing what is actually in front of us. For example, if you saw me as your eyes do, I’d be two feet tall and upside down. Some magic happens in our brains to correct for the image that is received by our eyes. The “magic” is based on what our past experience has taught us we should expect to see.

What else are we not seeing? What are we seeing that isn’t there?

A friend asked me the other day for advice in dealing with his “opinionated” brother.

I suggested that he was seeing something that wasn’t there. There is no “opinionated” brother. There is, however, a brother with opinions that aren’t the same as my friend’s.

My friend is not actually seeing his real brother. He’s seeing some story he has about his brother (based on his beliefs from his past experience) and it’s the story he thinks is real. In fact, the story is more real than his real brother.

What might happen if we gave up our stories about each other and just accepted one another as we are: human beings with different blind spots and alternate points of view? Might this be, then, an opportunity to learn from one another rather than a reason to make each other wrong?  

Interrupting Our Past, Creating Our Future

Have you ever said to yourself, “From now on, I will…(listen, be patient, be loving, take risks, etc.) and then find yourself behaving as you always have?

Do you find it fascinating that we say we want to change, we know what we need to do to change, we make plans to change and, yet, we don’t change? We keep repeating the same behavior over and over and over again which, of course, is the definition of insanity.

If so, this article is for you.

My thoughts are inspired by a remarkable documentary being shown on “Frontline” on PBS called “The Interrupters.” It’s the story of former gang members in Chicago who put their lives at risk by inserting themselves into situations where gang violence may occur in an attempt to interrupt the fighting.

What’s clear is that the cycle of violence will continue forever unless it is interrupted. This is as true of gang violence as it is of warfare as it is of any relationship that we kill off by refusing to forgive and declare “it stops with me.”

Ameena Matthwes is one of these interrupters. Ameena tells the story of how she had been molested by her mother’s boyfriend when she was a young girl. After that incident, Ameena said that if someone so much as inadvertently bumped into her at school, she would get furious and be ready to fight.

Ameena’s anger is, of course, perfectly understandable and not only because of the sexual molestation. If you’ve ever become furious when someone cuts you off in traffic, disagrees with a strongly held belief or doesn’t acknowledge a contribution you’ve made, you can relate to Ameena. Like Ameena who became furious when bumped in school, your anger may be out of proportion to the actual incident.

The reason it’s out of proportion to the actual incident is because it’s not the actual incident to which you are responding just as Ameena wasn’t responding to being bumped in a store. You are responding to something that happened in your past and you made a decision about how you would behave in your future to a real or imagined threat. As Laurence Gonzales notes in his book, “Everyday Survival,” When we do things that don’t make sense, we’re responding from our past.”

A common example may have occurred in school. The teacher asked a question. You were sure you knew the answer. You vigorously waved you hand in the air, desperate to be called on. The teacher called on you and…you gave the wrong answer. Your classmates laughed and, perhaps some of the less empathetic ones called you “stupid.” What decisions might you have made at that moment?

Well, if, today, you find yourself nervous about speaking in groups, you may have decided that you would never let yourself be embarrassed again. If you get furious at someone who cuts you off in traffic, you may have decided that no one would ever take advantage of you again. If you are angry because you weren’t acknowledged for something you did, you may have decided that no matter what you do, you’ll never get the credit you deserve. You may want to confront someone and you don’t do so because you made the decision that it isn’t safe to speak up. You may have trouble listening to feedback because you made the decision that what others say about you is painful to hear.

Who knows what decisions a seven year old may have made?

The reason we try to change and don’t is because we keep trying to change our past instead of creating a new future free from that past. Our behavior in the present may not make sense to us because it’s how a 7 year old would behave. A 7 year old is, literally, running our lives in certain instances.

The past, of course, can’t be changed. That’s why it’s called The Past.

In his book “Wisdom of the Ages,” Wayne Dyer notes that we have about 60,000 thoughts every day. The problem is that they tend to be the same 60,000 thoughts repeated over and over again. This is as good an explanation as any of how our past becomes our future.

Until they stop living their past over and over and over again, those Chicago street gangs will remain in a cycle of violence. Unless we stop reliving our past, we are doomed to endlessly repeat our own cycles of unresolved conflicts.

Change occurs when we create a future that doesn’t include a recreation of the past.

Conflict and The Confirmation Bias

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist, and a professor at the University of Maryland whose book The Righteous Mind seeks to explain why we get along with some people but not others. I saw him being interviewed by Bill Moyers and subsequently viewed a TED talk he gave in 2008.

Simply put, according to Haidt, we don’t get along with some people because we are afflicted with “confirmation bias” which means that “searching for the truth” mostly involves finding evidence to confirm what we already believe. Therefore, when we are in a conflict, we start from the premise that the other person is wrong and that if they had the information we have, they would see the error of their ways. This stops us from listening and propels us into some form of persuasion or intimidation or avoidance or anything but actually resolving our differences.

“Confirmation bias’ happens so quickly and automatically that it’s often a blind spot for us. We see other people and just know that our judgments of them are accurate.

We can get insight into the blind spots of our confirmation biases by noticing how other people react to us. For example, if the people around us are being defensive it’s a pretty good bet that we’re acting in ways that cause those people to think there’s something to defend. If the people around us are arguing aggressively, it’s likely they think they must do so to be heard. If the people around us are cooperative, it’s likely we’re acting cooperatively.

In our daily lives, this can have enormous implications for our ability to achieve results. For example, think of someone you are very close to and get along with easily. What adjectives would you use to describe that person?

Now think of someone with whom you’re in conflict and have been for awhile. This could be a customer who isn’t buying from you, a boss who won’t listen to you or a spouse or child who disagrees with you. What adjectives would you use to describe these people when you are in conflict?

Consider that the adjectives you used are examples of your confirmation bias and they are driving your actions and, therefore, your results. You find evidence to confirm why your dear friend can be trusted and you act accordingly. You find evidence to be wary of that customer, boss or spouse and that drives other actions and different results.

I’m going to suggest something that you may consider radical so I ask for your indulgence: There is no reality to the adjectives you used. These people are not actually the way you describe them. You have simply been living within your confirmation bias long enough to believe that your reactions are “the truth.”    

The most limiting confirmation bias of all is the bias we have towards ourselves. Just complete the sentence, “I am… to see the effect of the confirmation bias on your actions and what has been possible for you in your life.

Yes the truth shall set you free. We just have to get beyond our blind spots to find that truth.  

Bringing Peace To Violence

Aqueela Sherrils is identified in the movie “Thrive” (available on DVD only) as the “coarchitect of the truce between the Crips and the Bloods in Los Angeles in 1992.” I didn’t know there had been a truce or even if it’s still holding, but I was happy to hear that there had been one. Any reduction in violence in this world is good for all of us.

This truce didn’t occur because Sherrils and others taught the combatants the 7 steps for resolving conflict. The truce occurred because there was a transformation in thinking. Until the parties to a conflict are willing to say, “enough,” no resolution will occur regardless of how versed people are in the 7 (or 3 or 10 or 17) steps.

In the movie, Sherrils is quoted as saying that conflict is healthy. It’s the way we allow for differences to emerge and it’s our differences that create the opportunity to learn from one another. No differences, no learning. No learning, no survival of the species.

Sherrils goes on to note, however, that “Unresolved conflict leads to violence.”

Some of us have our own variation of the Crips and Bloods battle. Usually it doesn’t escalate to physical violence. Usually it‘s a subtle kind of violence that people do to one another day in and day out.

It may be the violence that leads to families that are little more than armed camps, with the members of the various “camps” barely speaking to one another.

It may be the violence between parents and children who no longer listen to one another.

It may be the violence that leads to a loss of vitality when one fears honestly expressing oneself. 

It may be the violence of the workplace in which a boss, coworker or employee demoralizes those with whom he/she works.

But whether conflict leads to the violence of a quick death or the violence of the slow death of a relationship, no system for resolving conflict will make a difference unless there’s a transformation in thinking. Without a transformation, we are doomed to repeat the cycle of violence endlessly.

Here are some ideas about the kind of thinking that will make a difference:

1.   The internal monologue in our heads that tells us “this is the way the world is” will, for the most part, not help us to improve our relationships. That voice is designed to help us survive, not thrive. Survival too often means “keep doing what we’re doing” because what we’ve been doing has led to our survival. That voice comes from our past. That voice does not help us to solve new problems in the present or create a new future free from the constraints of the past. That internal voice can only tell us how problems were solved in the past which is fine if we live in the past. You may notice that we don’t (except in our memories).

2.   Responsibility for the success of relationships isn’t 50/50. It’s  100%/0. Have you noticed that you’re the common denominator in all of your relationships both when those relationships are working and when they are not?

3.   Listen without arguing to the feedback you get and especially the feedback you disagree with. What you’re being told is your access to great relationships. The feedback you hear may be a blind spot for you that may save your relationships if not your life. Blind spots cause accidents. Eliminating blind spots improves our vision.

4.   Give up believing that you are justified in being angry. Make up reasons (which is what justification actually is) to be loving instead.

5.   Continually forgive. Not condone, just forgive. Stop drinking arsenic and expecting the other person to die.

None of us are to blame for our way of thinking. Indeed, for the most part, our way of thinking isn’t actually our way of thinking. It’s how our ancestors thought. For example, if you are a man, you inherited certain ways of thinking that are common to men. If you’re a woman, you inherited thoughts that women generally think. These thoughts are evolving, but they are still inherited and aren’t original to us.

If we are to thrive, we have to invent new ways of thinking. When our way of thinking doesn’t work for us, we need to thank our ancestors for their help, but let them know, gently, that we plan to choose a way of thinking that brings peace to violence.