"Can't We All Just Get Along?"

The answer to Rodney King is “Yes,” but it takes a willingness to transcend our ordinary ways of behaving as exemplified by the following story I heard on the NPR program “This American Life” on April 14^th.

John Snid was the founder of Love In Action, an organization dedicated, in his words, to “curing” adult homosexuals. By his own admission, John had been cured of his own homosexuality while hearing God’s voice in Church. Subsequently, John got married.

John also created a ministry called Refuge to cure gay teens. While Love In Action had attracted little opposition, Refuge brought out protesters when one of the teens blogged about his rather unpleasant experiences.

Morgan John Fox was one of the leaders of the protest group that appeared day after day in front of the Love In Action offices, demanding to meet with John Snid.

After weeks of protest, John agreed to meet with Morgan. Both prepared their arguments (Morgan prepared a six page document) and got ready for the anticipated verbal battle between them.

Sitting across from John, Morgan looked down at his notes and, much to his surprise, started saying what he hadn’t planned on saying. He talked about being teased as a child because he was “different” and the disapproval he experienced from his parents, his father in particular. Morgan also talked about the love he experienced after coming out as a gay man and the loving relationships he then developed.

John was moved by Morgan’s unexpected vulnerability and chose not to deliver his prepared 6-page statement.

Morgan ended up attending an open meeting of Love In Action and, as a result of what he learned there, mended his relationship with his father. Morgan emailed John, telling him the difference that meeting had made for him even though he continued to disagree with much of John’s philosophy.

John emailed back and the two began meeting informally at coffee houses and restaurants. Friends of the two men kidded them that there was some kind of romantic attraction but that wasn’t at all the case. They genuinely enjoyed discussing their opposing viewpoints.

John ended up shutting down the teen program, Refuge. In March of 2008, John shut down Love In Action admitting, to many people’s dismay, that he had never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual. This statement got national attention and John was interviewed on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews.

John remains married to this day and refers to himself as gay. There was no comment from John’s wife.

My intention is not to comment on being gay, on the possibility of “curing” homosexuality or on the contradictions inherent in a professed gay man being married to a woman.

Rather, I want to comment on the possibility of living a life in which “Everyone Wins” the game of conflict as the title of my book suggests. It’s possible, but it requires an extraordinary willingness to give up the need to be right and make others wrong.

The goal of conflict resolution is not to change anyone’s opinions or judgments. The goal of conflict resolution is to create agreements to which everyone will commit. This is accomplished through listening for understanding without the intention of changing someone else’s mind. John and Morgan are the exemplars of what I’m referring to.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If argument begets arguing, might listening produce a very different outcome?

You can listen to this story here. 

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.

What You See Is What You Get. But You May Be Blind And Not Know It

Happy New Year (okay, so I’m closer to the Chinese New Year than the Western one, but the sentiments are the same).

How many times have you heard, “Perception is reality?” or that “What you see is what you get?” These statements have profound implications. What I think is there may not be. What I’m sure is not there, may be. I can’t be sure that my view of reality has any reality to it. This includes my view of other people as well as my view of myself.

If one of your resolutions is to have better relationships in 2012, consider that conflicts exist because we don’t see what other people plainly see or, conversely, we see what other people are sure isn’t there.

I submit the following as evidence:

You may have heard of the experiment in which six people, three wearing white shirts and three wearing black, are videotaped for one-minute tossing a basketball back and forth. Later, a group of people watch a recording of this action and are instructed to count the number of tosses made by people in the white shirts.

Afterwards, the observers are asked two questions:

1.      1. How many tosses were made by the white team and

2.       2. Did you see the gorilla?

Say what?

In fact, after 35 seconds of the one-minute recording have passed, a person in a gorilla suit walks into the circle of players, thumps his/her chest for nine seconds and then leaves.

100% of the observers correctly counted the number of passes. 50% of the people did not see the gorilla.

Another famous experiment is one in which Stanford University psychologist David Rosenhan had eight volunteers go to psychiatric hospitals on the east and west coasts and claim to be hearing voices for a brief period of time (by that definition, we all should be admitted. If you doubt it, just stop reading and listen to your internal monologue including the monologue that asks “What voice?”). All eight were admitted to the hospitals. One was diagnosed as manic-depressive while seven were diagnosed as schizophrenic. They ended up staying in the hospitals for an average of nineteen days (the range was from seven to fifty-two days).

Nurses generally reported that these patients seemed perfectly fine, but none of the hospital psychiatrists or staff agreed. All were eventually released with a diagnosis of schizophrenia “in remission”

When the results of the experiment were released, Rosenhan was contacted by a psychiatric hospital to explain that they would never be fooled as others had been. Rosenhan told these hospital administrators that, over the next three months, he would send them fake patients to see if they would be caught.

Three months later, 193 patients had been admitted by the hospital. 41 were classified as imposters.

In fact, Rosenhan had not sent a single fake patient to the hospital.

You may ask, “So what? How does this help me in my life?”

Simple. When a conflict festers, we of course believe we are right and “they” are wrong. Belief in the “rightness” of our position is the basis for all conflict.

If you have any interest at all in resolving those conflicts, you should at least consider that the gorilla that the other person is insisting is in the room pounding it’s chest just might be there but you are so focused on being right that you just don’t see it. Perhaps you’re not seeing that you really don’t listen, that your point of view is not the truth but only a point of view or that your opinion is not a fact.

So for this year and beyond, in order to improve our relationships, we all must be skeptical of our own certainties about ourselves and other people.    

Transcending "Groundhog Day"

“Groundhog Day” is a great film because it captures so well the dilemma of being a human being and also offers a way to transcend that dilemma.

You know the story. A pompous weatherman from Pittsburgh (Phil Connors) gets stuck in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania because of a snowstorm. He is also stuck in February 2^nd, Groundhog Day, waking up each day to the same day, over and over and over again until, finally, he wakes up to a new day.

In essence, this is our fate. We know what tomorrow will be like and, with some variation, it will be just like today. Few of us will wake up in the morning and completely alter the circumstances of our lives. The circumstances may alter without our active intervention, but we’re not likely to quit our jobs, end our relationships, leave our children behind and run off to Bali or wherever we have dreamed of being. Some people do but they are usually running from the law.

In fact, a change in our circumstances may cause us to yearn for “Groundhog Day.” For example, people who have lost jobs or homes probably wish to get their old life back. The uncertainty of this economy may have you wishing for your own “Groundhog Day.”

Even as the day changes to February 3^rd, nothing really alters for Phil Connors either. In fact, at the end of the movie as he is walking with the woman he loves he says, “Let’s live here forever.” But if he does, he will meet the same people, he will eventually hear Sonny and Cher singing, “I’ve got You Babe,” the song he woke up to every morning when it was always February 2^nd and he will likely return to his job predicting the weather. Even if he returns to Pittsburgh, he will mostly interact with the same people he did when he left for Punxsutawney.

So why is Phil Connors happy? You could say, as he does, that it’s simply change that has made him happier. But a little reflection proves the fallacy of that reasoning. For awhile, a new car, job or relationship makes us happy. But eventually the car, relationship and job become “Groundhog Day.”

I suggest that what alters Phil’s world is that he sees something that had been a blind spot for him. He sees that it really makes no difference if he has to repeat the same day over and over and over again. In essence, that’s all of our fates. Rather, he decides that while he can’t alter his circumstances, he can alter his attitude and that transforms everything.

 

Ultimately, this is how conflicts get resolved, relationships heal and we become happy. If our circumstances never change but our point of view about those circumstances changes, then life alters.

Paradoxically, altering our point of view requires that we see what has always been there. We will see what has always been there if we give up our commitment to being right about our opinions, judgments and assessments. We might, for example, see that our opinion of those family members we are dreading to see during the holidays bear no relationship to the reality of who they really are.

As Rabbi Alan Lew writes in his book, “One God Clapping,” “We don’t realize how much our subjectivity is involved in shaping reality. When we do become aware of this, the world seems remarkably malleable.”