Realigning to What is Key
by Rebecca Crichton
However January unfolded for you, we somehow got through its many challenges in the physical, political and personal realms.
My experiences of the month have led me into embracing the prefix Re. I am revisiting, reevaluating, reconsidering, recalibrating, and reexamining how I do what I do. Revising. Reviewing. Redirecting. Reconnecting. Rethinking.
When I became a trainer and facilitator at Boeing, I had to take a batch of personality assessment tests. I initially dismissed them, fuming: “Don’t try putting me into some kind of box. I can’t be categorized.” It wasn’t that I thought I couldn’t be described by others, it was that I believed I couldn’t be summed up and therefore predictable. Hubris in action! Each assessment showed the same cluster of characteristics and behaviors in somewhat different configurations, with far more consistency than I wanted to admit.
I especially liked the Birkman Assessment Tool. It combined motivational, behavioral, and interests evaluation in one test in order to help individuals understand their unique strengths and interactions with others. The results included various spectrums indicating interests and behavior. One scale measured whether people were more or less trusting of others. On one side of the spectrum was “I trust you until you prove you can’t be trusted.” On the other, “I don’t trust you until you prove you can be trusted.”
Bonding with others is a basic survival skill, with recent research showing that most people default to the trust position. These two polarities, trust and distrust, vie with each other. Our tribes – whether families or other groups we identify with – enforce bonding and trusting within the group and guard and defend against others outside the group.
That polarization and its either/or stance causes many of the conflicts we confront in our current world. In December, I declared Polarized the word of the year. We are now in an even more heightened state of Us vs. Them and Either-Or than ever.
If you Google the words ‘Be Kind,’ among the choices will be a famous quote originally attributed to Philo of Alexandria, a 15th Century BCE philosopher. While the attribution keeps changing, it captures a universal truth: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Kindness, which the Dalai Lama claims as his religion, is a critical element of being human. The hormone oxytocin is often called the “love hormone” and is associated with feelings of bonding and trust. It’s the same hormone that mothers release during childbirth and breastfeeding to strengthen the bond with their child. When you are kind to others, your brain releases oxytocin, which, in turn, promotes those same feelings.
I am not alone in my growing awareness of the threats and dangers around us. Whether its politics or AI, the internet or social media, we are bombarded with stimuli that range from truth (what is that anyway?) to blatant lies. Sometimes we can’t tell the difference. That can trigger fear and defensiveness, cynicism and hopelessness.
My advice: Reconsider what you hear and see. Review and Revise old stories that don’t allow for Renewal and Recentering. Reclaim Resilience, an essential tool for managing life at this crucial time.