Latest / Infinite Threads with Bob Barnett / The Person We Bring Into the Room

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The Person We Bring Into the Room · Infinite Threads with Bob Barnett

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: and time.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Infinite Threads.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Bob.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: For the last couple of episodes, We've been looking outward.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: First came empathy,
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: the ability to recognize that another person is living inside a world every bit
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: as real and complicated as our own.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then compassion asked what we might do once we see that clearly.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Today, I want to turn the mirror around.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because there is somebody else involved in every conversation that we have.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Us.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds obvious,
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: but I don't think we always realize just how much of ourselves we bring into a room
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: before the other person has even finished saying hello.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: We bring yesterday with us.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: We bring old disappointments,
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: expectations, habits,
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  SPEAKER_00: fears, memories, and sometimes a few bruises that we thought had healed years ago.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then somebody says one sentence,
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  SPEAKER_00: and suddenly we're not only reacting to that sentence,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: we may be reacting to something that happened 10 years ago.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's where self-awareness becomes important.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the most important things.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not because we should spend our lives analyzing every thought that crosses our minds.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think that would drive anybody crazy.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Self-awareness is simpler than that.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's learning to notice ourselves while we're being ourselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there's a difference.
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  SPEAKER_00: I can be angry.
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  SPEAKER_00: Or I can notice that I'm angry.
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  SPEAKER_00: That little bit of distance matters.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because once I notice what's happening inside me,
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have a chance to ask whether the feeling belongs entirely to this moment.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it does.
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  SPEAKER_00: If somebody treats us badly, anger can be a perfectly reasonable response.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: But other times, The reaction is bigger than the situation.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us have probably had one of those moments.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure we have.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you have.
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  SPEAKER_00: Someone says something fairly ordinary
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  SPEAKER_00: and it hits us like they just insulted generations of our family.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Five minutes later, part of us is thinking, well, that may have been a little much.
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  SPEAKER_00: That moment is useful.
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  SPEAKER_00: It tells us something touched a nerve.
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  SPEAKER_00: And nerves usually have a history.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe being ignored bothers us because we spent years feeling invisible.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe criticism hits especially hard because somebody
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: in our past never seemed satisfied with anything we did.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: We may react strongly to being misunderstood because we've spent too much
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: of our lives trying to explain ourselves.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: None of that.
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  SPEAKER_00: None of that means that our feelings are fake.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: It means that feelings have roots.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Self-awareness, well, it helps us find them.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that becomes especially important when we're trying to practice empathy.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I don't understand what is happening inside me,
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  SPEAKER_00: I can easily make my reaction for information about you.
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  SPEAKER_00: I can think you made me feel this way.
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  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, you must have meant to.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: But intention and effect are not always the same thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think we all know that really at heart.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people hurt us deliberately.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: It happens.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they stumble into an old bruise that they couldn't possibly have known was there too.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Being self-aware enough to recognize the difference can save relationships.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: It can also save us from making people answer for things they never actually did.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's one reason arguments can become so confusing.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Two people begin talking about what happened today.
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  SPEAKER_00: Before long, they're arguing with every person who ever disappointed them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Neither one realizes how crowded the room has become.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: A husband says something that reminds his wife of the way her father used to talk to her.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: A friend doesn't return a message, and suddenly an old fear of abandonment wakes up.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Someone questions an idea, and it feels less like disagreement and more like rejection.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: The present moment, well, it gets mixed up.
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  SPEAKER_00: It gets mixed together with the past.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: That happens to humans.
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  SPEAKER_00: The goal isn't to become ashamed of it.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to notice when it's happening.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's another side to self-awareness that can be uncomfortable.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we discover that the story we've been telling ourselves isn't entirely accurate.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: We all create little explanations for why people do what they do.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't respect me.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: She thinks she's better than everybody.
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  SPEAKER_00: They don't care.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Occasionally those conclusions can be correct, but sometimes we don't actually know, do we?
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  SPEAKER_00: We've filled in the blank.
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  SPEAKER_00: Human brains are extremely good at that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Give us half a story and we'll happily write the rest.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then...
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  SPEAKER_00: Then we start reacting to the version that we wrote.
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  SPEAKER_00: That can create a remarkable amount of trouble.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Self-awareness gives us the ability to catch ourselves and say,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: wait a minute, what do I actually know here?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: That one question can change a conversation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the person who seemed rude was distracted Maybe the friend
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: who didn't answer was overwhelmed.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody really was upset with us,
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  SPEAKER_00: but for a completely different reason than the one we invented in our heads.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Curiosity gives relationships a little breathing room.
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  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the person we need to be curious about is ourselves.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Why did that bother me so much?
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  SPEAKER_00: Why am I trying so hard to prove this point?
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  SPEAKER_00: Why do I need this person to agree with me?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I becoming defensive?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Those questions, they aren't accusations, guys.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're information gathering.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're studying the person we bring into the room.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's something loving about doing that
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: because self-awareness isn't only for our own benefit.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: The people around us, of course, the people around us benefit from it too.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: If I understand my triggers,
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm less likely to hand them to somebody else and insist that they caused them.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: If I recognize one of my blind spots,
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  SPEAKER_00: I have a better chance of listening when someone points it out.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And when I know that I have a tendency to react in a certain way,
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I can build a little space between the feeling and what I do next.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: That space is powerful.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: A lot can happen inside of just a few seconds.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: We can say the thing we'll regret or We can wait.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: We can decide that being right is more important than a relationship,
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: or we can become curious about what the other person is actually trying to tell us.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean that we should ignore our instincts.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Our emotions, well, they often tell us something important.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Fear can warn us.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Anger can tell us a boundary has been crossed.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sadness can reveal what mattered.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Self-awareness doesn't silence those signals, guys.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It helps us interpret them.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Think of the dashboard in a car.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: If a warning light comes on, you shouldn't smash the light because it's annoying, right?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: But you also don't automatically assume that the engine is about to explode either.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: You look into it.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Emotions are a little bit like that.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: They tell us that something is happening.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then we have to understand what?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think this also connects to compassion toward ourselves.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: There are parts of ourselves that we may not especially like.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: We can be impatient, defensive, Jealous, afraid.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: We can say something foolish or respond badly and realize it afterward.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Self-awareness is not supposed to become a new weapon for beating ourselves up.
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  SPEAKER_00: If anything, it should move us in the opposite direction.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: When we understand why we react the way we do,
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  SPEAKER_00: we have a chance to grow
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  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't remove responsibility.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: If I hurt somebody, understanding why I did it does not erase the hurt.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: But understanding the pattern may help me keep from doing it again.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's repair.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Repair.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Repair.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And repair, guys, repair is something that we've talked about a lot on this show, isn't it?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose of looking honestly at ourselves isn't to decide
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: whether we're good people or bad people.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Human beings are much more complicated than that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: The useful question is whether we're learning.
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  SPEAKER_00: Are we becoming more aware of what passes through us?
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  SPEAKER_00: Can we recognize the places where fear or pride or old pain begin steering the wheel?
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  SPEAKER_00: When we notice those things,
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  SPEAKER_00: we gain choices that we didn't have when we were moving automatically.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: That may be one of the quiet forms of freedom,
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  SPEAKER_00: not the freedom to feel nothing The freedom to decide what we do with what we feel.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it affects the weave.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because whatever we don't examine tends to travel.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: An old wound becomes anger.
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  SPEAKER_00: That anger reaches another person.
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  SPEAKER_00: They carry some of it into another room.
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  SPEAKER_00: Before long,
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  SPEAKER_00: pain that began years ago is still moving through people who never knew
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  SPEAKER_00: where it started.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Self-awareness gives us a place to interrupt that.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: We can say, this came through me, but it doesn't have to keep going.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love that idea.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: I really do.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to pass every hurt forward.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Some things can end with us.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the same awareness lets us recognize the good we carry, too.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we inherited patience from someone.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: A sense of humor, a habit of checking on people, a willingness to forgive.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Self-awareness isn't just digging through the basement looking for problems.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: It also helps us understand the things that are worth keeping.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: We begin to see the person we've become as a mixture of what happened to us
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  SPEAKER_00: And what we've chosen to do with it.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Chosen.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: That person is still unfinished.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think all of us are.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow, guys, we'll widen the view again.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because once we can see another person and become a little more aware of ourselves,
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  SPEAKER_00: there's another step.
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  SPEAKER_00: We begin noticing the larger world beyond our own story.
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  SPEAKER_00: The people we don't know personally.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Experiences we may never have ourselves.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: The effects that our choices can have far beyond the room that we're standing in.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's called outward awareness.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not self-awareness.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're talking about today.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow is outward awareness.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: But for today, the work stays closer to home.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: When something stirs inside us, maybe we can become curious before we become certain.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: We can ask what belongs to this moment and what came into it with us.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because self-awareness doesn't make us less human.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: It helps us become more responsible for the human being that we bring into the room.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And guys, that is our responsibility.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Once we can see ourselves a little more clearly, It becomes much easier to see everyone else.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then we choose what is next.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you want that power?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I love you guys very, very much.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what I need you to do, right?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Go out there and pass that on, okay?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Later Gators.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Every story, every voice In this love we all rejoice.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: Infinite Threads, here we go.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome your friends, enjoy the show.