In the past I imagined that, if a certain concept or idea is very familiar to me, most people in my immediate social network (e.g. friends, family members, colleagues etc) must understand it in the same way as I do and have the same mental associations as me.
Somewhere along the way I realised that this is fundamentally untrue and that my unique perspective is valuable because no-one else has made, or could make, exactly the same connections as me. I have a unique edge in this regard. This is not just true for me – it’s true for everyone!
It took me a long time to realise this and the journey was anything but smooth sailing – I felt a lot of frustration with people in my life: “Why do they not have the same perspective as me when it’s so obvious?” I am sad and embarrassed to say that I could be quite judgemental of people with different viewpoints to me. Full disclosure: I still can be at times, but I’m trying to practice being more empathetic and open-minded and see the truth, which is that there is a wonderful and unique human in front of me whose life experience up to this point has led them here. I have made a lot of progress and (lovingly) let go of a lot of anger and blame, feeling much lighter as a result.
What I’ve learnt is that it’s important to share my perspective with my peers, ideally in writing or in some other accessible format, starting with the basic fundamental principles and building blocks, because only then will it be clear to myself and others what we’re actually talking about. I then get this wonderful opportunity to invite different perspectives, gather feedback and develop my understanding further.
I’d love it if our culture supported this kind of sharing. I believe we need the following pre-requisites – a shared intention towards developing:
- Empathy
- (Unconditional) positive regard, and
- Congruence or authenticity
These are the 3 core conditions for a supportive culture, which are the basis for therapeutic personality change in person-centred / humanistic therapy developed by Carl Rogers.
So why elephants?
Well, at work a few months back I attended a training session on neurodiversity and, at one point, the facilitator asked the group to imagine an elephant. She then asked a few people in the audience to describe their elephants.
The answers were varied, imaginative and colourful:
- Some were realistic with details of flappy ears, a trunk, tusks, wrinkles and feet with big toes. They were in different locations, such as parts of Asia and Africa. One elephant was found on a street corner in England.
- Several of the elephants were cartoons from TV, movies or books such as Dumbo, Babar or Elmer. They were different colours including pink and multi-coloured!
- Some featured on items of clothing (such as elephant trousers) or in pieces of art.
The idea is that until we share our unique elephants with each other, we may imagine that we all have the same idea, but that’s simply not the case.
I believe that we need to share our unique perspectives if we want to start to address the elephants in the room. To make this possible, we need a supportive culture where humans are seen as caring, complex and intelligent creatures with a common set of underlying fundamental needs. In such a culture different ideas can be shared peacefully and with mutual respect and progress can be made much more easily.
Mindful Alice. 