We Choose How We Relate to Our World
The following is adapted from Waking up a Leader by Dr. Daphne Scott.
You’re sitting in your favorite chair with your beverage of choice, reading this article. What is your sense of time right now? Do you feel like you have plenty of time to read today, or do you feel rushed and short on time?
It’s Saturday afternoon and you’re walking the dog. What is the weather like today? Is it too hot or too cold?
You walk into the office on Monday morning and survey the week’s workload. Do you have too much work on your plate right now or too little?
In all three of these scenarios, your response to the questions indicates your relationship to the thing. The items themselves — time, weather, and work — are neutral. They aren’t good or bad, and they aren’t doing anything to you. They are simply showing up as what they are: the time of day, the temperature, and the work sitting on your desk.
Time, for instance, is just the hour on the clock. Three o’clock is no better or worse than four o’clock, and two o’clock doesn’t act any differently than one o’clock. Time only takes on a different meaning in our minds based on how we relate to it. Consider two people sitting side by side for ten minutes. One person is casually reading her book, while the other person is holding a ten-pound weight overhead. They experience the same ten minutes in two very different ways.
The same variety of experience applies to work or the weather. If it’s ninety degrees outside, one person might be happy because the heat eases his arthritis, whereas the other person might be miserable. If it’s raining, some people will love the cozy feeling of being inside and listening to the storm, and other people will hate it because they don’t like the dismal, gray sky and getting wet. Same weather, very different experiences.
We tend to think that objects, people, and events outside ourselves cause us to feel a certain way. This simply isn’t true. Our internal reaction determines our initial experience, whether positive or negative, and we can learn to respond versus simply react. We can choose how we relate to our world. Learning this transformational skill will enable you to transact with others more skillfully. It will also change your life in whimsical and magical ways.
When we become aware of our naturally occurring reactivity, we can choose to respond differently. This is important since our relationships and the skillfulness of our actions are first and foremost born from how we relate.
Half Full or Half Empty?
We are always relating to people, places, events, objects, ourselves — anything encountered through our five senses and also our thoughts. Whenever we see, hear, taste, touch, smell, or even think something, we react. We react to everything, and we always react in one of three ways — pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.
You’re probably familiar with the idea of seeing a glass as half full or half empty. Seeing the glass as half full is generally associated with having a positive outlook on life, while seeing the glass as half empty is linked with negativity. However, the realists among us may stomp their feet in protest. The other half of the glass is, in fact, empty.
What about the less-than-savory things that occur in our business and life? Do we simply ignore them? Not at all. This is likely one of the biggest misunderstandings about mindfulness. Living mindfully involves action. It doesn’t mean ignoring life’s trials and tribulations or giving too much attention to things beyond our control (as most things are).
The first step in relating to the glass is to see that it’s a glass. Like the weather, time, and work, the glass isn’t good or bad; it’s neutral.
Next, we need to appreciate the context and understand that we are relating to this innocuous glass as either half empty or half full. Both ways of seeing have their benefits as well as their perils. If I only see the glass as half full, then I may not be addressing issues that need to be addressed. Conversely, if I only see the glass as half empty, then I may not be aware of the good things that are occurring. I may not see that I can cultivate positive things in life that can be helpful and joyful to myself and others.
The glass of water is what it is. The difference comes from how we choose to see it.
For more advice on choosing how you relate to the world, you can find Waking up a Leader on Amazon.
Dr. Daphne Scott is the founder of DS Leadership Life and the chief culture officer for Confluent Health. She is an expert at waking up leaders to a mindful way of leading, and given her improv comedy training, she brings a unique sense of humor to her work helping merged companies integrate cultures. Daphne holds a Master’s of Applied Positive Psychology and is also a certified mindfulness meditation teacher. She hosts The Super Fantastic Leadership Show podcast and the series Leadership in the Driver’s Seat on her YouTube channel. Learn more and read her blog at www.daphne-scott.com.
