You know what's cool...

You know what's cool?  Being the best version of yourself for people.

I feel like I've spent a lot of time recently forming my tribe.  My support system.  The people that I am choosing to influence me and the people that I can go to with my shit.  Not my physical shit, but my metaphorical shit.  The shit that keeps me up at night wondering if I'm capable of pulling off this whole life thing.

I feel like that's a heavy thing for me to ask a lot of my friends to help me carry, but.. I can't carry it alone, so I have to ask.  And, as a way to repay them for my debt, I help them carry some of theirs.  Fair is fair, right?  If I expect this from the people in my life, then it's only fair that when I offer up my carrier services that I do so in the best possible way that I can.

In my latest string of human being improvement inquiries I've realized that there are very few things that I can do for the people in my life; my friends, family, clients, and coworkers, that is less important than listening to them.  Not just listening, but listening.

We've all, I'm sure, heard about the difference between hearing and listening.  That's not what I'm here to write about.  We've all heard it, we're all sick of it.  What I'm here to do, is to give out real tools for improving your relationship with listening.

How do I know that I'm the kind of person that would benefit from listening training?

• Are you a human being?

Hard stop.  We have a lack of listening epidemic on our hands.  Like our entire society.  Our desire to feel connected to our community is as ingrained into our biology as breathing is.  One way that we can feel a stronger connection is to feel like we understand and are understood.  But how do we expect to be understood if we don't communicate?  And part of effective communication is... listening.  I get it though, it's hard.  My friend Leslie put it perfectly, 'listening is a conscious choice', you have to decide that you are going to do that thing.  And if this is something that you aren't used to doing it can seem difficult.  What was it like when you first started typing on a keyboard, searching for each individual letter, painstakingly scouring the keys that are in no particular order to find the one that matches your needs.  With some practice, though, now your fingers fly across the keys.  What used to take hours now feels like seconds, and now you can type an entire Facebook rant without even blinking.  So how do we do the thing?
Let's talk about 3 places to start.

1. 'It's an occupational hazard of being packaged in a body, that the universe is outside and you are obviously then center of it' -Jon Kabat Zinn wrote that.  I think what he is telling us here is that it is soooo incredibly easy for us to show up to a conversation with only ourselves in mind.   How deflating does is feel when you are sharing something with someone and all they can do is relate is back to themselves?  Comment- 'hey, I recently reconnected and have starting hanging out again with this mutual person that we knew in the past'  Answer- 'cool, you know who I just saw, this random person that means nothing to either of us or, quiet frankly, the original person that you mentioned'.  Deflating.  The wind is immediately and abruptly stripped from your sails and you've missed the opportunity to share a meaningful conversation about reconnecting with past acquaintances.  That's not listening.  And when that happens with the small stuff, why would anyone go there with the big stuff?  And the big stuff is how we are understood.  So.. do what you can to check your ego at the door and show up to a conversation with a mind wide open.
2. Show up.  Not just physically.  Actually show. up.  We don't always like going down into the basement, we all have insecurities and it can be scary to go down there.  It commonly requires an emotional commitment that we aren't always willing to make.  But, if you go down there with someone and they hold the flashlight for you, you may find out that your basement looks a lot like theirs, and you know what that means- they may be able to help you find your way out.  Even if their basement looks nothing like yours, the cobwebs aren't in the same places, the cracks in the foundation aren't as shallow or as deep, but if they can show up to the conversation and really listen it really doesn't matter.  So show up, sit across from someone, put your phone down, look them in the eyes, and don't just wait for the next time you can interrupt.
3. Form questions, not assumptions.  Not much makes me jump to defense as making assumptions about where I'm coming from.  Everyone interacts with life through the lens of their own experiences so how easy is it to assume that everyone else is looking through your lens, and that they would experience something the same way that you did.  Instead, ask a question about how they identify with what they are talking about.  I promise you'll understand way more about someone by asking what it was like to grow up with 4 siblings than to assume that their life was crazy and that their mom was always chauffeuring around them and their siblings.  To be fair, it does take genuine interest in a person or topic to be able to pose thoughtful and thought provoking questions, but curiosity doesn't always kill the cat, and truthfully questions don't always have to be thought provoking.  You are allowed to ask, 'hey how was that presentation that you were nervous about giving?' without it being a profound, ground breaking moment between 2 people.  And when you are looking for questions to ask, use the trick that journalists use- start questions with who, what, where, when, why, and how.  Close ended questions, with yes or no answers aren't going to get you very far.

Do I think that listening is a skill?  Yes.  Do I also think it will strengthen the connections that you have and improve every aspect of your life?  Also yes.  Do I think that you have to give it to get it?  The MOST yes.
So I'm posing a challenge- try one of the things I suggested above, just once, and see how it goes.  We're all in this together and remember skills take practice.  I'm still working hard on this one too.

I've done it again...

I've done it again.  I went and asked all of my friends the question I should have been asking myself all along.  And instead of just sitting down and writing about it, I just spent the past few weeks interviewing as many of the people, who's opinions I value, as I can on the topic.  I've been obsessed, recently with the difference between fear and danger.  And when I say obsessed.. I mean OBSESSED.
I want to know what to do with each one of them.
I want to know what each one of them feels like in my body.
I want to know what each feels like in other people's bodies.
I want to know what people's relationship is with both of them.
I even want to know what people think the world would be like without them.

Fear has such an interesting place in our society.  To us and our monkey brains, it's perceived danger, right?  But, what one person perceives against another, can be wildly different.  One person thinks that their most fearful act is to jump off of a 50 foot cliff, while another, would do that no problem.. but are terrified to tell someone how they feel about them.  And you know what's funny?  Most of the time when it's pure, true, clean, fear isn't not actually dangerous.  Sure jumping off of a cliff is frightening, and has it's risks, but to someone who has done it countless times, that fear may not go away completely, but the danger certainly reduces.
I've heard fearlessness defined not as the absence of fear, but the total presence of fear with the courage to face it, which is so beautiful to me.  I think there is real work in recognition of fear, not as something that should be ran from, but instead as an indicator that we are pointed in the right direction.  I asked my friend Hannah what she thought of fear, and her answer was exactly the reason why I love her so much.  'To me- I charge towards fear.  I see something that could be difficult, or overwhelming, or challenging, and it has to take a lot for me not to say yes and go into it.  And yeah, sometimes it causes me some problems, but I always learn so much from it, and I know this sooo much about myself, that I haven't found a good reason yet, not to say yes to fear...'  What a gal, huh?  My relationship with fear has been a work in progress.  I used to buckle under fear.  At least the emotional kind.  Throwing myself down a mountain on 2 pieces of wood strapped to my feet- no problem.  Barrel down the same mountain on metal frame with 2 wheels- again, no problem.  Well, not no problem, but to me the perception of risk for these activities was so low because I had done it so many times.  I grew up on those pieces of wood, I had been balancing on that metal frame since I was a toddler.  Does that mean when I would come across a dangerous section of the trail in front of me, that I wouldn't take care of myself and go around it?  Of course not, but I never payed any attention to the difference.  Emotional fear was different.  The first time that I didn't listen to my intuition about emotional fear, it turned into danger.. go figure.  So later on when that perception of risk crept in, I would turn into one of those cartoon characters that leaves only the dust outline of their figure behind.  What a way to live, right?

I've heard that fear halts growth.  Fear is something that is meant to be overcome.  Why?  Because of the feeling on the other side of fear.  The overwhelming sense of pride, joy, and release from the bind of fear is so irresistible that we almost can't help ourselves.  So, how then, do we know the difference?
No, actually- I'm asking..
If fear is perceived danger, and danger is the possibility of suffering harm or injury, and we're supposed to run from one, and charge towards the other, how do we tell the difference?

Since the place that I seemed to have the most luck determining the difference is on the ski hill, or the bike track, I started there.  When I would come across an aspect that looked difficult or that I had never done, I would close my eyes, take a breath, and open them again.  If I felt it in my stomach and curiosity snuck in, I knew I was afraid and this was an aspect that I was meant to overcome.  If I felt it in my heart and I could only think of what could go wrong, this aspect wasn't for me.  And, it started working!  Not without some room for error of course, but that's when Hannah comes in and I learn what I can from the situation- aka face plant.  So now comes the work.  We have already established that there are metaphors in the sports world, and if your not following me, here is the link.  Here it is again, just in case.  So, good, now that we've recognized that- we work on listening to those same cues in other parts of our lives.  Mental, emotional, career..  And I'm using the collective we.  Actually, I'm mostly using the 'listen to yourself Bunn'- but this is why I write.

I also think it's worth exploring what the world might look like in the absence of fear.  Not in the absence of danger.  Only fear.  How would that look?  'Well, we would have people throwing themselves off of cliffs'.  Right, we already have that.  But we would also have a lot more people unafraid of applying for a job they might not have previously, or falling in love with someone who isn't their type, or learning how to fly one of those little 2 passenger airplanes that are so cool.  And, what a tremendous world that would be.  When you think about all of the little things that could go wrong in my new world where fear is unavailable, don't forget to put this idea into perspective.  My friend Robin asked me 'Don't you think there would be a lot more annoyance from people always telling each other how they feel?  Like if my patience is wearing thin with you and I tell you that, it hurts your feelings.'  Right, but if the world started off this way then we wouldn't know the difference.  And, what a relief right?  Trying to figure out where you stand with people is such an anxiety producer, imagine a world without that..
I do think, though, that a world without fear would eventually perpetuate the analytical class.  Those that sit back and watch the first person jump off the cliff are less likely to do it if the first person experiences danger or death.  So then, we end up with a world full of watchers.  But is that not where we are now?  To some extent?  Aren't we all sitting here saying, you shouldn't do that, you shouldn't ride your bike down that mountain, you shouldn't run the country this way, you shouldn't dream about something that could never exist- but then we don't do anything about it, because we are afraid that our action isn't the right one.  Or is that just me?

Either way, I think that we (I) can and should learn from the Hannah's of the world.  Those who's relationship with fear is to say: ok fear, I see you.  But I only see you as an obstacle, not as a road block.  And when I've mistakenly stumbled upon danger instead of fear .. that's a learning opportunity.