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Blind Spots
Redefining Loyalty: How Loving Opposition Can Help Us Grow 640 480 Thayer Fox

Redefining Loyalty: How Loving Opposition Can Help Us Grow

We all crave loyalty. Associated with honor, loyalty is demonstrated by a “Going down with the ship”, “No man left behind”, “No matter what” mentality. Loyalty is cited in Psychology Today as one of the top three qualities people look for in a relationship. An ironclad contract with no wiggle room, loyalty keeps marriages intact through rocky periods and also fuels loveless partnerships of convenience. When loyalty becomes enabling, it serves neither party. How do you define loyalty?

When a trait is unanimously preferable, we all agree on it. People who are loyal are good, and people who do not meet our criteria for this label are bad. This becomes more complicated if we zoom in on all our different definitions of what it means to be loyal. One friend feels it’s disloyal to miss her birthday party. Another one doesn’t care if you skip her party, but you must ignore a mom she detests at school pickup to prove your allegiance. Our definition is obvious to us, so we operate with the assumption that everyone is on the same page. Rarely do we communicate our expectations yet we judge harshly when people don’t behave how we want them to in our allotted time frame. Our friend circles are composed of people who share our belief systems and nod as we rant about the latest injustice in our life. We don’t like people who disagree with us. We internalize opposing viewpoints as conflict, which triggers our survival instinct.

But we stop developing when our thinking is not challenged.

As a child, I was a loyalty fanatic. Growing up in a family with an alcoholic, there was a lot of inconsistency. I sought out people who “had my back”. If you loved me than you needed to prove it by doing everything my way. Noncompliance was viewed as treason and grounds for exile. I used the concept of loyalty to control people, and it worked, keeping my friends and boyfriends silent. A synonym of loyalty in the dictionary is obedience which explains why our personal definitions rarely leave room for constructive feedback.

My thoughts on loyalty have evolved over the years. What does it mean in a relationship to be loyal? What exactly am I being loyal to? The Buddha nature in someone or their fragile identity which houses blind spots, complaints, and excuses? When getting along is the dominant rule of engagement, loyalty mutates into co-dependency. Melody Beattie is an excellent resource in this area. You cannot show up in the world and be of service if you are not taking care of yourself first.

Jim Rohn said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Who do you spend the most time being loyal to? How do their energy and thinking affect you?

Loyalty for me includes saying it all. However, honest feedback without love is anger in disguise. The trending concept of “brutal honesty” perpetuates the self-righteous anger of our egos. I need to check my intentions before engaging in challenging conversations or offering up unsolicited advice. Whenever my amygdala is hijacked, it’s essential to keep my mouth shut and turn to prayer and meditation until I reconnect with my heart. Voicing an opposing viewpoint with love requires patience, courage, and commitment.

We are also loyal to ways of thinking that cause us pain. When we parrot opinions handed down by our parents or based on past experience, we exit the present moment. How often do you operate with blind loyalty to an unexamined belief? How I identify with my thoughts and emotions today is a choice. Holding what I believe loosely makes room for new information and experiences to integrate. I want the right to change my mind as I grow and be surrounded by people who give me the space to do so because they are growing too.

Mark Twain said this beautifully, “Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world—and never will.”

 

 

Photo by Drew Rae
Are You Stuck? Find Your Blind Spots 640 426 Thayer Fox

Are You Stuck? Find Your Blind Spots

Are you self-aware? Can you speak about your strengths and weaknesses with ease? I know the danger of this position firsthand; self-knowledge seems useful initially but ends up creating a surplus of certainty. Certainty is the cement in which we get stuck. Our known weaknesses don’t take us down, it’s our blind spots. If you don’t believe that you have any, then you have just located your first one.

I learned about blind spots at The Landmark Forum a few years ago. The Forum leader drew a Venn diagram on a whiteboard in front of the room. Inside the first circle on the left, he wrote: What I Know I Know. He then told us to write down an example of something we know we know so I wrote addiction and nutrition. In the circle at the end, he wrote: What I Know I Don’t Know. Most of us borrowed his example, to fly a plane, to complete the exercise. He finished the diagram by writing What I Don’t Know I Don’t Know aka Blind Spots in the middle circle.

The forum leader told us that the majority of what stopped us in life was housed here. A blind spot is a hidden area that you can’t see about yourself which can cause minor and severe accidents as you change lanes in life. Although blind spots are unconscious, we often go to great lengths to keep them concealed.

The irony of blind spots is that they are glaring to many of your friends and colleagues, like a strand of spinach wedged in between your two front teeth. Uncovering blind spots is the secret to becoming unstuck in any area. The inspiration that becomes available in the breakthrough moment when you come face to face with a blind spot is electric. It provides energy to take massive action and action will always move you forward.

A powerful way to uncover blind spots is to interview your friends and family. I did this exercise in my 3rd Landmark course, Self-Expression and Leadership Program, four years ago. The feedback was invaluable. I chose three conscious friends and asked how I occurred to them. Trusting they would speak out of love, I listened carefully, not liking everything I heard. One friend said that many people saw me as a combination of “aloof, hard to get close to, intense and confrontational.” Another friend asked me who else I planned to interview “nobody’s going to tell you the truth.” When I asked her why they wouldn’t, she responded, “because you scare people.” Ouch.

These conversations changed me. The disconnect between who I wanted to be and how I occurred to people was face up on the table now. My deepest desire was to connect with people in a meaningful way, but my delivery and mannerisms were sabotaging this possibility. When I couldn’t find an access point with someone or felt awkward in a situation, I became aloof, the cool girl act from my teen years. Of course, not everyone is available to connect deeply, so I also had to address why I kept going to the hardware store for oranges, which has always been one of my favorite Al-Anon sayings.

Here are three tips on how to locate blind spots:

  1. When you complain about being powerless in a re-occurring situation. Being a victim. “She makes me feel X all the time.”
  2. When you make excuses about people or situations that keep you from looking at your part. “He acts the way he does because he had a rough childhood.”
  3. When you believe that an external event is causing a problem instead of taking a closer look at your behavior. “Everyone was gossiping at the dinner.”

I had an old boss who constantly complained about everyone being an asshole: the garage attendant, the barista, and most of our clients. He believed wholeheartedly in his interpretation, and the stories he would relay were convincing. I fall into this rut too and the words of a wise friend always pull me out, “You see one or two assholes in a day, maybe it’s them. If you see more than three, consider that you are the asshole.”

It takes guts to locate a blind spot, but the breakthrough awaiting is worth the initial discomfort.