Building a World of Encounter Instead of Confrontation

Liberating from hate and building a world of encounter instead of confrontation has always had relevance. It has always been needed throughout our human history, though often lacking. Recently, however, I had higher hopes for our movement toward the encounter stage of our evolution instead of resorting to the confrontation place in ourselves – in our thoughts, beliefs and perspectives. As we walked through the Corona virus journey this spring, there was a camaraderie in the air and in people’s hearts. We felt that “we are all in this together” and the traditional philosophical and political differences between us softened. Sure, there were still differences we could see among us, but they were less of the hard dividing lines of us and them, and more like different focal points that could be appreciated with more understanding, even if we didn’t necessarily agree with every aspect of another’s perspective. I could even see the connection people were feeling toward one another while out on socially-distanced green way and park path walks. Back in March, it
seemed people were friendlier with their smiles and acknowledgements of others on the walks, almost like a silent “I’m here with you and I see you” kind of message. I was elated with the opportunity for us to slow down, really see each other for the beings we all are, and not for the “what do you represent to or for me” way we tend to see people when in our heads and in our egos. I felt like we were finally coming together as a unified single human race family, without all of the us and them divisions. And I think we actually were there for a while. We really were there. For a moment in time.
 

Then came the entrenchment of fear. Fear on all sides. Some fears turned to anger, while others’ turned into a deeper anxiety. Each expressed these reactions in varying degrees from minor irritation about feeling suppressed from their own rights and from concern for others to more extreme reactions of anger and fear. Both factions wanted control – one a fear of others controlling them; and the other a fear of others not behaving in the proscribed way, wanting to control them. The typical division of philosophies emerged between those who cling to their rights, trusting no one but themselves, and those clinging to regulations and rules for the public good, trusting only the government to have a service-to-others perspective. Make no mistake, though, both responses had fear at their roots, with both segments wanting control. That’s the ego, and that is what the ego does when allowed to run our thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. That is where we are today, in mid-May of 2020. Both perspectives have different focal points and resulting responses. Each has valid concerns, but they conflict in their desired outcome. Both perspectives are deeply attached to their desired outcomes. And this current conflict is on the rise.

Gone are the pervasive swaths of camaraderie and the “we’re all in this together” attitude with which we used to look at one another a mere month ago. We’ve reverted back to the us and them mantras where the them’s are going to harm the us’s if we don’t stop them. This is what all conflict boils down to – fear and its desire to control. It is a fear that another will harm you or your interests, whether that perceived harm will be part of an us group or you personally. The means with which we then engage in this conflict determine how severe the conflict gets and the repercussions. Can we compromise? Do we stand for an all-or-nothing, my-way-or-the-highway position, seeing only win-lose propositions? Do we make an attempt to see others’ perspectives? Do we look for common ground, or do we just see the divisions? Do we use our hearts of wanting to see the truth more than we want to be right? Or do we use our egos in wanting to be right more than we want to see the truth, whether of the situation’s facts (which is not the ego’s commentary on those facts) or the truth of another’s humanity and good intentions?
 
This is where we must start in building a world of encounter instead of confrontation. We must start with remembering who we all are. We are all part of the human race on this Earth, and we are all trying to be happy. What makes each person happy may be different. We may have different levels of concern for others in our pursuit of our own happiness. In the end, however, we are still part of one human race family trying our best within our circumstances. In this solidarity, we can begin our desire to understand and encounter instead of react and confront with respect to our perceived differences. I learned long ago in the business world in negotiating deals and settlements that, despite what someone’s position on paper or in oral statements may look like, their actual position is often not as different in intentions as what it initially seemed. Yes, it could be more self-serving, but it could also be less different from your own too. “How can that be,” you might ask? Aren’t the words people say, whether orally or in writing – particularly a business deal – aren’t they black and white? They are what they are, and words mean what they mean, right? In America, particularly, our business and legal documents are typically longer, more involved and more detailed than other countries, so there is often not much to misunderstand, right? Our posts in many social media and blog forums go on and on, so how can we really misunderstand what people themselves say or write?

The answer: very easily. We all have our own perspectives and conditioned beliefs through which everything we see and hear gets filtered. We’ve all walked out of a circumstance – an experience, a conversation, a meeting – with a different perspective than what another took from that. You’ve thought to yourself before, “What planet was that person on during that?!” Let’s start with a simple example with an easy to understand explanation. A friend of mine had discovered an attractive business opportunity, but she needed someone to cover a portion of the work. So, she found someone, and partnered with him to bid on that opportunity. She submitted the combined proposal, adding his piece to hers. She discovered later that he ended up also submitting a bid for the work. Now, just pause a moment, and let that sink in. What runs through your head as you ponder this? Anything? Or do you want to find out more because you aren’t sure what to think yet?
 
If you find yourself immediately reacting negatively, presuming that he was trying to steal the bid from her, then you are likely to engage in confrontational conflict - either expressly or within your head – in judgment toward him and others, because you leapt to a negative conclusion without knowing more. If you paused, thought “that sounds a little strange, I need to find out more”, you might be more likely to engage in constructive encounters with him and others, without projecting or labeling negative assumptions or intentions onto them first. Before you get upset with me for presuming to predict your tendency on how you deal with your life, let me tell you how the actual facts unveiled, and you can see how it might have gone for you if you were in that circumstance.

My friend got angry and incensed. She jumped to the conclusion that he was trying to steal the business away from her since he never told her he did this. She believed him to be dishonest and deceitful. She angrily accused him of being dishonest, deceitful, trying to steal the business from her, not trustworthy and having no integrity. He was shocked at her response and treatment of him, especially without her knowing more or ever having asked him anything about it. His explanation was that he just wanted to increase their chances of winning the bid by submitting what was essentially the same proposal twice. By his submission of a similar bid, this just increased their chances by a factor of 2. It was a simple and easy mathematical formula. How she didn’t see that was completely foreign to him. He became incensed that she gave him no benefit of the doubt and impugned his honor and integrity by presuming he was doing such an underhanded thing. “How could she think he would be capable of doing something like that?” he thought. A business relationship was forever ruined through this conflict. Both ended up offended, incensed, and with a lack of trust for one another. If you are inclined to think that he was guilty of doing what she accused him of and only made up an excuse because he got caught, you will want to recognize that this may speak more to your mindset than his, but hold that judgment until you find out more relevant facts that you likely do not know or could not anticipate.
 
How could this perceived conflict and difference have been approached differently to minimize conflict and preserve relationships and respect? Instead of rising up in anger based on suppositions, assumptions and her own interpretations of limited facts, she could have reserved judgment, and simply asked him questions about it with an open mind to hear what he had to say before making a snap judgment. Instead, she approached him with the presumption of “I know why he did it, why else would anyone do that, and not tell me about it?!” An open mindedness and reservation of judgment approach would have resulted in creating an environment of encounter instead of confrontation. Now, before you get too far down the thought highway of “he just said that because he got caught; he was really trying to take the business away from her,” let’s look at the various factors that go into creating someone’s mindset, perspective and resulting behaviors. Factors like culture, upbringing, values and other things contribute to our conditioning in life that produce our perspectives of ourselves, others, and life, which, then, create our experiences.
 

So, here are some of these unstated and unknown facts that were the undercurrent conditioning of both people involved. He was born and raised in Germany in an engineering and math-centric environment. The culture was very matter-of-fact and based on logic, not emotion or feelings. In fact, for him, emotional responses were heavily frowned upon. She, on the other hand, was more of a creative type who had challenging and emotionally-charged parental relationships throughout her childhood and young adult life. These two business partners were completely different in how they approached life, what they valued,
and how they saw life’s circumstances. She valued abundance in communication, trust in her emotions, and didn’t always trust people or their intentions; he valued efficiency and did what was logical and distrusted emotional responses. She thought she was being undercut, disrespected and stolen from; he felt disrespected, insulted and unappreciated for trying to help them both increase their likelihood of success. Even in the end after their conversation, she still felt a lack of respect for him based on her values in (and his lack of valuing) more direct communication, particularly when it could appear untoward. He still felt a lack of respect for her based on his values in (and her lack of valuing) not resorting to emotional outbursts, making unfounded assumptions, and not inquiring and researching to find out truths before jumping to emotionally-charged conclusions without validation (a big no-no in engineering mindsets).
 
Again, before you get too far down those blame and excuse train tracks with thoughts like, “Well he should have known….”, or “He should have still said something to her….”, or “It is so obvious it would look bad that….” let me give you another example to show you how what one person sees as obvious another won’t even perceive. This is my own personal example that was a huge wake-up call for me in how our brains and conditioning work in us. Our unseen conditioning is rarely obvious to ourselves and rarely can be predicted by another with a different mindset. I was going through training to become a Stephen Minister back in the mid ‘90’s. I was in my late 20’s or early 30’s. I thought I could see everything back then (a testament to the more you know, the more you know you don’t know, but that is another conversation). We were given the Myers Briggs® test to show us how different people have different tendencies in how they perceive and respond to in life.

The instructor decided to illustrate the intuitive/sensing factor of this test, which indicates whether you focus on taking information in through sensing or intuition (S or N). I was the highest N, or intuitive, in the room. Another woman had the highest S, or sensing, in the room. The instructor took a blackboard eraser in her hand and asked the other woman with the highest S score to describe it first. Naturally, I thought, “how many things can you say about a blackboard eraser?! Clearly, we’re going to say the same things!” Well, how wrong I was. The other woman started describing its physical characteristics…. “It’s black, 4 inches by 3 inches by 2 inches…..” I thought I was going to fall out of my chair. It had never occurred to me to describe its physical characteristics – not even a hint of its physical attributes entered into my brain. My description was that it was a utensil designed to erase something so you could write again over the same surface. I saw its function; she saw it through her physical senses. We were both right, and yet neither of us saw the other’s perspective until it was voiced and called to our attention. Then, we could clearly see it, but it wasn’t as obvious to either of us as you might have thought. We each had different mindsets, and so saw things through different lenses.
 
So much goes into our mindsets and how we see, perceive and interact with the world around us and the people in it. We must want to see and know the truth more than we want to be right - having our opinions come out of the mouths of others - in order for us to truly be informed, enlightened, or have wisdom of any kind. We also must start with compassion for others and not judgment. We don’t know their experiences, perspectives, background, upbringing or other conditioning factors. One thing is for sure, though, and that is a person’s intentions cannot be determined solely from their acts or words. Words, especially when put into sentences, can have multiple meanings. Behaviors are driven by various things. Each can have variable interpretations by different people. Do you doubt that words and sentences can have multiple meanings because you think that what someone says is always clearly exhibiting their intentions? Take the following sentence: I love apples and grapes, which are green. So what is green in that sentence? Does the speaker love all apples and only green grapes, or does the speaker love only those apples and grapes – both of which must be green? Language alone and behavior alone can be very imprecise ways of communicating.
 
My friend’s interpretation of her partner double submitting their proposal was that he was attempting to undermine; whereas his interpretation was he was attempting to elevate. Both could have been true. The only way to know was to ask, and to foster an environment of encounter, rather than confrontation and conflict.

There are many who are working in our world today to help foster, facilitate and build this world of encounter instead of confrontation. I will be writing about them in my blog and inviting them to speak in my podcast. I want us to read about and hear their stories and their piece of this work. I hope that through these efforts we can see how to expand our own perspectives, understandings and knowledge through encountering theirs. I hope that you will walk with me in these encounters so that we can liberate ourselves from hate and conflict, and, together, create this world of encounter instead of confrontation.