Blind Spots, Biases and Beliefs

Blind spots, biases and beliefs.

Why are these so important?

We need to have an understanding of these 3 Bs in ourselves first, and then in others.

These are often hidden, not the first to be seen.

Blind Spots

We can easily lose agency when we are blind to our blind spots.

We are then seeing only part of the picture—not the whole truth, but just the part that we want to see, and then show others.

We desire putting our best and most outwardly attractive selves forward. In this desire we end up hiding, or worse, burying more deeply our blindspots.

This keeps us small, and slaves to our own limited beliefs. 

One of my many blind spots is the desire to be right. I believe that I know best, even in many occasions when I do not, in fact, know best.

I can unconsciously create a competitive hierarchy where there does not need to be one.

As in, having the most amount of information, and being right wins. Anything and anyone else loses.

There is a definite win- lose. Right -wrong in this paradigm.

 As a result, I can inadvertently create conflict instead of collaboration. I am learning—sometimes too slowly for those close to me—that collaboration trumps, or rather Obamas, winning solo.

This dates back to my days as a distance runner. We were a team, AND we were entered as individuals in the race. I learned how to win my race, and cheer on my team!

But sometimes, now 40 years later, I get wrapped up in the win.

Making the best point. Being right.

When I do this as a mother, I lose connection.

When I do this with my partner, I lose connection.

It feels lonely, and the old habit part of me holds on strong for the win!

I forget that the goal is mutual understanding and resolution, not simply me formulating and concocting the best solution in my head.

When it comes to interpersonal relationships, crossing the finish line first, and alone somehow never feels as victorious.

Returning to my blind spot—being right and winning.

When used for the common good, this can help right societal wrongs: create better programs and design better possibilities for many.

It is then a method of service, and a process rather than a finished product.

This is an essential distinction. 

How dow we harness our strengths and include our blind spots and biases? In the pursuit of a better future?

This is something I love pondering!

 

Beliefs

 

A belief is something we believe, or want to believe (sometimes hold on to for dear life!) because it makes us feel good, even safe.

This false sense of safety keeps us from knowing the truth, and this can be difficult. 

I grew up believing that hard work was the only path.

The word ‘hard’ became etched in my psyche in permanent marker.

Anything that was, or perceived as, easy seemed like cheating somehow.

Because I did not believe in cheating, I continued to choose hard over soft.

Until only recently.

Beliefs burrow themselves deep into our being.

We act out our beliefs every day millions of tiny times a day.

These actions, rooted in belief, become who we are.

 

Biases

 

What do biases keep us from seeing, being, knowing and becoming?

Uncovering or unearthing them can help us to become better leaders, decision makers, teachers, whatever we want to do or be better at.

Biases are like assumptions.

When we assume, we make an ass out of you and me.

Biases and assumptions are a prejudice—a judgment without the facts. 

You are not a bad person because you have a bias, or even a prejudice.

We all have them.

The problem is when we think we are immune or above being human. 

It takes vulnerability to admit our humanity. To ask more questions. To not know an answer. 

One of my biases is the belief that there is a right way to do so something, or say something. Therefore, there is a “right” way to be someone.

This is a learned bias.

There were many rules or etiquette, right ways of doing things growing up.

The proper way was THE way.

In my family and culture, and perhaps in yours as well, the subtle message was: Do it our way or risk alienation.

The right way offers you freedom, success, and safety.

The problem in this line of thinking is that we can become debilitated by the “right.”

Over-thinking, over-analyzing, over-doing it all in the quest for the “right.”

There is a rigidity to this way.

Life becomes a series of dictates, mandates, requisites and pre-requisites to the next right move, as though life were a chess match.

I have lived much of life like this.

It may not look evident from the outside, but on the inside there have been strict, limiting, autocratic guidelines.

I call it Autopian.

Autopia is the ride at Disneyland where you drive a car. It feels like you are driving your own car, but there is a subtle and yet profound guiding rail that the four wheels straddle, ensuring that you do not deviate from the course and go amok.

My biases have been like that guiding—limiting—rail, keeping me from going amok, but also keeping me safe. 

The truth is that the bias has been kept me small.

In the clan, and part of a pre-determined tribe.

Safe is no longer comfortable. It feels confining, restrictive, mildly suffocating, like the binding of Chinese women’s feet in centuries past.

It has been a subtle, silent and invisible abiding—the Swedish proper way.

No one is overtly binding or confining me, but the promise of love, safety and belonging for toeing the family line of success, societal acceptance, and praise for doing and producing. 

The problem is that no external praise, recognition, or pay can compensate for abandoning a soul, staying within the confines of a pre-determined path of acceptance. 

Acceptance is such an interesting concept and construct when it comes to human beings. We are taught by modern-day teachings to strive to accept other, difference, self.

And yet we are constantly seeking this acceptance by the other.

As if a thumbs up will pay our rent, give us our next book deal, contribute to our happiness.

We are all on some level longing for a sense of belonging.

I know for myself that my need for acceptance and my sense of belonging go hand in hand.

The problem is what will I tolerate, put up with for that sense of belonging.

To be clear, tolerance and acceptance are two different things.

You can tolerate something without accepting it, but you cannot accept something without tolerating it.

Tolerance is a hard version of acceptance.

I can tolerate someone’s actions (outside), and I can accept who they are (inside).

Acceptance offers more love.

Acceptance is more gracious, more kind, and more open.

I do not expect myself or anyone else to be free of these three Bs.

I also know that when I am open to learning more about each one, I am a better version of myself.

I yearn for that self-acceptance and for that sense of belonging.

Even though I know that these exist only inside of me, I still peek around for them outside of myself.

Full love, full acceptance and belonging can happen only when we accept our blind spots, biases and beliefs….I believe. 

I know it is my bias.