Ep 48: Thinking Outside of the Box, part 2

Ep 48: Thinking Outside of the Box, part 2

In this week's episode, part 2 of 2, we continue our discussion about the need for outside-the-box thinking by asking what gets in the way. Our conversation leads us to the realization that the resistance to facing and confronting fear and other difficult emotions can keep us in unjust and inequitable systems. 

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: 

www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-episode-48

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Learn more about why people don’t evacuate in the face of impending disasters, such as hurricanes, here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/05/why-do-some-people-refuse-evacuate-during-hurricane-same-reasons-people-dont-listen-warnings-they-should-save/

Check out Emily Guy Birken, Tracie’s sister, and her work on the psychology of money here: https://www.emilyguybirken.com/

Read more about Social Learning theory here: https://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html

Learn more about The Checklist Manifesto and Atul Gawande here: http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manifesto/

Transcript

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- [Tracie] Our conversation about limits continues from the last episode. This time we take a look at how fear can keep us small and disconnected.- [April] This is Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie.- A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker.- In a complex world, change takes courage.- Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable. One of the things that I'm thinking about that I think contributes and just problematizes and nuances, the... The thing that you're talking about where people are resistant to change is fear--- Yes, yes!- I think one of-- I think fear really... leads us, and by us, I mean, human beings, at least the way--- In this current.- I have been acculturized to... look for a reason why the negative thing that's happening to someone is somehow deserved, right? Because if they deserved it, then it won't happen to me, right? If it's genuinely as arbitrary as it appears, then it might happen to me too. And that's, like, too terrifying to hold. You know, that's why, like, when I'm going to try and go with something that's not... sort of, politicized, but, like, think about when a storm comes through and then people get trapped by a hurricane, or whatever, and then you'll see on social media, or just in conversation, like,"Oh, why didn't they leave? They should have left."- Right, right.- And somehow making that storm survivor's trauma, and harm, like, their own fault, because they didn't leave. Not recognizing that there are a host of reasons why someone might have been unable to leave. I mean, all kinds of reasons, like no access to transportation or, you know, mobility issues, disability issues, you know, that made it impossible. There are lots and lots of reasons. In some cases, maybe the governor, you were following advice from someone who said,"Actually, don't go on the roads, because the roads aren't safe. It's safer to stay in your homes," and then you get shot. Like, stuff happens. But the idea of that terrible, horrible, terrifying outcome could have happened to me, is so hard to hold that the first impulse is:"She must've deserved it."- For some folks. Yeah, yeah.- She did something wrong.- For many folks.- I think that it's an evolved person who has, like, had the time and space to sit with that, like--- Or who has gone through a number of those things themselves.- On their own. Exactly.(voices overlap)- Then people say,"I'm, like, my family, literally, we went through that and that's not what happened", like--- Right.- Your little dumb narrative about"how we could have avoided that" doesn't apply.- Well, that's-- And that's kind of how the privilege perpetuates itself, right? Like I'm using this storm thing,- Yeah, it's great.- As an example, because it doesn't have kind of the other things, but in that case, then, as someone, if I live in an area that is not in her hurricane alley, then that's actually sort of a privilege of mine, right there, to be like,"Well, if I were in that situation, I would have gotten out", like, and the reality is that, I'm never in that situation.- Right, right.- I don't actually know what I would do if a hurricane, you know, a category four storm, or we're barreling toward Baltimore,'cause it almost never happens.- And, to me, I think another theme that I'm seeing, kind of, emerge from this free-flowing, wonderful conversation we're having, is... also a capacity to navigate difficult emotion, right? So fear, but also upset. So that that is a requisite... for evolution and innovation, is noticing, you know, I've seen this play out, with rabbis at times, in different ways around the subject of interfaith marriage that some clergy, and this is not like, rabbis have a range of different views. I mean, rabbis and clergy, rabbis and cantors have a range of different views about this, but something that either, publicly, and often more in closed spaces, some clergy grapple with, is, I actually changed my mind a few years back. And this is actually really like, this is tough, you know, in this specific case. And it's interesting as this relates to other practitioners, but I've been holding off on saying something publicly because for years or decades, I've said "no" to other couples. And in some cases I might not even be able to reach people, to reach them, and I'm having difficulty reconciling that, and how to move forward, you know? And so, that actually is pretty tough and different, right? But so, and so there's also-- and there's also a thing around, either-- and people have different perspectives. Some say, "I still stand by those decisions." And some say, "I've learned more and now, if I could go back, I would've handled it differently", and I'm not fully sure of the outcome, because I would've given them a couple different choices, and I don't know what they would have chosen in that scenario, but that's a lot to process. And I suspect, in some areas, like in the field of medicine or certain things, some of these conversations, even just in the abstract, the prospect of having to re-interrogate years of tough decisions and choices that let you know, like, it's just--- It's a really good point, especially when we're talking about the medical field, because we're literally talking about life and death.- Right.(voices overlap)- Yeah. Or the variant on quality of life, or, you know? Right. And so...- That's heavy.- Yeah. It's--- And like, please, no, go ahead.- Well, I'm just, I'm going back to something you said, a little while ago about, I don't remember what words you used, but it was something about sort of observing the situation like, and I feel like that's actually, again, relevant in what you're talking about now, you know, and if there's a way to kind of... not, I don't want to use the word "objective", because I think that that word has really been misused by our society. But, so, that's not what-- it's not objectivity that I'm looking for, but it is sort of like a wider lens.- Presence. Wider lens and being willing to keep an honest presence, right? Like, that it's, because people at times are not even willing, like there's fear of-- And part of it is around facing hard feelings, whether it's fear, or regret, or different things. But to me, it's basically like the simple, the not-so-simple thing that people talk about with finance, of just because, you know, you don't-- if you made a bad purchase, like there's-- you don't need both financially, and, or, in terms of space, you don't need to keep that thing. Like you've already paid it. And so it's--- Sunk cost. Yeah.- Yeah, it's a sunk cost, and this is kind of the case, but yeah, still, to me, actually, there's kind of an interesting corollary between clutter at, like, keeping clutter and then actually continuing to horde. And some of these things on a structural level, because both involve deep terror, and fear, or a lack of... developed capacity to be present with tough memories, with tough things, right? Because it both, like-- there's both an immense compassion that arises and also a sense of... urgency around-- And we don't want to continue. And now that we know, are there better ways that we can do this, that set us all up for success? Not just the patients are free to bring it back (mumbles), not just the students or the community members, but the leaders as well.- Yes.- We think about something that's great for all of us, you know? And so...- I love them. I love the financial metaphor. Shout out to my sister. Emily Guy Birken, she's amazing finance writer and she talks a lot about the psychology of money. So that was really resonating for me. And the ways that we--- You know, please feel free to add more insight.- Well, just, I think you're exactly right. The money-- I think traditional economists used to talk about us as actors, as if we always made, like, the highest and best choice, but you know, in an intellectual way, but money is very emotional for most people. So, and anyway, my sister has written about that to some extent. She's pretty awesome. Y'all should Google her. Emily Guy Birken. No hyphen. Anyway. (both laugh) Anyway, that just really resonated. And I'm going to be processing that for a little while, yet, about the ways that, sort of, we can learn about the pattern of looking back on what we now maybe know or feel it was a bad decision and the psychological gymnastics.- Some of that change means acknowledging that those were bad choices, but also that change can also mean moving into a different... future.- I think I'm really gonna think a lot about how we can learn from the patterns of behavior and thoughts around financial decisions, and bad financial decisions, in order to, kind of, think about how-- and the interventions that my sister and other finance writers have, kind of, talked about to try and translate those, because I think there are, actually, there are some real parallels, and... in many ways. In many ways.- Right.- Because sometimes the bad financial decisions are made because of moments of, you know, desperation or lack of resources, or scarcity.- Stress, right.- Or a sense of scarcity. And so I think it all, like--- Or necessity, even during a certain time, but then that becoming a pattern, rather than that being an acute moment, and that becoming something that gets embedded, rather than--- Yeah.(voices overlap) Right. Right. Here's like-- Here's another story. And then there's another story, You know the story of the roast, right? Like, there's a woman teaching--- Scrambler Roast?- Yeah. The roast. The Pot Roast.- No.- So, a woman's teaching her daughter to make a pot roast. They bring the piece of meat home from the store. And mom says,"So first you cut the end off, and you throw it away. And then you put it in the roasting pan", and whatever. And the daughter says, "Why do you cut the end off?""I don't know. We just always do it." And so, then, eventually, there's a much longer version of the story, but eventually the granddaughter goes to grandma and says,"Grandma, mom always cuts the end of the pot roast off and throws it away. Why do we put the cut the pot roast off?" And grandma says,"Oh, my roasting pan was too small for the full roast."- Right.- So, and that's exactly the kind of decision you were talking about. It wasn't a bad decision to cut the end off, because it wouldn't fit.- Right, it was contextual.- But now, that, you know, kid and grandkid have a bigger roasting pan, and they're still throwing away a piece of meat. That's the kinds of thing where--- Right, and part of it is social, just straight up social learning theory. And there's a way in different fields where it's both social learning theory, I think, at play. And also part of it might be slight, arguably, like unexamined honor, but it's actually worth revisiting honor, and also an unwillingness to consider something else, and having an either/or paradigm in place that says that I could honor these following physicians from previous physicians, from whom I've learned and acknowledged, that they were working in a different context or had these different things, and me moving forward and evolving doesn't inherently make them bad. It's just that now there's more room for the roast. There's more technology, there's different things. And I think, you know, to kind of drive us home, unless you have another insight,'cause you've had so many different things come up, but, you know, it's just, oh, I have feelings about this. Honestly, I should maybe take this to my healing practice,'cause I have a lot of feelings about this, but, you know, in this book, The Checklist Manifesto by Dr. Atul Gawande, I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly, it's fascinating to me, like, to kind of come full circle. I thought of mentioning this earlier, but then we really went in deep about these different third spaces and different options, because simply by, and part of me gets a little annoyed about this in different ways, about different elements that I see of patriarchy and dynamics around white supremacy culture that may be playing out in medicine, or, there are different features, but either way. But, basically, he finds that by using a checklist, globally, in all different kinds of hospitals, and in contexts that the fatality and injury rate, post-surgery, drops dramatically. Dramatically. And it took a lot of effort to get people to adopt this thing for a number of these different reasons, because it could imply that they weren't great enough before, rather than saying,"No, no, no. We understand you're fantastic, but you're also human. So this is just additional insight", right? And by bringing this in, we can dramatically save lives. And, I just, I continue to think about that, because I don't think everything is as simple as a checklist, but I honestly think, you know, especially after we just went through this really great learning program that you and I did together, about thinking about how we structure Joyous Justice and our work together, in our day-to-day lives. And, it was fascinating to me, to learn some of the sophisticated elements and also some of the solutions that were actually simpler.- Yeah.- Were just profoundly simple. And so that's one thing that keeps me motivated in this work, as we consider these different options, and if this resonates with any of you out there, of taking time to learn about some of these enduring adaptive challenges and also noticing, or being on the lookout for,"Is there a relatively simple solution or... incremental shift here that may not be the full piece, but that could actually lead to enormous shifts or openings of new possibilities that make way for newer paradigms to come into being. And more just, I should specifically clarify, because new in-and-of-itself, it doesn't really mean much to me. It's more about just and kind. So this is a fun journey. Thanks for joining us friends. And thank you Tracie, for going on that...initiating and going on that intellectual adventure together.- [April] Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track, and other beats, on Instagram @ElliotHammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it, and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit jewstalkracialjustice.com, where you can send us a question, or suggestion, access our show notes, and learn more about our team. Take care until next time, and stay humble and keep going.