It is to the extent that we know ourselves that we know more about ourselves and the consequences of our actions. This, which is obvious, is the key to solving more than one problem in terms of human relationships.
It is not always easily evident to us that we can commit acts, small acts, that harm the people around us whether in the family, at work, or simply when we live our daily lives.
Aggression or low tolerance for differences accompanies us
This is how many of us were formed, mostly in strict circles in which what was important was what united us and what we accepted without questioning too much. Since it united us, that was valid, the rest was left out, being unfamiliar and not recognized.
Today we try to change and aim to create a broader and more inclusive environment. It is important to adapt to a world where there is or should be room for everyone to express themselves receiving tolerance and acceptance, which is not the same as saying adhesion.
This depends on each person being responsible for their own actions, and that is where knowledge and education come into play, because sometimes it’s just ignorance, said descriptively, as a lack of knowledge and information and not in a pejorative way. This allows us to discern what is right or wrong, or rather, what is good or bad for ourselves and our fellow human beings.
It is not just about formal education, but about education of the emotional order, which gives us the necessary tools so that our minds open to new realities. I insist, it is not necessary to adhere, but to accept differences without judgment or resentment.
We are full of examples of work, social, and personal abuses from which we must defend ourselves, learn to set limits, mark and highlight personal space, not only physically, but also verbally.
Toxicity abounds, but the tools to counteract it, or the education necessary to make it decrease, do not. The differences between human beings are a reality we come from different places, we have a different gender, we think differently, our sexual orientation varies as much as race or traditions.
Different religions and cultures sometimes coincide, and sometimes do not, in the same environment. The fewer characteristics we share with others, the greater the difference. Are we aware that this reality is generally a source of conflict? This is what we call culture.
Organizational culture is not a concept from the books
It is a social reality that manifests itself in the workplace, in schools, in my town or in my country.
Today the world has become smaller, and we all have a partner or a friend of another nationality, another political party, another religion. Within the office we know that when we care for people different from us, we are obliged to understand how they think, what their values are, what beliefs they carry in their minds, or what their relationship is like with their parents or their towns.
Today we are mixed and That mix should make us better by extracting from each person their best asset How are we going to understand what happens in our office if we are not able to delve into our minds, our beliefs and our prejudices, simply to know if they are ours or inherited?
Generating our own criteria involves personal analysis, that is, emotional intelligence. That is, being able to review what we bring from the past, to achieve live together and adapt to a world that never stops changing To understand our children, to work as a team with other generations, we need to evaluate what the parameter of the concept is, for example, work.
Limitations in assertiveness
In private practice there is a lot of demand for couples therapy, and that happens because assertive communication is not working ; that communication that leads us to understand and not assume the speech or attitudes of the other as truths. We see it in the work environment, and clearly in the family.
Sometimes it happens that we don’t talk to anyone but ourselves, to our ideas or to the information that was transmitted to us from home. The other remains a stranger at times, empathy, looking and listening are understood.
As in all things, extremes are not convenient, neither excess compression nor verticality; That work is what should be done as a day-to-day micro exercise. Those behaviors, gestures or comments that sometimes minimize, diminish or discard a person and that are based on unconscious prejudices and biases are convenient to analyze, since sometimes we do not detect them precisely because they are so incorporated that they are not recorded.
Supporting diversity and inclusion
To solve these rigidities we must have a legitimate commitment to inclusion and diversity In this way, promote a work space if it is about work, where people can be as they are and have equal opportunities. Understanding that the origin of discrimination comes from the fear of differences and losing one’s identity, this is the most important point to address, and the most serious.
Understand that the more acceptance, the more harmony and peace Knowledge and elaboration of differences enrich us, and I insist, they do not imply adherence but acceptance and respect.
Thinking in extremes is a reflection of rigid judgments and behaviors
It is convenient to create intermediate terms to get out of these dilemmas. Our best tool is dialogue aimed at achieving a common good
The approach consists of reformulating the beliefs with which you have come this far, recognizing them as your own or inherited. Include the habit of becoming familiar with other and new ideas, even if you do not share them, because the mere fact of knowing them opens a new perspective.
We must offer new ideas the same confidence with which old beliefs were built, only this time we would add contrast with reality. That is, what we took for granted in the early days, where our mind was formed, is today subject to our own revision. With the breadth to listen and receive, we add the common sense of entering new universes of knowledge, facing the fear of changing and rethinking past actions
Understanding that humans behaved in the past according to the level of consciousness we had will give us peace and forgiveness for what we did not do so well. But knowing, elaborating and solving critically is growth. It is creating a collective consciousness that unifies the family, organizations, and therefore, society itself.
