-Cantīde- is e/vibecamp @Cantide1 2022-04-04
One big misstep in social communications and life in general is Context.
Everyone has their own context: I’m at work, I’m a mom, at the store, a very important business man, in a hurry, I’m a buddhist…
But everyone expect others to be in the same context. Problems arise.
🧵🤷♂️
Context switching is incredibly important, or at least having the presence of mind to realize others have their own …
Many get stuck in their own context, their own story. So stuck in fact that they don’t have room for anything else, at all. If you don’t conform to their narrative you are a threat to their *entire* worldview. Understand the gravity of this.
Some people have learned to context switch automatically or at least with a transition period they label “cooling down” or “decompressing”.
Most rush forward with whatever kind of day they are having, their mind in lockdown, and the wreckage trails them.
The most facile way to handle context is to establish your relationship to it. What is your personal context? How many stories do you have? What are they?
Is it possible that others have just as much a rich and complex life? Do some people watching. What are their stories?
Once we start appreciating the fact that everyone has their own life, their own way of seeing the world, thier own past influences and known knowns… we can start to give them space between our narrative and thier story. We can build a bridge from experience and commonality.
Connecting with others through shared context is the only way to communicate. Even a language is a context.
‘We both speak English.’
‘We’re both chicks.’
‘We both work for senior level VPs and have the war stories to go with it.’
What’s your story?
Context switching is a little tricky, but if you give yourself time to leave what you were doing and prepare for what you are about to, you’ll notice an immediate change in your life.
Let go of work when you’re done. Take a second and be happy you’re home before rushing indoors.
Context also helps when you’re chatting w someone. You can allow yourself to move into their story. What are they really trying to say? What can you say to help them bring that story out?
Everyone has something they want to say. Are you interested?
Having realized and purposefully recognizing that others have their own lives and stories, focus, priorities, current activity or goal… will also automatically help you find your own story. Your own context. It will also help you maintain center. To hold your own frame.
Holding your own frame is important because of this:
If you think you are something, you will act like that thing, or, pretending, feel you are that on the inside while not in presentation… setting up a whole mess of disassociation and dis-ease.
Be what you are.
99% of changing your life is changing your context. Fixing your beliefs. Cementing your personality. Allowing things to be what they are, not what they are said to be or even what you think they are.
Think youre a loser, you’ll be fighting to win. What if youre a winner already?
Hmm. But how do we break context we may be stuck in?
Ask why.
Challenge the validity and structure of the narrative you find imprisoning you. Realize the true value of things and what they mean to you by questioning them.
“They told you you werent brave enough, well they lied, they lied.”
This song is great at exposing contexts and frames, shattering them. Changing them.
“So an atheist and a preacher are sitting in a bar talking about God..”
Context. One experience, with two completely different meanings to two different people.
A prison of blind assuredness.