This is a personal philosophy, a woke up at 3am amazing realization philosophy, a kind of “I think I figured it out but did I really?” kind of philosophy. Have you ever experienced going to the gym all hyped up, feeling good and ready to kill your workout. As soon as you walk into the gym, your favorite Spotify playlist blaring in your ears with your head held high, you feel yourself comparing yourself with fellow gym goers. Throughout your workout you become aware of the hierarchy present and you start going back and forth between feeling confident, full blown “I suck” and everything in between? Picture this, it is December 31st and you have waited all year for this, you probably spent way too much money on the event, you had numerous thoughts on “what to wear”, collaborated with all your girlfriends and the time has finally arrived! You get dressed, spend too much time and money on your hair and makeup and you are ready to hit the party. Once you arrive, you enter the venue feeling good and if you are totally honest, a little self righteous. You can’t help but to scan the territory to see how you match up to the other party-going girls and subconsciously ranking yourself somewhere on the “from 0 to 10” status scale. As the event continues you seesaw between, “I am hot!”, feeling mediocre and down right “I am hideous!” Welcome aboard the rocking chair express, enjoy your ride!
To understand this phenomenon we must first understand where the hell it is coming from and what makes the rocking chair rocks back and forth. In his book, 12 Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson describes what I think might play an important role in this strange social game we all play. Since the dawn of humanity, a couple million years ago, we constructed hierarchies in order to survive and later thrive in society. Hierarchies are everywhere, from your household, the workplace, in your social circle and we are continuously evaluating, consciously or unconsciously, where we fit into these hierarchies. Whether we like it or not, this is built right into our DNA and social consciousness and is not going anywhere anytime soon. Peterson states that, the hormone serotonin, has a huge effect on how we view ourselves and how we compare ourselves either positively or negatively with our fellow human being. It is a never ending cycle of thinking, behavior and the excretion and absorption of serotonin. If we think we are worthy, keep our head high and shoulders back, serotonin will start flowing. Conversely, if we think we compare negatively with our peers, we will drop our head and our shoulders will droop and the serotonin tap will slowly start closing on us. Luckily for us, this relationship between behavior and serotonin works both ways. In other words, when we adopt a posture of keeping our head high and shoulders back, serotonin will, slowly but surely, start flowing and our thoughts will change. We will start feeling more confident and rate ourselves higher in this social hierarchy.
I only recently discovered what vulnerability actually means and I truly believe if we adopt and practice it consciously, we can alter the rocking chair phenomenon and here is why. In her best selling book, Daring Greatly, Brown defines vulnerability as “Vulnerability is uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure therefore, embracing vulnerability is not weakness, it’s our most accurate measure of courage”. “How does it relate to riding the rocking chair?” you might ask and here is how. It is all about feeling a sense of connection with other human being and with society and there is no better way to strengthen those connections than accepting one’s flaws, being honest about them and having the courage to reveal them to others. Ironically, people are more likely to see you as authentic and connect with you on a deeper level, because EVERYONE has flaws and feel self-conscious about them to varying degrees. When we see ourselves as valuable, just like everyone else, accept and embrace our shortcomings and start acting like we are worthy of acceptance and belonging, we will rock our rocking chair less viciously and find a place of authenticity, connection we all want so badly and calm confidence.
In conclusion, we explored that the hormone serotonin plays a critical role in how we see and compare ourselves to other and by adopting a head up and shoulders back posture we can influence the flow of serotonin which in turn will have a positive effect on our thought and emotions, and the cycle continues. Lastly, accepting our flaws, embracing them and having the courage to show them to others can influence the way we show up, our authenticity and strengthen our connections. I am riding the rocking chair daily and I truly believe it is a life long journey, never reaching the destination, but ever moving forward. In addition, I am of the opinion we can’t bring our rocking chairs to a total standstill nor should we, but we most definitely can calm down the rocking back and forth motion. I’ll end with this quote “we are not what we think we are, we are not what other people think we are but we are what we think other people think we are” – Michael A. Greco
