February is known world over for the month where we celebrate L-O-V-E.
While Valentine’s Day has become a day to splash out and spoil the ones they love, we took the opportunity to present an alternative imagining of love and related terms. This month’s posts are inspired greatly by the works of bell hooks, who sadly passed at the end of 2021. As always with Diversity Dictionary, we’re interested in going beyond ‘official’ dictionary definitions. Read on for more 👇🏽
COMMUNITY
A dictionary definition of community is: A group of people who have particular characteristics, attitudes, or interests in common.
As a company that began as an organic community, we get to experience first-hand every day the revolutionary power of community. Community is a place to be seen, heard, valued and supported when the rest of society tells us we must erase parts of ourselves to belong.
But sometimes, the word community can be misplaced or misused, which leads to the opposite of people being seen, heard, valued and supported.
Take for example, echo chambers. These are social situations where our personal beliefs are amplified or reinforced through communication and repetition. Echo chambers create the illusion of community, but when the balance tips to this extreme end, it becomes easy to demonise and dehumanise those who hold views different to our own.
Echo chambers can very quickly escalate into cancel culture, which is a form of public shaming where a person or company is ostracised for doing or saying something offensive.
In her book Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, bell hooks writes: “Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, revelling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community.”
In our mission to make space for difference, we’re constantly interrogating what is meant by community, and how it can be practiced in a way that sees other people’s humanity even if we don’t agree with their world view.
This is what will enable us to communicate with empathy, and commune with difference in a way that leads to freedom from the fixed binary of ‘either you’re in or you’re out’. In this way, it can be freeing to accept that as people grow, they may outgrow the communities that once gave them a sense of belonging.
LOVE
Contemporary love has become synonymous with extravagant gift-buying, passion, lust, and toxic ideas of possession, even manipulation in order to make someone love you. We are fed these ideas and ideals of love from a very young age and into adulthood, through books, songs and films. As a result, we’re losing touch as a society of what love really means, and how its presence can fill our everyday lives with richness, depth and peace.
At The Other Box, we envision a world that leads with love. But not a commodified or materialistic love. In her book All About Love, bell hooks quotes a definition of love by the psychiatrist M. Scott Peck: “The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”
These are words people may never associate with their working or professional life. Yet, the workplace is where many people spend a majority of their waking hours. So we ask ourselves, is there room for love in every aspect of our lives?
In a 2014 longitudinal study on workplace cultures, the Harvard Business Review came to a simple conclusion “The more love co-workers feel at work, the more engaged they are.”
The report goes on to say: “People who worked in a culture where they felt free to express affection, tenderness, caring, and compassion for one another were more satisfied with their jobs, committed to the organization [sic], and accountable for their performance.”
Unlearning mass media ideals of love and relearning a kind of love that centres our humanity can transform how we see each other and how we see ourselves, In the work of diversity, equity and inclusion, love is one of the key ingredients that will allow us to build resilience in the face of mistakes and ultimately make space for difference.
RELATIONSHIP
A relationship is the way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected.
Evidence shows that having good-quality relationships can help us live longer and happier lives with fewer mental health problems. Having close, positive relationships can give us a purpose and sense of belonging. (Source: Mental Health Foundation)
In modern society, a strong emphasis is put on romantic relationships. Billions of dollars are spent on films, books, TV shows that centre romantic relationships - whether it’s the quest for a partner or the breakdown of a marriage.
This emphasis on romantic relationships in contemporary culture means that a lot of pressure is placed on one person to provide the roles of multiple people in our lives.
As psychotherapist Esther Perel puts it: “We are asking from one person what once an entire village used to provide.” (Source: New York Times)
It also means we can end up accepting toxic romantic or intimate relationships as the norm. Many of us are conditioned to believe it’s better to stay in an unhealthy situation than walk away from it.
Human beings are relational creatures. We gain a sense of identity and personhood not by being alone and isolated, but from our interactions and relationships with other people. This includes our partners, lovers and family members but also extends to friendships, community and, yes, work colleagues too.
We also have a relationship with our environment and with nature. Spending time in nature can contribute to more balanced mental health, a sense of calm and connectedness. When we see ourselves as part of nature, rather than separate from it, our sense of purpose and belonging can also be impacted in a positive way.
Everything is interconnected. Yet in an age of individualism, how much are we consciously investing and nurturing all of the relationships in our lives - beyond romantic love?
Applying emotional intelligence to all of our relationships beyond just our partners and families can lead to a great deal of joy and connection. But it means first having to examine, unlearn and relearn mainstream ideas about relationships.
CAPACITY
At The Other Box, we often say that the work of allyship, knowing your biases, and learning to communicate inclusively are about getting to know yourself better so that you can better understand others.
Understanding your own capacity is a key to unlocking this path and creating more joy, balance and empathy. But what do we mean by capacity in this context?
According to author and entrepreneur Robert Glazer, there are four core elements of capacity:
Intellectual capacity is about how you improve your ability to think, learn, plan and execute with discipline.
Physical capacity is your health, well-being and physical performance.
Emotional capacity is how you react to challenging situations, your emotional mindset and the quality of your relationships.
And finally, spiritual capacity, which is about understanding who you are, what you want most and the standards you want to live by each day.
(Source: Robert Glazer)
Everybody’s capacity at any given moment is different and unique to them.
Building capacity is about creating space, setting boundaries, learning to say yes when we mean yes, and no when we mean no. In order to do that, we have to become better at tuning into our own spiritual, intellectual, physical and emotional needs.
That might sound straightforward, but many of us are conditioned from a very young age to do the opposite, as that’s what’s considered to be more socially acceptable.
One of the (many) consequences of not being able to create capacity is that we end up burnt out, and unable to extract ourselves from toxic relationships and situations. This can negatively impact our wellbeing.
Learning how to build capacity in these four areas is a key to sustainability. It’s about operating within your means and resources, and being able to communicate clearly with others (and with yourself!)
There’s a quote we often revisit here at TOB HQ: “The more full you ensure your own cup is, the more you have to pour onto others.” In other words, when you build capacity for yourself, you have more capacity for others. Investing in yourself is also an investment in those around you.
Our mission at The Other Box is to make space for difference. Diversity Dictionary is where we explore meanings and histories of the language of diversity, beyond a dictionary definition, so we can all build a deeper awareness and critical understanding of perspectives that may be different to our own.
On all our social channels, we share weekly words and their definitions, with a different theme each month. These terms are a taster and have been taken from our Diversity Dictionary™ course in our TOB for Teams™ programme. If you'd like to learn more, check out our courses page and fill in the contact form.
Is there a theme you’d like to see covered in Diversity Dictionary? Let us know! Our work is co-created by our community to work towards creating a world that is more inclusive and safe for everyone.
Words by Roshni Goyate
Header image by Alexandru Acea on Unsplash