Language
By: Jake Kahana
Tags: Strengths And Weaknesses, Language, Self Improvement, Self-awareness, Paradox

Language

Email Refrigerator :: 03

Hey friend,

One night this week, I was sitting on the couch holding my daughter, Golda, facing towards me. After a few minutes, she started to whine. We stood up and paced the living room. She immediately calmed down and scanned the room curiously.

I understand her and yet she’s never spoken a word. Golda is nearly 18 weeks old, which is crazy– I’ve been in a relationship with someone for almost 5 months that doesn’t speak English or really even understand it.

Because of Golda, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we communicate. How we use our bodies, our expressions, and our language in different ways to shape the world around us and our perceptions of it.

This month, let’s talk languages.

Happy snacking.

Art by Wayne White

I. New Language

The first class I ever took in college was linguistics (after one semester I quickly learned why the 9am Monday classes were always available). One of the things that still sticks with me is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the idea that language shapes thought. Changing our language, or not having a word for something, or not using a verb tense affects how we think.

Here are 3 very short stories from the last few years about how changing my language affected my thinking.

Contractor vs Freelancer

I started freelancing in the Summer of 2016. The freelance life is supposed to come with more freedom, higher day rates, a flexible schedule, and an independent spirit. After 2 years of “freelancing” I realized I didn’t have any of those. I felt tied down. That’s because I realized that I wasn’t freelancing. I was contracting. I still had a 40 hour a week job, just in 2–4 month contracts. So since last Summer, I’ve tried to own being a freelancer– finding my own clients, working from home, saying no to timelines and budgets and feedback that didn’t work with my expectations. And it’s made all the difference.

2. Is it an Emergency?

Talking about my parenting approach to a friend, I said that I am more of a “put my oxygen mask on first” parent. I believe in self-care and getting sleep and exercise so I can be more present and energized. But she called me out: “that metaphor assumes an emergency. Is it an emergency? Are you in crisis? Try reframing that approach. I believe that you can only give from your overflow.”

I can only give from my overflow.

My cup needs to be overflowing before I can give my time, energy, love, attention to other people. This is not an emergency.

3. The Weakness of Strength

In January, I lead a workshop on leadership. One of the key ideas in my research came from The School of Life, which coined “The Weakness of Strength” theory. It’s this idea that every person has strengths, and those traits have shadow sides.

So being a decisive leader might also mean you alienate your team because you don’t include them in decision-making. Or you fell in love with your spontaneous, adventurous partner who is now on your nerves for being uncommitted and bad at planning.

It’s such a helpful reframe for me in being aware of my strengths and their shadow sides with my partners at Caveday, with my marriage, and with my friends. What’s the shadow side of your greatest strength?

Art By Dan Ferrer

II. Foreign Language

Sometimes it feels like making a decision about a job, a career path, a college major are all permanent decisions. Whatever you decide on you MUST commit to. Forever. And that will be who you are. Forever. And you cannot do anything other than that. Forever.

Yeesh.

But this month, a little reminder about high school Spanish changed the way I thought about career transition. Check out the article I wrote here: https://medium.com/p/e0b9734eb38

Art by Magnus Atom

III. Language Paradoxes

At the beginning of this year, I set out my goals and realized that some of them felt in conflict.

How can I be a more present father WHILE taking on more work?

How can I plan my life and still leave room for flexibility when things change?

How can I choose my path and still trust the universe has my back?

I’m learning that we don’t have to think about some of these things as “either/or.” Life is not as simple as having mutually exclusive choices. Life is complicated. Life creates paradoxes. “Both/And.”

Having an argument is often an either/or. I am right and they are wrong. But is there a truth where both are right? Or both are partly right?

Being a part of a community requires me being my independent self and being an anonymous part of a group.

Two things can exist at the same time. Not as opposites, not as either/ors but as both/ands. Science and religion. Change and stasis. Love and fear. Choice and fate.

A lot of this thinking was clarified in reading Parker Palmer’s work (thanks to Casey Rosengren for the recommendation). In one of his talks, he asserts that there are five habits of the heart. But really, you only need to consider two:

Chutzpah and Humility.

Chutzpah is the audacity to believe that I have a voice that deserves to be heard and a right to speak it. And humility is the awareness that my truth is not complete and I need to listen openly and respectfully. That’s a pretty deep paradox.

We often try to oversimplify things into either/or because it’s easier. But it’s not how the world or life works. Things are complex and interconnected. Holding space for both/and requires patience and work.

Conflicts arise because of either/or mentalities. Resolutions come from an understanding of both/and. In a way, better understanding the paradoxes of life can lead to peace.

Art by Jean Bevier

IV. Fin

As always, thanks for opening the refrigerator and sharing your thoughts. If you get something out of it, feel free to share it with a friend. The only way this thing grows is when you tell someone else about it. Send them this link.

-Jake