Unpacking The Third Place
We don’t have to look too far to see that we need more spaces for healthy dialogue. Just look at our current political climate - we don’t know how to talk to one another about hard conversations! How many people have strained family relationships and friendships because of different political beliefs?
Growing up, I was taught that it was rude to talk about religion or politics, and I’m beginning to think that was wrong. Maybe we NEEDED to have those conversations so that we can now tackle harder issues like racism, gender gap, and climate change.
Safe Spaces
This is the foundational idea of the Third Place: How can we create safe and healthy places for dialogue? The Third Place can often refer to your local coffee shop and it’s in coffee that I first heard the phrase used. It got the name “third place” because it wasn’t your home or your work, but it was a third place. I think of it like a community living room, where I can feel safe to meet people for the first time, as well as meet some of my closest friends. I am passionate about helping people start coffee shops so that there can be more, safe places for us to gather and to learn from one another. I truly believe that the first step needed to work through our hard conversations is to create more safe environments where healthy dialogue can take place.
Messy Middle
Another “Third Place” idea is the idea that many perspectives can help us find the best solutions, which will often be in the middle - that ideas of change and progress are not found in the black or the white, but a third, middle grey.
I think one of the best things we can do to work towards a better world is to relearn empathy. To really do our best to think about what life is like in another person’s shoes. About 15 years ago, there was a TV show docuseries called “30 Days” by Morgan Spurlock, best known for his documentary “Super Size Me.” The idea behind the show was to take people with opposing perspectives, have them live as the other for 30 days, and then see if any of the perspectives would change after the experience. I thoroughly enjoyed many of these episodes, in part because you could see so many raw emotions through walls, beliefs and preconceived notions coming down, but also because it helped me to learn tools of empathy. (One of my favorite episodes was one on illegal immigration. In this episode, an individual with hispanic heritage and strong anti-immigration beliefs lived as an illegal immigrant for 30 days. Some of his beliefs changed, others did not. But, to me what was most powerful was when he realized that if he was in the shoes of the father of the illegal family, he also would do anything - legal or not - to help his family get out of a very bad situation. You can watch it here.)
We all just come from so many different perspectives. To me, to be fully human is first to realize that we only have about a 1/7 billionth perspective of what it’s like! To embrace our humanity is to first embrace that we have an opportunity to learn from one another. Our life’s experiences are what form our opinions, so to validate and push into our opinions, we need to also give so much more energy towards learning the perspectives from other people.
Ultimately, through expanding our perspectives, we often find that we have much more in common than we have in difference, which then leads us to that messy middle of common ground to find the best solutions. When I embrace this type of thinking, I don’t get discouraged by the amount of hard conversations we need to talk through - like racism, gender equality, and equal access to health care. Rather, I get excited that we have an opportunity to really bring systemic changes to these issues!
There is one point that I need to clarify… While I do believe we can find so many solutions in the grey, messy middle, we have to recognize that sometimes the truth lies in the black and white. For example, if there is a spectrum where LOVE is on one side and HATE is on the other, the driving idea that I try to live by is LOVE, which technically is on the edge. The middle or compromise would be words like “LIKE” or “TOLERATE” - but that’s not really where I think we should want to go. So, in this instance, you would say that love is an “fringe” idea. That’s true! And it’s also the right thing to strive towards.
Dualistic Thinking - Moving from “Either, OR” to “Both, AND”
As I have come to understand Third Place ideas, one other understanding that has helped me is realizing that our brains like to think dualistically. We like to quickly categorize things. Is this person short or tall? Male or female? A threat or not? Republican or Democrat? And by quickly putting people into these boxes, we can quickly adapt our responses.
Our brain likes to operate in the “Either OR” dualistic mindset because it was a means of survival. We need to process so much information so quickly, that assessing people and situations by putting information into simple buckets has been HOW we create safe places - both physically and emotionally. At earlier points in human history, we were tribal beings and needed to be able to quickly assess if another person was “for me” or “against me.” Even in situations that were outside of human connection, we were putting interactions into “safe” or “dangerous” boxes. Things in nature like fire, water, or animals needed to be quickly categorized in order to survive. But in many ways, we are now at a point in human history where we can start to evolve away from such “us vs them” thinking. Ideas like finding “win-win” solutions have proven to be new and better ways to think that we can now start to embrace that we are ONE human race, that there is no such thing as “us vs them,” and that when one person hurts, we ALL hurt. Unfortunately, this new line of thinking will take some time as we work to transition to see that “we” or “the other” can be a safe place. We also have to fight these impulses as they are so ingrained in our biology. It means working towards a new mind and a new way of thinking.
A current, real world example of this is when we go into a store, and create judgements about other people based on whether or not they are wearing masks. Each of us likely has our own ideas when we see people wearing masks and when we see people without… and it’s likely that many of our preconceived notions are wrong. If someone is wearing a mask, it does not mean they are bound by fear. If someone is not wearing a mask, it does not mean that they think COVID isn’t something to take seriously. I’ve been in both shoes… I personally find myself in the mask-wearing camp. And while I’m not wanting to get sick or worse, it’s not my life that drives my decisions. I have two very young children, and if something were to happen to me, it would be devastating for my family. Conversely, I have found myself outside of a store and accidentally left my mask at home. While cautious, I felt like I could to the best of my ability still go into the store, maintain a safe distance from others, and do my best to stay safe.
As I have taken initial steps to move away from Dualistic Thinking, one of the best practices for me has been to embrace the practice of “Yes, and.” Instead of thinking that I’m EITHER on the left OR on the right, I am learning to realize that I am on the left AND I am on the right. I am not on one side or the other, but in fact I am a little bit of both. We can be LEFT AND RIGHT - and most often we are! Going back to the mask example above… instead of choosing between “Am I cautious or am I not overtaken by fear?,” I can now say, “Yes, and.” YES I am cautious, AND I am not afraid.
Messy is Where Beauty Begins
We all have to wrestle with so many decisions like these! And here’s the really hard part: There is no clear right answer.
In any of it…
With COVID…
With Racism…
With being human…
We need to also embrace grace - for ourselves and for one another. We need to push to make this world better than where we found it. That means pushing ourselves and having kindness towards ourselves and others when we fall. That means pushing others and wrestling with different perspectives and again, offering compassion when our neighbors need it the most.
We can set our ideals in the black and white - principles like love and hope. They can be our guiding lights! However, life is grey and messy, and so we need to wrestle… together. We need to have permission to be ugly and raw. To be imperfect. BUT, messy, ugly, raw and imperfect are GOOD too! Messy is what brings us together! Messy is a gift! Messy is like a potter making a vase. The raw clay is messy. But it’s the pressure of two hands (from opposite sides by the way), slowly forming the messy clay into something that’s beautiful.
WE have the opportunity to create something truly special together. Humanity is crying out to become something beautiful. It is an invitation. Do you hear it? If you do, welcome to the Third Place.
