Today is Chinese Lunar New Year and this year marks the start of the Year of the Water Rabbit.
My very first pet was a rabbit. She was chinchilla grey, and loved eating winter jasmine flowers. I adored her!
In the Chinese Lunar calendar, the rabbit is thought to be the luckiest of the twelve animals to be born under. The rabbit is seen as gentle, peaceful and patient. It thinks before acting, and taps into its inner wisdom and instincts. And it also represents a focus on relationship building and diplomacy.
When we’re around people whose behaviours are toxic, we usually try and avoid them as best we can, or if we have to be in their presence, like in a team meeting or project meeting, then we may do our best not to provoke them so they don’t turn their toxicity in our direction. Or we may give as good as we get, and widen the chasm in the relationship even further.
Relationship building feels far from our minds.
Avoiding, appeasing and negative confrontation don’t help.
Neither does complaining and gossiping about them behind their backs, because this just adds to the toxicity of the relationship.
One of the antidotes to toxic behaviours, though, is curiosity without judgement. And I think this applies to both the person who is the source and the person in the firing line.
Many toxic behaviours are a symptom of fear, insecurity, uncertainty, unworthiness, or perhaps even a lack of skill to know how to build a healthy relationship. So getting more curious about what might be driving the behaviour and setting clear boundaries around what is acceptable and what isn’t, can go a fair way to taking some of the toxic energy out of the room.
Being curious about our own defensive or stonewalling reactions can also be helpful in developing self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
Like a rabbit, we could be more gentle, inquisitive, patient and thoughtful, and we could draw on our wisdom that may tell us that this toxic behaviour is possibly more about the person being in some sort of distress. And that perhaps they need some kindness in return.
Toxicity doesn’t have to be met with more toxicity.
We have a choice.
We could choose to think before reacting, to slow down, and be curious about what’s really going on. We could be prepared to hold up a mirror to the toxicity, to say gently but firmly what impact it’s having, to hold the person accountable, and to start building our side of the bridge to show we’re willing to meet somewhere in the middle.
We have enough toxic destruction in the world. We see it in every direction these days.
So let’s all try and be a bit more rabbit.
🐰To build bridges rather than destroy them further
🐰To be more curious about the person rather than defensively dig in in response to their behaviours
🐰To be supportive and kind rather than critical and mean
🐰To be wise, thoughtful and reflective rather than reactive and thoughtless.
What do you choose?
