UNLIKELY COLLABORATORS

How’d you come up with the term “Perception Box”?

Well, the concept isn’t new. You might have heard of mental models, cognitive filters, schemas, perceptual lenses…

Neuroscience has one way of talking about it, psychology another, eastern traditions another. Throughout my investigations, I found most descriptions fascinating but overly conceptual, abstract, and very difficult to picture. I’m a visual person – I think in movies, not abstractions – so I needed an image to ground the concept into something I could actually see. 

Moreover, we needed an image our partners, collaborators, and workshop participants could work with. The box metaphor helped them sense how their Perception Box walls could either contract around them, making them feel anxious and suffocated, or expand away from them, giving them a sense of space and peace. The image helped them better sense their own agency over where the walls were. 

And agency is everything. 

Talk about how science plays a role in your efforts and why that’s important to you.

It's important for us to share how Perception Box is not just a concept or metaphor, but that it is deeply rooted in scientific research.

Through our foundation, Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, and in our work with Unlikely Collaborators, we are immersed in a variety of research areas. These range from exploring the biology of emotions and examining the effects of mindfulness on stress reduction, to understanding the dynamics of Perception Box expansion versus contraction, and beyond. If you would like to learn more about the Science of Perception Box research projects we are funding, you can check them out here.

Why the name Unlikely Collaborators?

It’s a paradox. There’s really no such thing as an unlikely collaboration. It’s only our Perception Box beliefs that cause us to label and categorize people,holding them at a distance with an attitude of, “Are you with me or you against me? Do you think the way I think, or do you think WRONGLY?”

Unlikely Collaborators exists to help people expand the walls of their Perception Box – revealing our struggles and confusion, our needs and longings, as not just our own but something every human faces.  Imagine creating a space where our beliefs and narratives no longer bind us, where differences aren't seen as threats but as sources of inspiration, where we recognize the beauty and common humanity behind every set of eyes. By achieving this, we can embark on a journey of collaboration that truly benefits everyone, fostering a community where diversity is not just accepted, but celebrated.

Can you give an example of an Unlikely Collaboration from your own life?

In 2019, I joined Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier from South Sudan, on a multi-city speaking tour through the US and Canada. When he was a small boy, Emmanuel witnessed the destruction of his village, the murder of his mother, and the flight of his father from the scene, abandoning him. He survived as a child soldier in the jungle until his teens, coping with the distortions and false beliefs he took on about himself and the world as a result of his traumas. I, on the other hand, had a privileged upbringing in Wichita, Kansas – a stark contrast to Emmanuel's life – but not without hardships that caused me to take on my own false and limiting beliefs about myself and others around me.

The experience showed audiences that despite our contrasting histories, Emmanuel and I discovered values and goals we now share as adults, making us close as siblings. We illustrated how it's not our experiences, but the stories we tell ourselves – our Perception Box stories – that creates in many people an "us vs them" mentality. This tour with Emmanuel showcased the transformative power of narrative, and how we can turn feelings of helplessness into empowerment.

It seems like investigation of one’s Perception Box would be best done alone. Why does Unlikely Collaborators believe it’s more effective in community?

We believe self investigation is best done in community for multiple reasons:

• The act of sharing helps us recognize how not alone we are in how we’re feeling.
• We all have blind spots. Through processing with others – people with different life experiences and therefore perspectives – we’re able to see what otherwise would remain invisible to us.
• Other people trigger us – which is great news! People often think of triggers as bad, but from our perspective, triggers are the best tool we have to pinpoint the core beliefs we took on long ago that are keeping us stuck!"
• The more work we do in community the more we recognize our common humanity – that we all fundamentally want the same things – to feel seen, heard, and valued for who we actually are, beyond the labels we take on and that others project onto us.