Loving Them Good Vibes

You encounter a person for the first time. What do you feel - warm endearment or dark clouds of distrust?

First impressions create quickly, often before many words have been shared. This can be attributed to things like outward appearance, body posture, non-verbal cues, chemical smells that attract or repel. I posit that a major factor in how perceive and are perceived is the energy that we put into the world, so called our vibes.

What do we mean by vibes? Such a conversation could go in many directions ranging from mystical, to woo-woo New Age, to 1970s flower child. I think about this in a very literal sense – vibes as short for vibrations. As we go about the world, our physical presence travels myriad landscapes. Equally so, our presence travels along side, vibrating the air around us. We put off energy to our environment as we perceive energy from the environment, and this is one way we intuit the world around us.

Words like "intuition" are used when we have a hunch, gut feeling, that we cannot otherwise explain with rational observation. This is indeed the very sense of vibes. I must admit a limitation of Science and my understanding of it, in that I do not know mechanistically how we do this. But we do! Our rational selves seek to know, but our real desire is to feel.

We all have put-on faces that we would want for the world to see - our polished clothings, educated intellect, bantering witticisms. But underneath we are all simply humans, animals.

Humans have so far won the evolutionary contest with our highly developed brains and sense of language that has earned us the coveted spot of apex predator. But, our primitive animal self is an ever-present part of us. Before our higher-order thinking has had time to make complex calculations, our base instincts make rapid assessments. Our innate attunement constantly surveilling for things that look like threats. Our amygdala's trigger-finger for when we must run vs safe to stay awhile.

Maintaining one's vibe is an active process, requiring ongoing attention to stave off dilapidation and neglect. For me this is things like self care, practicing empathy, and defaulting to love.

• Self care allows for physical and mental presence, being there for myself so I can be there for others.
• Empathy is an active desire to relate to others. Rather than being fearful of difference, embracing and understanding it and where the other person is coming from.
• Defaulting to love. Our world is increasingly divided – motivated by fear and xenophobia, it is too easy to lead with hate and division. By leading with a bias for love when encountering something new, I hope, in turn will propagate more love.

Seminal to this is what to do with bad vibes. If you encounter bad vibes where empathy and love fail - reject. There are people, institutions, and situations that for whatever reason feel wrong, out-of-phase with your energy. Not to say they are intrinsically bad, but life is too short for that noise and no need to stick around for a whole bunch of bad vibes.

Lead with love and propagate good vibes.

- Jeremy