Ever caught a whiff of a person’s vibe before they even said a word and immediately knew that they weren’t for you?
The standard interpretation of such an event would be something like “they had bad vibes”.
But the reality is a bit more complex.
The vibe we get from someone is not just theirs. It’s a soup made up of many different ones:
1) Their vibe
2) The vibe of our attractions, aversions & projections in relationship to 1)
3) The vibe of their attractions, aversions & projections in relationship to 2)
4) The compounding outcomes of looping steps 1 to 3 (which causes you both to behave differently than you would if you weren’t in each other’s vicinity)
Indeed. The more accurate thing to say, in many cases (but not always), isn’t “that person had bad vibes”, but “I took a sip of the vibe soup between us, and it didn’t taste nice”.
Here’s an example of what that can look like in practice:
Let’s say I look at someone, and they seem “stuck in a pattern” to me.
And in response, I feel a desire to help them break free of said pattern.
Was the stuckness their vibe? Maybe. But in many cases, what’s really happening is that I feel “stuck” with their pattern. It is me who looks at it, feels uncomfortable with the idea that it continues, and wants to liberate them from it so that I can feel at ease again.
Many things are like this. We perceive it as a vibe in them, but it’s really the vibe soup of our feelings about theirs.
In this example, on the surface, it appears like I just want to help. But that’s not really true. So far they haven’t indicated that they need help with anything. I’m just projecting my own stuck vibe on them and trying to bring relief to it.
If I now, were to try and help them, they might pick up on my vibe of stuckness and actually feel a bit stuck in the interaction—because after all, I’m not allowing them to be as they are. I’m trying to change it so that I can feel comfortable again.
Maybe the stuckness I picked up on wasn’t actually there at first. But by reacting to it, I create it — which retroactively makes my perception accurate. And the cycle keeps looping until nobody knows where the vibe started.
In theory, it doesn’t really matter where it started. For example: If another person did something that “brought you discomfort”, or if you simply felt uncomfortable to begin with and thought it was their vibe, the end result is the same: You feel uncomfortable.
(In the end, that’s the only part we can truly verify with 100% accuracy: Which feelings are passing through us?)
Now, so far, we talked about the vibe soup between 2 people, but of course, vibe soup is being served in groups of all shapes and sizes:
Add 1 person to the group and the whole dynamic changes. Every group you are in becomes a different space by having you in it.
On top of that, the group dynamic also changes the behavior of all the people in it. So the you that left home is not the same you that arrives at the party. It’s the version of you that only exists at that party.
Ever noticed how being in some groups makes you feel shy or unconfident while others have you cracking your most risky jokes and forgetting about the time?
It’s not that one of those is “less you”.
People often say things like “bring your real self to work”. But the reality is that your real self is different by virtue of being at work. The vibe soup changes you, and you change the vibe soup.
We all drink it and cook it simultaneously.
We’re swimming in vibe soup wherever we go. And when we swallow some, it tastes like 1 vibe to the untrained tongue. Which we can attribute to any person we want.
But a practiced vibe sommelier can track where each note’s coming from (and respond intelligently).
But how do you even build that discernment?
How do you become a vibe soup sommelier?
Luckily, this is learnable!
One powerful practice for your self-awareness and social skills is making the vibe soup explicit.
To sit in a space other with people who are committed to figuring out what’s happening to the group dynamics—and having a structured conversation about it in real time:
How am I feeling right now? Is this feeling a response? When did it start?
How is the group changing because of each of us?
How is each of us changing because of the group?
Which feelings, triggers or interpretations are coming up?
What’s here in this moment that just seems to be there, simmering under the surface, even though we didn’t consciously add it?
Doing so with different people allows us to see the patterns of how we show up and relate to new group environments, become aware of our patterns and shift them if desired.