When and where is it safe for you to disagree strongly and still maintain healthy relationship?

My friend and I had a brief text exchange recently.
Me: “…I wonder when they will start profiling East Asians on the street. My kids and I all live in target cities. It’s less and less safe to be non-white.”
Friend: “You’re citizens; no need to worry.”
Me: “Citizens have been picked up and detained already. Lots to worry about on many fronts. Please do not dismiss people’s concerns, even if you don’t share them. They are not all unfounded.”

Our friendship has developed over a couple of years, accelerating and deepening this year around and through mutually respectful and unreserved political discourse. This thread occurred spontaneously last week. I felt safe to express my fears as well as my reaction to his response. I know he did not mean to dismiss my feelings; he knew that my response was meant to uphold mutual accountability rather than incite shame. Our relationship is now strong and trusting enough for us to be bluntly, caringly honest. We caught up on the phone today and reaffirmed that respect and trust, that bond of platonic love that transends difference even as we embrace and grapple with it. I cannot wait to sit down over lunch and explore each other’s perspectives again soon.

This summer I gave a series of wellness presentations to a global professional firm. Over five Zoom sessions we explored self-awareness and -regulation, open and honest communication, generational differences, variables of diversity, psychological safety, authenticity, leadership, and culture. I did my best to leave an impression and aspiration of empathy, compassion, and accountability in action and relationship, to be cultivated intentionally, both individually and collectively, in the year to come. In all of my conversations with the series organizers before and since, we continue to seek the attitudes, postures, resources, and practices that help a workforce engage and contribute, dissent and challenge, all in the name of elevated collaboration and excellence.

This weekend I traveled to New York City (hence this delayed post) to meet Andy “AJ” Wilson-Taylor and my fellow fans. I only knew two other attendees walking in, and was welcomed and folded into a truly unique throng of uplift and bonding. This community, led by a loving, humble, curious, generous, and kind soul, reflects and amplifies those qualities and values in spades. The brightest love and joy radiated from every person gathered; oxytocin flowed and saturated my whole being. I wondered aloud to more than a few people about the possibilities of capturing the energy of that assembly–the joy, love, shared humanity and connection–concentrating and focusing it, then aiming it to heal the wounds of the world. Members of this group, led by AJ in his unassuming and self-effacing way, have already healed themselves and one another in presence, encouragement, and steadfast mutual support through darkness and disconnection back to light and flourishing kinship.

I pondered this weekend what political discourse would look and feel like in these groups–collegial coworkers practicing interpersonal effectiveness to leverage diversity and elevate creativity and innovation, and a gathering of women brought together by shared love and admiration of a man whose purpose in their space is to ally with and elevate their personal, sexual, and social well-being.

Then yesterday Braver Angels hosted an extemporaneous gathering of leaders from bridging organizations across the country: “Dignity Over Violence: A Unified Civic Response”. I hope to have a link to the recording to share here soon. Claim hope, my friends. This movement of intentional, resilient, and empowering connection across political polarization grows stronger and tighter every year. Love can still win. Over the two hour program, at least twelve leaders both acknowledged what is and pointed to what could be. They cited words and acts of people across the political spectrum, from every demographic, that defy the loudly skewed rhetoric of extremes. In this, yet another mission-driven gathering, I felt an unwavering commitment to mutual understanding and connection, to humility, curiosity, empathy, generosity, and accountability.

“When you hear something triggering, take a deep breath and ask a [good, open and honest] question. Try to understand why that person believes what they believe.” This is the first step to any exchange of true connection.

All systems of human relationship require us all to practice these skills. We cannot just rely on designated leaders to lead by example (especially since so few today do so). Each of us must take up the cause of connection and get to work; more urgently now than ever in my lifetime. But how daunting, to consider reaching across a great political chasm to connect with an adversary, real or perceived?

So after this weekend immersed in gatherings of hope and possibility, I remember that any skill must be developed and cultivated deliberately, consistently, and iteratively. As I prepared to leave the office at 8pm today, I debated briefly about doing my five minutes on the slackboard. Consistency. Commitment. Every session on the slackline, no matter how brief, is another chance to train my nervous system in sensory awareness, feedback integration, and dynamic balance. Over the course of 2.5 songs on my Spotify liked list, I had the best session to date. So too, political discource can be trained in the workplace, in a social gathering, in a family–anywhere and with anybody–by practicing humility, curiosity, empathy, generosity, kindness, and accountability in any relationship system around any topic. We all do it, but I bet we don’t think of it in these terms.

The slackboard, a Braver Angels Zoom call, an AJ’s Angels meet up, my wellness talks, and my conversations with Friend–these are all spaces where I feel safe to express my authentic self. I can challenge staid and conventional social norms, explore the possible. I practice and develop the skills that make me confident to engage in political discourse calmly and with equanimity. Come to think of it, patient encounters train me for this every day, too.

So I ask again: When and where is it safe for you to disagree strongly and still maintain healthy relationship?

Where do you already do this well? When you disagree without getting triggered, how do you show up and conduct yourself? How can you translate this mindset and behavior pattern to the more fraught and emotionally higher risk scenarios? What do you need to feel safe to try/train? Can you identify the ladder of escalating potential triggers to tackle, the way a skier progresses from green to blue to black diamond trails? Can you schedule practice sessions the way an athlete trains for a race, so you can hone the skills, see and feel yourself improving with each encounter?

How can we all make it safe for one another to practice? Like accountability partners at the gym, how can we hold each other up in this effort to save our democracy, to reconnect across polarization and mutual dehumanization, one conversation at a time?

Humility. Curiosity. Empathy. Generosity. Kindness. Accountability. Start where it’s safe and easy. Then look for the next challenge. We grow and strengthen through struggle. Environments and circumstances that feel threatening are not conducive to learning or progress. We can create and cultivate safety for effective disagreement for ourselves and one another. Take a deep breath and ask one good, open, honest question. Start there.