Category Archives: politics

Keep Showing Up

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“What mountain stands before you that you will climb with confidence fortitude courage and power?”

“You don’t get stronger by adding weight. You add weight when you get stronger.”
—Alec Blenis, Instagram

I love this quote. It feels a little counterintuitive at first, yet speaks to the fundamentally important understanding of skill building that keeps us safe, strong, and motivated in the gym: Keep showing up. Do the work. Get help if needed. It’s hard until it’s not, and then you level up. It also resonates in two domains outside of strength training:

Health Habit Change
“I know what I need to do, I just don’t do it.” I have written about this phrase I hear often from patients. For two years I met with one of the dieticians in our practice, feeling both hopeful and a little hopeless at the same time. Every week or two I both dreaded and anticipated the calls, knowing I had both attempted and failed to implement our action plan from the prior session. I muttered this statement myself how many times? We stopped meeting eventually; likely multifactorial but I think we both felt that further gains were unlikely. That may have been a year ago.

I felt a bit defeated at first, thinking my behaviors had not changed much, and I had not lost any weight. But looking back, those sessions served the same purpose as the years I spent with my personal trainer. Julianne was my nutrition coach. She made me better at executing the knowledge I already had, reflecting, investigating, trouble shooting, and brainstorming how to apply both basic and advanced nutrition principles in the various contexts of my life. I now eat more colorful plants, and I get substantially more fiber on a daily basis. I am much better attuned to hunger and satiety, I always fuel before workouts and make sure I bring a snack for after. I keep healthy snacks at the office and hydrate consistently. I eat a lot less dessert, and volumes are about half of what they used to be. I walk the talk of “enjoy every bite” much better now than before. My portions of everything are generally smaller. I estimate that I have shaved a few hundred calories per week from my diet, which should lead to very slow weight loss, about a pound every three months. That actually feels about right, and I can handle this. As I continue to train, both strength and cardio, I see my shape changing more than my mass, which I am happy about.

I keep showing up to apply, adjust, and adapt, and results emerge proportionally. Persistence pays off, and it’s infinitely easier with support from knowledgeable and supportive people like Julianne the registered dietician, my Ethos coaches, and my friends.

Civil Political Discourse
For some years now I have actively sought conversation and connection with my Red Voting Friends. Since 2017 I have supported Braver Angels, and now multiple organizations offer myriad approaches, strategies, and even education and venues to practice connecting meaningfully with people who disagree with us. Some even impact policy in a bipartisan way in local governments. We have come so far, and have very far yet to go.

How hopeless and/or hopeful do you feel about the state of political discourse, nationally, locally, at the level of your policy makers, in your social circles, in your family?

How do you impact those places and groups with your presence, your words, your attitude, demeanor, expressions? Bluntly: are you part of the civil discourse problem or solution?

It’s hard, I know. Uncomfortable, sometimes viscerally and distressingly so. And not everyone is a suitable counterpart for such conversations. Still, it is a learnable skill and more and more amazing people like Mónica Guzman and the folks at Braver Angels, Builders, and the Dignity Index provide support and education to help us do it better. We just have to keep showing up.

This weekend I will gather with one of my Blue voting friends for my first ever “Builders BBQ“. We won’t barbeque and I will not be actively bridging with any Red voters. But Blue Friend and I will talk about how we can do it better. We will practice curiosity, openness, self-regulation, and holding connection in front. We may even role play a little, who knows? It’s not exactly what the Builders BBQ is meant to be, but I have taken the liberty to show up how it works for me, and to keep iterating from here. I fully expect that there will be a Red-Blue gathering in my foreseeable future. If not, no matter.

I continue to invite and facilitate connection, unafraid and well-equipped to wade confidently into disagreement of all kinds with respect and good humor. I have trained for years and it has paid–is paying–off in spades. I keep practicing because while I am proficient, I still have a long way to go. Bridging work is a labor of love. It takes time to build trust, testing, building, and proving the strength of ties that start slim and tenuous, but have the potential to hold us together through the harshest storms.

Each and every one of us has the capacity–and I would argue a civic duty–to engage in building and bridging work, or at least to not contribute to derision and division. The nature of a democracy is that the power should lie with the people. We are the system. We get stronger as a collective when we exercise our power to connect.

Consistency beats intensity. Keep showing up, my friends, to all that challenges us in life.
We’ got this.

Listen to “Keep Showing Up” by Doctor Jose de la Rosa Mambo Town for some extra inspiration!

What Anger Makes Us

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Trail near The Lodge at Whitefish Lake, Whitefish, Montana

Dear Readers,
I wish you all the curious, thoughtful, open, and loving friends like I have!
The same person I mentioned in “What Does Love Make Us?”, Sean, helped inspire this post tonight, coaxing insights to emerge just by being his curious, thoughtful, open, and loving self. Earlier I wrote a brief list of what I think love makes us:
Vulnerable. Courageous. Powerful. Forgive. Willing. Selfless. Grow. Better.

So what does anger make us? A dichotomy emerged in conversation today:

Adversaries
We see it everywhere: Rage poured forth, one person onto another, groups against each other. It’s us against them, no question, no nuance, no reflection, ‘no quarter.’ Yikes.

It’s understandable, of course, and sometimes even justified, this adversarial mindset and approach to the opposition, ‘the enemy’. Longstanding experiences of socially accepted marginalization, dismissal, and oppression fester and seethe, then spew forth like pus under pressure. As with any abscess, lancing that pent up wrath relieves pain, even as the initial incision stings momentarily.

Then we ‘go to war,’ as some might say. We ‘fight’. We take both an offensive and defensive stance, we weaponize our words, and we make all the worst assumptions of those we pre-judge as against us. We close our minds to alternative perspectives, plow forward with agendas that we believe can only be achieved by vanquishing all who resist. Even if our mindset is not this extreme, we risk sliding down that slippery slope. Abstraction and dehumanization of anyone ‘on the other side’ happens all too easily, my friends, and the louder the adversarial voices around us, the more pressure we feel to follow suit.

Where and what does this get us?

Looking back on my own life, on policy and human history, I can think of few tangible examples where the adversarial approach has benefited us, individuals and the collective alike, in the long run. And when it does, the costs are extraordinarily high, often borne by those with the least power or choice. Death, destruction, trauma, and lives irrevocably shattered–the adversarial route of anger scorches the earth.

Advocates
I have a friend who exudes rage and has suffered relationship and reputation damage from it. It makes me cringe because I understand the origin of their anger as protectiveness, righteous outrage on behalf of others, and a belly full of fire to do good.

I have also witnessed them advocate for their causes with diplomatic, almost loving assertiveness toward total strangers. They are bold but respectful, strong and friendly, a force of nature, like a stiff wind that envelopes and nudges you firmly but not forcefully from behind, getting you to where you might have been going just a little faster and with more urgency. People receive their words and advocacy with openness, curiosity, and a willingness to consider action; how often do you see interactions like this?

In January I wrote “Tested and Called“, feeling angry and a little hopeless after Alex Pretti’s murder by border patrol agents. It was my first documented “DIY pep talk“, I see now. I wrote about anger and courage, ‘hope’s two daughters.’ I reminded myself that in the face of all that makes me angry, I can and must continue to show up and ‘fight’ for things and people I care about. Better writers than I have made the distinction between fighting for and fighting against. It’s a subtle attitude shift that matters.

Fighting against–being adversarial–too easily devolves into ad hominem and caustic division: name calling, shaming, othering, dismissing, dehumanizing, and even violence. The external focus and negative energy depletes us, and when we see little to no progress we burn out. Fighting for, or advocacy, on the other hand, carries a light from within, an intrinsic motivation of renewable energy, fostered and amplified when any progress is made. Advocacy attracts allies, grows a movement, and creates sustained and sustainable change agency.

The language of advocacy centers the cause, not the opposition. It informs, educates, inspires, and empowers. Advocacy demands accountability of the systems it seeks to change, as well as its own advocates themselves. The strongest and most effective advocates strive always to walk the talk.

I have written this blog for eleven years. Surely there are posts that I would not write, or write differently, today compared to when they were published. Information evolves, and I along with it. My attitudes and opinions change with age and experience. But I can stand with confidence by the intent of every post here as non-adversarial advocacy of some kind–even when the execution misses the mark. I look for others with a similar ethos, especially in medicine and science.

Whom do you admire for their non-adversarial advocacy?
What good do you see them doing in the world?
How can we amplify them?

Below are Instagram accounts that I follow for their strong advocacy in the face of threats to the integrity of our scientific and medical institutions. Some of their posts verge on adversarial, but for the most part I perceive an earnest, professional, and evidence-based mission to protect public safety. And of course I think of Braver Angels and Builders for their work to bridge division and move us away from adversarial political engagement.

Lastly, apologies for this second delayed post–life! Quality time with Son and Daughter, both home from college, took precedence over sitting at the laptop. Worth it! May we all have such meaningful and fulfilling choices to make!

Fired But Fighting

Illinois Department of Public Health

Stand Up For Science!

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)

DogGlauc: Will Flanary, MD

In Person, Face to Face, One on One: Crowns Lesson #3

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“Openness to our minds changing is NOT weakness. It is the strength of intellectual humility.”

How do you come to really understand and know anyone, then overcome differences?

Many of my friendships have begun remotely–on Facebook, this blog, interest groups, even on the phone. But they do not solidify until we meet in person. It is the natural progression of relationship, to be in each other’s presence. The energy is profoundly different, the connection tangible and tactile.

Throughout the Crowns Trilogy, relationships develop and transform through repeated in person meetings, between lovers, adversaries, allies, strangers, and family members. Communication occurs through letters and messengers, posture and political actions, but it is the face to face encounters that challenge biases, build trust, and solidify alliances. Repeated rupture and repair in indispensible relationships, committed and restored in person through words, expressions, or acts, reminds us that there is no substitute modality for true connection.

Physical proximity is not enough. Connection requires emotional and psychological presence, the offering and acceptance of attention, and the mutual willingness to engage in good faith.

The main characters in Crowns overcome traumatic and tragic barriers to connect, and save their kingdoms, driven by two primary motives: Love and Peace. Why can’t we do the same? Norah, Mikhail, Alexander, and Soren engage one another and also themselves with intensity, ambivalence, and serious conflict. But they keep showing up, never abandoning their commitments to do the necessary bridging work for the people and causes that matter most to them. Consider how the following patterns apply to your encounters with people who disagree with you, politically or in any other domain. Can we practice these for the sake of love, peace, and saving ourselves from one another?

Multiple meetings. Important issues almost never resolve in one try. Anyone who leads knows this. The larger and more complex the organization or issue, the more iterative the solutions necessarily must be. Sustainable progress only occurs when participants practice transparency, honesty, and accountability. This requires vulnerability, courage, and a willingness to compromise over time. Sometimes meeting is unavoidable, such as in family or workplaces. We can choose to stonewall or refuse to engage in this case, but that is not an option for connection and conflict resolution. Concerted effort in repeated negatiation and exchange in good faith–diplomacy–is a life skill.

Cultivating connection. All of the above does not emerge immediately. We humans sense threat and danger acutely. It takes multiple meetings to prove safety and earn trust, during which commitments are honored and confidences kept. This is how relationships are built. I identify with Norah in Crowns because she is so often the one initiating and sustaining contact and engagement, and she almost never declines invitations offered by others. She exercises patience, persistence, and celebration of any progress, as do I.

Mutual respect. Over and again, Norha, Mikhail, Alexander, and Soren recognize and acknowledge their rivals’ strengths and merits. They and the supporting characters exercise objectivity in assessing one another’s achievements. When in the other’s domain, each learns and adheres to customs therein, even as they disagree with the beliefs behind them. There can be no peace or lasting conflict resolution without mutual respect.

Commitment to possibility despite heavy resistance. Countless times others tell Norah that peace is not possible, that war and death are inevitable, that people and systems cannot change. They cling to wariness and stubborn disbelief, rigid negative assumptions and prejudices as if they are immutable truths. But she holds possibility in front, with the primary assumption of and commitment to preserving shared humanity. Because of her advocacy and mediation, spanning the boundaries of belief and experience, the others eventually, begrudgingly, recognize and acknowledge the limitations of their prejudices and come around. Her idealism overcomes their cynicism and wins the day.

In the end everything has a cost.
Polarization, division, and mutual adversarial attempts to vanquish the opposition, at their worst, cost lives, whether through small violent confrontations or full on war. Social, operational, and economic costs also escalate, with lasting deleterious effects.

What does bridging work cost? For us regular people, it costs our comfort, for sure. It takes time, energy, and even resources to acquire and practice the skills. What would bridging work cost elected leaders, in addition? What if they all sat down in person, face to face, one on one, more often and earnestly?

What are the costs of not bridging our differences? I have heard too many stories of relationships torn apart by unresolved disagreements; the loss and grief are real and tragic. Openness in relationships also suffers, causing people to self-censor honest expression for the sake of ‘keeping the peace’–a fragile and hollow peace. These psychological and relational costs are exactly what fester and fray our social and personal fabric.

We all get to decide what benefits of bridging work are worth what costs to ourselves. I am convinced that in order to elect leaders who possess the skills and capacity to engage regularly, respectfully, and in good faith, we must be willing to do so ourselves, as citizens. It is now the era when we regular people must lead by example.

Because if not us, then who?