Category Archives: politics

Holding Accountability

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How will we show up to one another this Thursday in the US?

We’ve been here before. I wrote a post during NaBloPoMo 2016 in advance of Thanksgiving, citing resources to help us be more empathetic and open minded. This year feels more fraught compared to then, no? How are we feeling? What do we anticipate? What do we dread? How are we preparing?

Here’s a hard truth: How we show up to any encounter absolutely impacts, if not determines, the outcome of that interaction. Anger, disdain, resentment, derision and the like, even if veiled, seep past our verbal platitudes through posture, facial expression, and energy. So what do we do? Denying our emotions does not help.

I suggest we do these things:

First, let us acknowledge and accept our complex emotions about politics and their current impact on our relationships. Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture–Tara Brach’s practice bears repeating here. This self-awareness and -regulation practice can help de-escalate the hard feelings and walk us back from the ledge of hijack and lashing out at the off-hand comments of both well- and ill-meaning conversation counterparts. Emotions point us to our values, alert us to threats and connections. Let us remember that this is true for all of us, and we feel differently about things based on myriad factors. Curiosity, if we can manage it, could open important doors of understanding this holiday.

Second, let us maintain the most generous assumptions about the people we gather with this holiday. What ties us together? What do we admire about each other? How do we hold one another up? We can cast our relationship strengths in front and step together onto that raft of mutual respect and shared humanity to carry us over any emotional waves that surge before us. Prevention is the best treatment, right? Can we hold love, connection, appreciation, esteem, empathy, and good humor along with our hard feelings? If we can widen our psychological container for all of our complex emotions, thoughts, confusion, and conflict–intra- as well as interpersonal–then we can more likely keep the tension down… Or at least tolerate it better.

Third, please, let us own our shit. Know our limits and honor them. Some of us just won’t want to engage in any difficult or tense conversations this holiday; this boundary can be honored. We should understand and acknowledge the consequences of non-engagement, however, and know that we choose it. For those of us who choose engagement, let us tread respectfully, soberly, kindly, and calmly. When/if agitation overtakes us, when we devolve toward our less favorite selves, let us stop talking and breathe. Prolonged exhalation, time out, step back. Reset. Then, if needed, muster the sincere apology. When we value our relationships, we strive to not hurt each other with sharp and flippant remarks. When we hurt someone anyway, we say sorry and mean it. “Yeah but s/he/they said….” does not absolve us adults of our responsibility to self-regulate.

We can do this, friends. It’s a hard time for many of us right now, and we can support one another through it, no matter which way we lean or how we voted. If we can own our words and behaviors, especially when impact skews from intention, we can save our relationships from unnecessary rupture. The more fraught our interactions, the more apologies will be necessary. Let us summon the humility and grace to ask for and grant forgiveness.

I Hold Accountability for Us. When we own our shit, no more and no less, and hold one another to equal standards of shit owning, kindly, humbly, and respectfully, then we will really move toward reweaving our frayed social fabric.

Holding Strengths

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What’s already good? How can we protect and strengthen that?
What could be better? How will we make it so?

I centered NaBloPoMo 2023 on these questions and set all 30 prompts/topics in advance. The idea was to take an Appreciative Inquiry approach to habit change at both the personal and collective levels. I wanted to shift focus from threats, failures, deficiencies, and shadow to people, places, and practices that thrive, uplift, and inspire. How could this mindset help us all in our current state?

From the Center for Appreciative Inquiry:

WHAT IS APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY?
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an energizing and inclusive process that fosters creativity through the art of positive inquiry. It builds new skills in individuals and groups, develops new leaders, encourages a culture of inquiry, and helps create shared vision and purpose by building on an organization’s core values and strengths. Perhaps, most importantly, are the outcomes that emerge during the process which provoke action, inspire commitment, and lead to results.

WHY APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY WORKS
Building upon the framework of positive psychology and human sciences, Appreciative Inquiry builds self-awareness and emotional intelligence to shift our focus, attention, and energy into exploration into opportunities and possibilities. AI does not focus on changing people, rather it invites individuals to engage in building a future they want to live in.

Appreciative Inquiry’s assumption is simple: Every human system has something that works right–things that give it life when it is vital, effective, and successful.

What I like about this approach to problem solving is the concreteness. Asking what already works, what’s not wrong or broken, requires practical, operational answers. It forces us to think and talk objectively about what is, rather than cogitate, theorize, and catastrophize about what could be. It starts from a place of strength and looks to build; it’s about what we’re for more than and before what we are against, so we can dream and design what could be instead.

At first I imagine applying this method to policy and systems collaboration. That would be great, but I don’t see it happening; people are still too negative, polarized, and adversarial for that, at least on large scales. I bet there are small organizations and groups where this strengths based approach to change actually already happens. I’d love to see more of them highlighted in the media.

For now, I think some of us may be ready and willing to apply appreciative inquiry to our existing relationships. I imagine a Blue friend and a Red friend, both wishing to connect across their differences and get closer. Both harbor curiosity about the other, even if it’s repressed. Each senses an intuitive possibility for deeper connection, and also feels stymied at how to achieve it. What if they started by considering the strengths of their relationship? Maybe those include honesty, non-judgment, good humor, and shared experiences. What if they imagined and envisioned together what an even stronger friendship would look, sound, and feel like? I get goosebumps envisioning those conversations.

What other domains of relationship would benefit from this approach to disagreement, challenge, conflict, and growth? I can think of at least a few in my life–she writes sheepishly–hello, walk the talk much? How fascinating! And here I thought this post would be boring and bland–HA!

I Hold Strengths for Us tonight, my friends: Strengths in relationship, in connection, in bond and union. Our relationships save us. I am convicted to this assertion, and I firmly believe it’s our strong relationships, especially across difference and disagreement, that will save our republic.

Holding Courage

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“There is no courage without vulnerability. Vulnerability is not weakness. It’s the ability to show up and be seen. It’s the ability to be brave when you cannot control the outcome.”
–Brené Brown

What was the last thing you did that really required courage? What was at stake? What risk were you taking? What was the outcome? Would you do it again? What would you do differently, if anything? What did you learn?

How does that experience inform your future?

At this moment in history, it is up to us citizens to model courage in connection for our elected leaders. Are we up to the task?

Maybe we don’t see it as courageous to engage with people who voted the other way. Maybe we see it as futile, a waste of time, even beneath us.

I submit that we are afraid. We are afraid to be wrong, even a little. And now I’m thinking about more than just election debate. I think about any cause I champion that provokes resistance or opposition. What if that opposition is valid, even a little? What if my ardent zealousness masks a flaw in my reasoning, a potential unintended consequence of harm in my focused crusade for an intended benefit? When fear blinds us to the nuances of a problem, when we deny the inherent and inevitable complexities of modern human systems, we get rigid. We oversimplify and dig in, and our thinking narrows. Openness, curiosity, and creativity evaporate; flexibility and collaboration soon follow. Overcoming this fear takes courage.

It takes courage to recognize that we may not have the whole story, that we may not see or understand all relevant perspectives of an issue. The fear of being wrong, the shame of it keeps our minds closed. Then when all we do is yell at and dehumanize one another in ad hominem soundbites, we reciprocally destroy any incentive for anyone to admit they have anything to gain or learn from us–we burn bridges from both ends.

“Everybody’s right, and only partially.” What if we hold this mantra at least sometimes? When I remember it, my shoulders relax. I loosen my grip on ideological swords; I lift the visor on my suit of armor and look around, my view extending from the tip of my nose as far as the horizon. Acknowledging the partial validity of an opposing position does not negate mine, though it may feel that way. That expanse of unknown perspective threatens my certainty. What if my position does not actually uphold my values? What if I learn something ugly about myself? What will I do then?

If there is no courage without vulnerability, then how can we foster vulnerability?
Defined by Oxford Languages, vulnerability means “the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.” Intentionally seeking opposing views, opening our own views to challenge and criticism, is vulnerable. It feels deeply uncomfortable and goes against all our natural instincts of survival in the face of threat. But when else do we choose this state freely and willingly? When do we put ourselves out in the world without hesitation?

We do it when it’s safe. Or, safe enough. It’s that simple. We need to make our interactions safe for us all to put down the weapons, take off the armor, and see one another’s soft parts. Simple does not mean easy–not by a long shot. And it can be done. We can question and challenge our least generous assumptions, then modify them. We can look for shared values and goals and start our conversations there. We can ask open and honest questions at least three to five times more than we make statements.

Presence, openness, curiosity, humility, kindness, non-judgment, generosity–showing up with these qualities in front makes us vulnerable to attack. Ironically, when we come ‘armed’ like this, we make it safe for others to be vulnerable with us. This is when true healing connection occurs; this is how we heal our world.

Who will go first?
Who do you see doing this already?
They are the leaders we need to follow.

I Hold Courage for Us, my friends. We all have it within us–in spades. Let us all uncover and bring it out in one another, shall we?