Tag Archives: Braver Angels

Holding the Work

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I procrastinate writing this post. I worry how it will be received. I may anger some, offend others, and invite unpleasant backlash. But now that I write it out, as if I said it out loud, that fear abates. How fascinating–naming a fear helps dissipate it. That’s an important practice for the work we hold ahead.

“Question your own fears.” —Monica Guzman, Braver Angels, A Braver Way

Monica Guzman is my hero. Watch the video of her talking about how our fears of what’s in other people’s hearts harms and divides us. Listen and feel her passion, her struggle to stay compassionate to all people, and her distress at how people she cares for now suffer from Trump being elected. Listen to her courage in vulnerability, expressing hope that despite the deep divisions all around, we can still connect across our differences and not destroy ourselves. And know that she has a point of view–she takes a political side. She just doesn’t approach opponents as adversaries.

Monica inspires me to recommit to the work of bridging our political divides, real and perceived. I understand the election was only a few days ago and some people’s pain and distress are still raw. I know some don’t care or want to bridge anything, at least not right now. That’s okay; this post may not be for you. But I’m ready. I hear the call and I’m answering now.

From Instagram

I had a lovely conversation today with a man I’ve known for some years. Our relationship is fun, trusting, and honest. He asked me how I am with the election and I told him I’m very much not okay. He felt great about it. We each described why we feel our own ways, listening for each other’s personal experiences and impressions of the candidates, the parties, and the people around us. I live on the south side of Chicago; he in northwest Indiana. I’m in medicine; he’s in construction. I’m a 51 year-old East Asian woman; he’s a 67 year-old white man. Our life experiences and world views diverge widely. We also have no problems connecting as humans. We both lamented how so few people we know can conduct political discourse calmly and respectfully. We agreed on multiple social issues. Our conversation prompted me to seek data about maternal mortality since Roe v. Wade was overturned. I shared with him and we both learned. It was a meaningful and satisfying conversation, and we agreed to continue. I don’t intend or expect to change his political leanings. I want to understand him, and I want him to understand me. I want us to deepen our relationship, practice healthy political discourse, and bring what we gain from each other back to our own circles. This is how I will make a positive difference in our political culture and landscape.

All people who voted for the other candidate are not evil, or sheep, or whatever name we want to call them. I know how good it feels to say they are (see Brené Brown quote below), and it absolutely does not make anything better. We each get to choose how much contact we want with people who are different from us. Often they cannot be avoided, and then we still get to choose how we interact. We each have power to influence and impact any relationship we touch. Will we be connectors or dividers?

I observe that my fellow progressives are often the ones actively dividing. Cancel culture rages on the left, rife with judgment in minimal interaction, overgeneralization and oversimplification based on assumption and association. I see value in calling out overtly racist and misogynist attitudes and behavior, but public shaming does little to educate, enlighten, or alter anyone’s mind. It just drives their biases underground, only to resurface later. It alienates, inflames, and perpetuates conflict. Judging and throwing away a whole human being based on one fact about them, no matter what that fact is, feels antithetical to a progressive, inclusive ethos to me. And, it is a totally understandable human response to severe moral distress. For those of us committed to bridging, we must learn, practice, and train in self-awareness, self-regulation, and effective communication to mitigate that relationally counterproductive response. We must ground ourselves in openness, curiosity, humility, generosity, empathy, and kindness. These are not mutually exclusive to holding fast to our values, convictions, and causes.

I have many days yet this month to delve into particular skills. For now I can simply sit with a renewed commitment to non-adversarial change agency. This is the Work. I have learned in safe spaces, with people who will not throw me away or belittle me for my beliefs. It’s easy when it’s easy, and it’s how I show up when it’s hard that counts. But I can’t show up competent when it’s hard unless I have practiced–done the drills, entrained the muscle memory, prepared for the harder challenges. So I embrace the test of encounters during the next administration. This is what I have trained for. So I say bring it, I can do this relational stuff better and better, and I can lead by example like Monica Guzman. I still have a lot to learn, and as we say in medicine, see one, do one, teach one–and I’d add–repeat, ad infinitum.

If you’ve read this far and you’re neither offended nor ready, thank you for holding your own space. We can each/all only do what we can, when we can, and how we can.
I Hold the Work for Us to bridge our differences for all our benefit, whatever, whenever, and however we can each make our contribution.

There is hope.

From Facebook

Holding Gentleness

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“…A kinder, gentler nation.” –George HW Bush

President Bush the First came to my high school during his campaign for a second term in 1991. I got to speak on behalf of Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD–which I just learned is now Students Against Destructive Decisions) and sit next to him on stage. Decades later my classmate would tell me that the photo of that event which hung in the main office is actually a Getty Image. I’m convinced they put me in that chair so people could get a good view of him–he was at least a foot taller than me. He was also such a decent man. I so admired him, and Barbara, too–I read her memoir in college. I know there are many decent, kind, and gentle people all around. That is what I hold tonight, no matter what anybody says.

Clouds and rain glowered over Chicago today, though temps were still very mild for November. Other than the hour when I PR’d my bench press (6 reps, 80#, all me!) at Ethos this morning, my energy has felt dim and slow. These last couple days I wonder if I’m more anxious about the election than I realized. Huh. Good opportunity to practice some body scan meditation and breath work. As I write this, the usual states have shown their usual colors. I will post this and go to bed, and deal with it all tomorrow.

So how can we all cope with things in the morning and beyond?

Gently is the best word I can muster tonight.

My conservative friend in Alabama went to work the day after the election in 2016 [note: I have corrected this post. The prior version stated he voted for Trump in 2016; he did not]. He did not gloat. His colleague arrived in tears and he held her in a hug. I hope this kind of interaction happens all over the country, tomorrow and onward. Hugs. Gentleness in both triumph and grief. I hope we’ll eventually be able to say both, “See, it’s not as bad as some of us thought it would be,” and also, “Yeah, it’s not the utopia that some of us had assumed.” Because things are rarely all bad or all good like we imagine or expect. What we must do, however, is to admit these things to one another, honestly and humbly. And it’s only safe to do this if we are gentle with ourselves and others, both in person and in rhetoric.

Our threshholds for distress and self-care practices vary. Let us be patient with ourselves and one another. Some will withdraw and cocoon, others will need tighter, brighter connections and out loud processing. Yet more of us will react in new, unfamiliar ways. We will all benefit from one another’s soft words and touch, our respective strengths and generosity in complementary presentation. This is how we save ourselves from political and interpersonal toxicity.

A kinder, gentler world, indeed.
The more we believe it’s possible, the more we will act to make it so.

I Hold Gentleness for Us all, as we approach our shared future. Whatever it is, we will all suffer less if we can be more gentle with ourselves and our fellow humans.

Take a look at the Instagram panels below. Let us consider them for ourselves and in our like-minded groups. How can we set down the adversarial spikes toward others and take up the tools to rebuild our connections? Gently, gently, ever gently.

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Questions for Connection

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What excellent question have you asked or been asked lately? How did it affect your relationship with the person asked/asking?

Ever since I started working with my life coach in 2005, I have practiced asking more and better questions in any encounter, in all life domains. The returns on this investment of presence and curiosity–idea generation, heightened conversation, and deepening connection, among others–far outweigh the costs of occasional awkward pauses and uncomfortable deflection.

I wonder, however, if I give enough time or energy to answering the interesting quesitons I ask?

Why, for instance, do I behave so differently with people in and out of my family? I feel like the same person in both contexts, and everybody knows the same me; yet I know I show up not the same at home as outside. Fascinating.

Today was Day 190 of my morning pages practice. Looking back, much of the journaling consists of lists, plans, recollections, and reflections. The same questions arise recurrently, mostly centered around behavior and relationships, and I attempt to answer overtly about half the time. Also fascinating! I feel comfortable with this state of things, as the simple act of writing them down and letting them sit on and below my consciousness day to day allows me to consider them slowly. Persistent questions point me to my core values, purpose, and goals. I feel no rush to formally answer these existential, identity-related, philosophical inquiries. I tell the story that simply marking their re/o-ccurrence pins them to some level of awareness where I can return regularly, like periodically adding brushstrokes to paintings that live in various rooms of my mind, heart, and life, when I happen to walk by. These rooms are bright and airy, each equipped with a sturdy easel, thick canvas, rich color palette, and full set of implements to create and revise, ad lib. I feel calm and focused, reassured that whatever is happening on any given day, I have time and energy set aside to process and digest, coming to clarity organically and as needed, all in good time. My morning pages facilitate insights and understanding regularly, and I see this practice sticking for the foreseeable future.

What I really relish, however, is engaging in questions, exploration, and discussion with other people! I wonder if this is how I make friends, actually? It does not matter if I just met you or I’ve known you my whole life; if you’re willing to dive with me like humanities nerds in a submersible to plumb the depths of open and honest questions and wild ideas of possibility–about anything from language to muscle physiology, human nature to politics, phylogeny to music–I might soon profess my undying love for you and chase you for more of that energizing connection. It is most often with friends, in those small, relaxed, meandering, sometimes calorie-laden gatherings, where nascent and novel answers to delightful questions so beautifully emerge and bloom. I carry my journal everywhere, to capture these pearls when they drop, as though gifts from the gods of sentience and relationship.

People crave deeper connection desperately now, in our increasingly chaotic, impersonal, and globalized world. I see references to the 2015 New York Times article “36 Questions That Lead to Love” regularly (that’s probably the algorithm, right?). If you cannot access it, see the original research article by Arthur Aron et al, “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings” with the questions listed at the end. Organized into three sets of increasing intimacy, the exercise invites us to ask our conversation partners questions such as, “What would constitute a perfect day for you?” “What is your most treasured memory?” and, “Complete this sentence: ‘I wish I had someone with whom I could share …'” From NYT: “The idea is that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness. To quote the study’s authors, ‘One key pattern associated with the development of a close relationship among peers is sustained, escalating, reciprocal, personal self-disclosure.’ Allowing oneself to be vulnerable with another person can be exceedingly difficult, so this exercise forces the issue.” I have the article bookmarked on my phone, and have yet to invite anyone to answer with me–maybe I’ll set an intention to do so on my upcoming friend dates? Part of me thinks I’m doing fine connecting on my own, and you never know, this could be truly next level.

Renowned psychologist Esther Perel created a similar game in 2021, Where Should We Begin, now in its 2nd edition. This query is how she historically initiates therapy sessions with clients. Questions in the game include, “I can’t believe I got away with…” “My latest crush is…” and, “My favorite love story to tell…” The box includes questions that range from lighthearted to serious, to sexual and beyond, which positively tickles me–because it’s all just life. In this age of polarization and easy mutual disdain and disconnection, games like this can help us all recognize our shared humanity.

I have purchased yet a different box of questions for connection, How Deep Will You Go? Its creators describe it as “a game of deep conversation without worrying what to ask, to feel closer in a way you never felt before.” Three levels of questions are labeled Ice Breakers (“What motivates you in life?”), Confessions (“Why have you kept going?”), and Getting Deep (“What is something you don’t tell most people?”). Reading the cards, I imagine with whom I’d want to delve. It depends on the question(s), of course, and also context and mood. I can picture a small friend group setting for the playful ones, and core belief/value ones as actual ice breakers for purposeful group work, such as a Braver Angels workshop. For the more intimate questions, though, I picture a one on one meeting, with plenty of preface and mutual agreement to actively engage in deepening personal connection.

Of course, interpersonal closeness is an iterative process: Other than the most superficial queries, the willingness to ‘go deeper’ requires some level of established trust and safety. That can take a while, depending on a multitude of factors. But once that foundational rapport is achieved, subsequent connection facilitated by these questions, one by one, may unfurl like the slow and steady inflation of a hot air balloon from the ground, lifting us gently together to affinity and affection we could never achieve where we started.

Connection decks like Where Should We Begin and How Deep Will You Go? make me so optimistic. I have loved and tried to ask questions like this for years, and now I feel validated. What if we all opened up to one another just a little bit more, just a little more often? What if we held one another’s hopes, joys, struggles, regrets, dreams, and confidences with a little more respect and reverence? What if we approached one another, friends and strangers alike, with the assumption of caring and mutual well wishes, looking to hold one another up, rather than with suspicion and wariness? And what if we rewarded such unearned generosity of spirit with reciprocal kindness?

The practice of mindfully asking deeper, more personal, loving, and intimate questions could go a long way to bridging our seemingly insurmountable differences; we all need this right now. It’s not appropriate in every encounter, of course. We must attune to context and opportunity, and act (ask) with confidence and humility. And that’s also the point, isn’t it?

The more present we are to one another’s vibrations, our moods and energies, the more likely we are to connect in earnest, regardless of what questions we choose to ask or not.

Understanding, validation, belonging, closeness, intimacy–we humans thrive when we feel these often and deeply. I still have hope that we can do it better.