Working With My Reactivity

I got a very angry email yesterday from a dear friend from the past. I had forwarded one of my blogs to them because of a reference I thought they would appreciate. At the moment I sent it, I wasn’t thinking about our conflicting political views which have led to a decades-long détente of silence. My intention was share a story as a way of building connection. The result was just the opposite.

Their response and their anger was triggered by excitement I expressed in a paragraph at the end of the piece over the then upcoming inauguration of Biden and Harris and the possibilities of working together to heal our divided country. To them, this felt like gloating.  They reprimanded me strongly for my lack of empathy for the pain they and 75 million other Americans are feeling—for being a poor winner. My response to their response was surprise, confusion, fear, and guilt—all arising in a strong swirl that felt like a punch to the gut.

I’m just beginning a thirty-part virtual program designed to build skills for activists who want to have conversations that can lead to a reduction of racism in the U.S. The program seems to have several names: The RACE Boot Camp Method or Equipping Anti-Racism Allies: The Unitarian Universalist Edition or ACT (Ally Conversation Toolkit)   Their stated goal is:

to significantly reduce the percentage of white Americans who think that racism against white people is just as important a social problem as racism against people of color—55% in 2017. The goal of the initiative is to catalyze a cultural shift so that this figure is reduced to 45% by 2025.

They go on to explain:

The RACE Method Boot Camp is based on the finding that conversational approaches using respectful dialogue, empathy, and story telling are more effective in influencing people compared with conversational styles that emphasize factual information, debate, combat, and shaming people.

This all makes sense to me and clearly applies not just to conversations about race, but also about politics, gender issues, religious issues and all other hot button issues that quickly tend toward the polarization that is endemic in our country these days. The program is based on cultivating specific skills to allow the possibility of dialogue where now there is just mutual accusation or the separation of silence, judgment and fear.

Anyway, I’m now on step two which is about learning quick relaxation skills and deep listening. They open with describing the need:

Our hope is that we can do our small part in creating a world where compassion and equity are the hallmarks of daily life. A key requirement is that we find a way to stop the internal chatter and calm our own heightened fear responses so that we can deeply listen to others and understand the deeper human motivations that unite us. We must do this even when others sometimes say things that make them seem very different than ourselves.

So reading this email yesterday, I had the opportunity to practice working with my reactivity. My first observation was how terrible it felt in my body. l felt almost sick. Thoughts came quickly: I had made a terrible mistake that might cost a very important relationship. I was afraid and wished I had not done anything at all. Silence and inaction were clearly better than an unskillful and hurtful action like this.

I focused on my breath and allowed myself to feel the wild amalgam of physiological responses my body was having. I reached out to a friend for support. I sent an email of apology for my unskillfulness. And I have been reflecting on the encounter off and on ever since.

I finally went back this morning to reread their email. I found that most of the anger was directed not at me, but at the many times my friend has felt belittled and called names by voices in the mainstream media. He has felt that he and all the other people who supported Trump have been lumped in Hillary Clinton’s famous and deeply regrettable category of ‘the deplorables.’ He rightly pointed out that we need to stop gloating and calling each other names if we are to enter into any kind of genuine dialogue about our real differences of perspective.

I’m still working through this, but I see that one thing that has kept me from engaging with people with different views (both to the ‘right’ of me and to the ‘left’ of me) is fear of anger. I don’t know many people who like anger, but I grew up in a household where anger and direct confrontation were to be avoided at all costs. I think it was a loving family, but strong emotions and differences of opinion were mostly held in silence to avoid confrontation and the heat of disagreement.

But there is a cost to silence. When my fear holds me back from speaking of my perspective and asking about yours, then difference divides us and possibility is diminished. I’m now rereading the introduction to the boot-camp and I see there is yet another name for the program that involves the phrase compassionate warriors.    

The wise and wild Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa used a similar phrase. He called us all to be tender-hearted warriors. May it be so for all of us and may we find the courage to take the actions and have the conversations that will lead to healing and connection.