My sixteen year old nephew said it well, when I asked him what he thought about the Biden/Harris win in the presidential election last week:

“Well, maybe things will go back to not everything being about politics.”

Amen my boy! 

But first, I have to write this blog . . .

 

Politics (from Greek: Πολιτικά, politiká, 'affairs of the cities') is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations between individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status.

 

Perhaps you, gentle reader, like me, felt a profound relief at the outcome in the end, after the prolonged tension of waiting for 150 million-ish votes to be counted here in the U.S.A. in the race for who would be the 46th president of the United States. Perhaps you, like me, felt a massive relaxation in the marrow of your bones (have I been tense for four years?) and the warm afterglow from the Biden/Harris victory speech on Saturday night, four days after election day. (I had a strange impulse to buy an American flag, and to fly it!) Or perhaps, you felt something different?

And then the next day, a sad contraction, as the realization that those folks who voted for Trump (maybe friends and family) probably feel as shitty now as I did back in 2016 in the wee hours of election night — and a sense that the fighting is not just going to all go away.

Americans are polarized, and could be duking it out for some time to come.

As you may well know, social media and the privatization of news media outlets have amplified the differences that have always existed in the melting pot culture of America, as once-shared cultural commons like Walter Cronkite’s nightly reports have disintegrated in the face of technology that gives more platforms to more people, or the values of a shared religion have disintegrated in the face of a vast array of new ways to express and develop one’s spirituality.

Four years of Donald Trump as president has brought to light much of the shadow that America has been holding . . . things about ourselves as a people that we don’t cop to; that have not yet been integrated into our identity as Americans. YES, we are a culture whose prosperity has been built on the backs of indigenous people and the institution of slavery. YES, we have a class system that privileges a few over the masses. YES, we have deeply embedded institutions that keep certain people from equal opportunities. YES, white male patriarchy is alive and well, and holds the majority power in many areas of our civic, economic and political life. 

Yet historically, by and large, hierarchical distribution of power has been normal in most human society since forever. America is radically egalitarian by comparison. It’s actually remarkable and unprecedented that many of us are saying THAT’S NOT OK anymore. 

I’m aware that this is the reality I see (and gosh it feels damn well true). But it’s not the reality that all of America sees. 

My knee jerk reaction is to insulate myself from those crazy people who think Trump was the leader we needed to get us back on track.

But the Democrats have won this presidential election. Now, the question is do I want to be RIGHT, or do I want to be IN RELATIONSHIP?

What does American politics and American culture need me to be if we want to be one country, indivisible, again?

Here are five ideas I think are important to consider — things that would greatly influence how we make decisions in groups and configure our power relationships as we move forward into 2021.

1. Recognizing Shadow and How It Operates

Way back in 2016, I wrote about a blog called Donald Trump is OUR Shadow. His four-year reign as president, along with the advent of this global pandemic that is raging right now has illuminated all our weak and unattended places — our collective shadows. 

We all have personal shadow — places in ourselves that are invisible to us where we are sometimes rude, overbearing, weak, mean, supercilious, untrustworthy, self-centered, stupid . . . or whatever we consistently and vehemently detest out there in the world. As irritating as it is to hear, it turns out that much of the time we do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. The world mirrors us.

Understanding your own shadow and how it operates is one of the most liberating practices a person can engage in. As Zen teacher and Integral mediator Diane Hamilton says, seeing our (scary) shadow doesn’t make us wrong. It (radically) changes how we handle things. [Note: shadow can also be all the wonderful things in yourself that you don’t want to consciously see, and so project out onto others, so there’s that too.] Check out this Zoom workshop given by Diane Hamilton, Gabriel Wilson and Kim Loh on the 3-2-1 process of catching your own shadow, and imagine how it can open up possibility in relationship, and so, in politics. 

2. Healthy Polarization and Its Role in Creative Emergence

The hyperpolarization in the United States feels unsafe to many of us. It seems our neighbors are insane. How can we relate to them or even trust them at all? Our impulse is to purge ourselves of those creepy others. But what if we understood that the tension between opposing forces is actually a healthy and important thing? What if in this country we had the understanding and tools to use that tension to heal and open us up to new solutions to seemingly intractable problems? It can absolutely be done. It starts with you, practicing it in every day life. 

Here is one solution for a way forward that promotes a cultural stance that includes and addresses the values of all people across the spectrum of difference. And here is a short video by Steve Macintosh on How to Overcome Political Polarization in 5 Minutes.

 

3. Show Up As A Healing Influence

With an understanding and experience of your own shadow, you may become less and less fearful of the shadow in others. Your own sense of yourself will be larger and more compassionate, allowing you to extend compassion to others with whom you disagree. Understanding the system of opposition inherent in democracy (and everywhere, for that matter) you are less afraid of others with different worldviews, seeing them instead as sources for your own expansion. Now you can show up as a healing influence. Don’t think that your only influence is your vote. Your words and behavior, your stance and energy influence everyone you come in contact with. You MATTER because you are a cell in this body of the American Politic.

 

4. Safety and an Extended Circle of Care

People will not be able to hear opposing viewpoints if their nervous systems are freaked out. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs shows us that before we can self-actualize (which involves enlarging our perspectives), we need to feel valued and esteemed, we need to feel loved and included, we need to feel safe, and we need our basic physical needs taken care of. Are you be a safe person to talk to? Do you have your needs met, and are you monitoring and taking care of them in an ongoing way? Can you regulate the nervous system of others, emanating authentic care and esteem for them? Can you aspire to do so, acknowledging when you fail and celebrating when you have success—a forever practice of extending your circle of care? What kind of containers might be created for people to come together in this way?

 

5. A Web of Connected Tribes

We are not all the same. We have affinity for some types of people, and less affinity for others. We have differences in background, in education, in development and health. It’s important to make the distinction that it’s OK to have both the desire for everyone to be One, underneath personality, culture, race, gender and all the other ways we are different, and to have the the natural animal desire to hang out with people we have important things in common with — being with our tribe. Tribes have boundaries, and they should have boundaries. Cells have cell walls, and they need to have cell walls. Healthy tribes have the capacity to work with other tribes that hold opposing values. Resiliancy is found in a web of connected tribes.

There is a threshold of capacity that must be attained here: A capacity to be secure in one’s own tribal values while listening for the values expressed within opposing opinions. A capacity to allow opposing opinions and values in . . . to really hear them. A capacity to see the shadowy reactive parts within one’s own tribe group, and work with it skillfully. A willingness to be authentically open to the helpful, good, life-affirming aspects of the other tribe’s way of being in the world.

Those of us who have the privilege to be working on our personal growth have the responsibility to walk in the world as sources of peace and reconciliation, as sources of healing. The more each of us can be the change we want to see in the world, the closer we will come to being a humanity that will be able to turn together and face the coming challenges before us.

Imagine a resilient global system of strong tribes (and tribes within other tribes) who have strong and open channels of connection and communication; like the cells and organs in a human body who all coordinate together to keep the body alive and healthy.

It will take real work for us to get there, but I believe it to be possible. 

It’s my work, and it’s yours. Let’s begin.