Bringing Families Back Together This Holiday Season
A Message to You
In the wake of the recent U.S. election came a raft of stories: close family members cutting each other off based on the way the other voted. Perhaps you know a family where this happened, or perhaps it happened to you. It is out of our control as to what will happen down the road in our country — yet what is in our control is how we view and treat one another. Reducing another person to just their vote only contributes to the polarization abyss in our country. In this newsletter I share some important voices calling for compassion, understanding, and curiosity when dealing with those who hold views different from our own.
What Can You Do?
For the length of one cup of coffee, can you reach out to someone close to you who sees the world through a different political lens? Ask questions like a journalist with an attitude of objective curiosity to build a clearer picture of their worldview and why they believe the things they do. It is these very conversations, adding up over communities and nations, that form the heart of a political forgiveness process.
Bringing Families Back Together This Holiday Season
The election is now over, and in its wake are a lot of unhealed emotions. People are fearful, not knowing the direction the country is going and still trying to process what has happened. Unfortunately, also in its wake is the destruction of relationships, including family members cutting off ties with one another, reducing them just to their vote. We have to remember that a person is more than just their vote, more than their politics and more than just one action.
I was reading a story about Mónica Guzmán, senior fellow for public practice at Braver Angels and committed to bridging the political divide as she recounted what she experienced with a group of friends in Seattle in recent years. Guzmán is a liberal who voted for President Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton in recent years. Her parents are conservatives supporting Trump all the way. When Guzmán got together with her friends she started feeling queasy and uncomfortable when people were describing supporters of Trump as “monsters.” Jokes were being made and other things were being said alluding to Trump supporters as being ignorant, uncaring and even immoral. Even Guzmán herself got caught up in agreement of what was being said as she laughed along with the others. Yet she knew something was wrong. She understood that saying things about others was actually harmful — not just in attacking the “other” side, but even more importantly attacking how we relate to others, which in turn becomes an attack on ourselves. In some respects, Guzmán felt that an attack on Trump voters was also an attack on her parents, people she deeply loved.
More Alike Than We Are Different
In an article for the Washington Examiner titled Our Political Opponents Are Not Our Enemies, journalist Julian Adorney says the data shows we have many values in common across the political spectrum:
“In Say It Well, former Obama speechwriter Terry Szuplat cites a recent survey in which ‘roughly 90% of the people … Republicans and Democrats alike, said that personal responsibility, fair enforcement of the law, compassion, and respect across differences were important to them.’ We all share the same underlying values, even if we disagree with our brothers and sisters across the aisle about how these values should manifest in public policy.”
From My Desk
It can be startling to hear your own political party painted with the broad brush of vitriol from the other side. In this article Julian Adorney says, “This anger and fear are felt most keenly by the people who demonize and attack others without cause or provocation.” He suggests we shift our perspective to view our political opponents with compassion as “people wounded and crying out for help.”
Can reaching across fractured family dining tables in America become a model for listening skills on a community and national level? In this book journalist Mónica Guzmán suggests that what is lacking is curiosity, a trait that can become a bridge across the political divide. Understanding and learning from people with views opposed to our own is also a critical step in a political forgiveness process.
On election day Braver Angels invited their members to visit polling stations in “Red” and “Blue” pairs, while wearing red and blue baseball caps and carrying signs with messages of unity. Participants reported the experience was overwhelmingly positive as voters from both parties stopped to ask questions and take photos. Rebecca Cataldi, who came up with the idea, said she learned “not to judge voters based on the most extreme voices that represent them in the media.”
BOOK: The Spirit of Hope
In opposition to the apocalyptic mood spreading across the U.S., Byung-Chul Han offers this meditation on hope. He envisions an active brand of hope that inspires possibility and infuses the world with purpose. And, like the legendary phoenix, it arises from the ashes of fear and despair. “Only hope can give us back that life that is more than mere survival.”
Forgiveness Coaching and Consulting
Learning to forgive others and ourselves is an important skill in any interpersonal relationship. For those seeking to heal relationships and arrive at a place of forgiveness, I’m now offering dedicated forgiveness coaching and consulting. This consulting practice is available to individuals, couples, families, corporations or community leaders.
I am the author of Finding Forgiveness: A Seven-Step Program for Letting Go of Anger and Bitterness, as well as a political and clinical psychologist working in the area of peacebuilding. I also develop programs in political forgiveness and work in areas of conflict around the world.
For more information reach out to me at eileen@politicalforgivenessinternational.org.
Deeper Moment
Human Family
Song by Maya Angelou
I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.
The variety of our skin tones
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can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.
I've sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I've seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man.
I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I've not seen any two
who really were the same.
Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.
We love and lose in China,
we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we're the same.
I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.