Hatred Harms Democracy and What Listening Across The South Taught Me

How are you holding up?

I have never seen my husband so fired up in my life. He is one of the gentlest men I know. Why I chose to spend my life with him.

Lots of angst happening over on my Facebook page from friends and colleagues on the right and left. Why am I mincing words?...full-on hatred is going on.

Right now I am clenched in my chest, scared and sad and then the fire in my belly starts to burn with rage at all the things that led to this close call. Then I come back to my ground. My core values of moving from my centered self (a term from the new Sidewalk Talk listener training - not out for public consumption yet) and hearing the "up close stories" of people is my conviction right now.

But the closeness of the race leaves our family trying to decide if we want to return to the USA or stay living in Germany, where I can continue to do psychotherapy with couples and individuals over video.

2017 Listening Bus Tour

I keep thinking about the bus tour Sidewalk Talk took across the south after the last election. 8 of us hopped in a van and went from state to state to state for a week.

I keep thinking about the great people I met. Great folks who voted for TRUMP. And some not so great people that voted for Hillary.

I remember the Indy Christian church who held a potluck to feed us. All the women sat while the men did the cooking. An elderly retired therapist and I bonded. She held my hands during certain parts of the dinner.

I think of sitting outside the baseball stadium in Alabama. A Republican man came over and told me about his marriage and his wife leaving him. He had a MAGA hat on.

I still feel gratitude as an Alabama Imam and MOSQUE welcomed us in to have traditional prayers with them, let our hired camera crews in, and fed us. (Aside - we have 9 hours of raw professionally shot footage still sitting in the can. Any of you filmmakers / editors who want to make this gorgeous, let's do it!)

I remember the woman who was riding her bicycle home from a therapy session, saw us listening in Louisville, Kentucky. She started hyperventilating, pulled up and started sobbing. "Thank you. I can't stop to talk but I just came from therapy. This gives me hope." Her crying got intense. Her chest started to heave. "Can I give you a hug?"

And oh those three sweet teen boys who came over to talk to me as I donned a goofy pink ball cap...they were all "cool and funny". But then they told me their parents never listen to them and they just feel bossed around. All their parents do is work and worry about money.

I smile remembering a liberal woman in Kentucky sharing she got publicly cursed out by the leader of the Black Lives Matter chapter in her town for a misstep she made. She said, "You know what? She has dealt with stuff I cannot imagine. It is ok. Listen, if you are going to be liberal in the south, you are gonna have to be tough. It is like being a little blue crouton in a bowl of tomato soup."

I remember the Black man who shared with me "I voted for Trump. But some of the liberals in my neighborhood would jump down my throat and have zero interest in hearing why I voted the way I did."

What I Am Learning Today

I keep thinking of the diverse folks who recently showed up for our recent "racism listening circle". The willingness to hold a diverse listening circle breaks rules. And more recently our Naked 3 LIVE series, LIVE Wednesdays at 12:30PT where three diverse women have a really good time together but we sure don't agree on everything.

I know in my bones the power and potential of coming in closer to people to listen and some days I simply do not have the capacity but aim to, more often. I have screwed up a lot.

I feel how our hearts soften when we listen. I see the impact. So I won't be stopping any time soon.

Sidewalk Talk is piloting our new listener training we are rolling out in a few weeks to individuals and organizations as part of our #GivingTuesday fundraiser. Watching international organizations, churches, and nonprofits make the inner transformation to listen to honor and capitalize on differences rather than shaming them is beautiful to watch.

I am reminded of the tenants of couples therapy and family therapy; to listen across our differences, to get to core attachment wounds, to understand larger systemic dynamics at play, to resource nervous systems, to help people reframe their view.

Hearing one another's very personal and tender stories helps us see the world with fresh eyes, with empathy, and widen our embrace to differences and do what is right by one another. Not always, but a lot. Certainly more than name-calling.

Sharing stories, what some call deep democracy or deep canvassing work, can change hearts and minds to vote in ways that help us all thrive.

These are very different dialogues than calling someone a sheeple, or scary socialist, or racist, or idiot. We lead with "tell me who you are and why you think the way you do?" This kind of listening is my kind of activism.

Heart-centered listening is a courageous kind of love in action.

Please know, I am not moving from self-righteousness here. I assure you, my self-righteous part is mostly in the background. What is here is heartache and hope; the heartache that hatred continues to win and the hope that we could do something different. Hatred is the least effective means to create an effective democracy and healthy happy people and communities. As a therapist, my master's thesis was how to effectively use our anger and outrage rather than act it out.

The opposite of hatred is not NICE, though.

I am not advocating for wimpiness or equivocating. I have, as a woman, been treated in vile ways as a leader and I have come to learn that leading is one of the biggest acts of service I have ever taken up. I am a fiery blonde woman who wears red lipstick. I am a woman who speaks up and I have been patted on the head and told to be "nice" and "pretty" so many damn times.

I am not about nice. I am about kind. It is kind to protest. It is kind to call out politicians, police, and systems that are harming people. It is kind to confront injustice, misinformation, and violence.

I am kind. I am not nice. I am loving and I am not wimpy. I am fierce and I am not hateful. (At my core.) Below is a video that was viewed 10 million times in 2018.

My biggest challenge in learning to listen well has been my own nervous system. My baser instincts want me to jump to immediate assumptions (or Top Dog - a Sidewalk Talk listener training term) that a Trump voter is x, y, and z or a white dude is x,y or z. I am the most terrified of people who live in their heads, their moral superiority or fear vulnerability (which I guess is a lot of us). I have to work hard to find my way back to centered-self (our Sidewalk Talk term).

What I keep coming back to, over and over and over, is that resourcing my nervous system, learning to take effective action, and damn it, not perpetuating hate is my activism. I have the privilege of being white where I can listen in places my black and brown friends would not feel safe going (and frankly it is not their job, it is mine).

My hope and heartache are here for listening. I hope you will join me in this endeavor. If you want to know more about Sidewalk Talk, join our mailing list. We will be inviting folks to join us in a new cohort of listening in a deeper way.