Starting with Questions: Language, Listening, and the Path Forward

In the aftermath of Germany's election, I find myself yearning for a new language — one that brings us closer together rather than driving us further apart. Reflecting on the words we use during such decisive moments, I am struck by how deeply our vocabulary is shaped by conflict. We speak of "Wahlkampf" (election battle), of building "Brandmauern" (firewalls) to "fight" and "outlaw" what we perceive as extremist and wrong. Our words reflect a mindset of dominance and control that no longer serves us in addressing the complex, interconnected crises of our time.

The meta-crisis of our era is not an enemy to be defeated. It is a manifestation of our broken relationship with the Earth and with one another. It would serve us well to shift toward a language of relationship — one that prioritizes connection, listening, and collaboration, allowing us to embrace a worldview rooted in equilibrium and balance.

Choosing Words That Matter and Listen Generously

Words shape how we understand ourselves, interpret the world, and treat others. They are one of our primary tools to bridge the mystery between us. The words we choose have the force of action and can become virtues in and of themselves. Words chosen with care carry the weight of truth and the power of healing.

But words alone are not enough. Without listening — truly listening — words cannot fulfill their purpose. Generous listening is powered by curiosity and vulnerability. It is the willingness to be surprised, to let go of assumptions, and to embrace ambiguity. To embody the shift we seek, we must engage in listening that transforms — listening that recognizes the humanity behind the words of others and responds with presence and compassion.

That thing which you fight, you become. — J. Krishnamurti

In "The Book of Life" J. Krishnamurti writes "That thing which you fight, you become. If I am angry and you meet me with anger what is the result? More anger. You have become that which I am. If I am evil and you fight me with evil means then you also become evil, however righteous you may feel. If I am brutal and you use brutal methods to overcome me, then you become brutal like me. And this we have done for thousands of years."

This profound observation by J. Krishnamurti points to the inherent danger in resistance: when we define ourselves solely by opposition, we risk becoming a mirror of what we resist. If there isn’t some people on both sides who absolutely refuse to see the other as evil, this is just going to continue. The fight becomes cyclical; opposition replicates opposition, and we remain locked in reactive postures that reinforce the very systems we hope to change. My friend Ryan (Ra) James Kemp expands on this idea in his here, emphasizing that true transformation requires stepping beyond the logic of battle.

To resist without becoming that which we resist means moving beyond the logic of battle — beyond extraction, beyond domination. It means stepping out of the war altogether and choosing a different way of being." — Ryan (Ra) James Kemp

Ryan's perspective builds on Krishnamurti’s insight, urging us to shift entirely, to resist without replicating cycles of combat and domination. This is the essence of shifting — transforming our worldview and embodying a new way of being, rooted in restoration and renewal. And this is the core of my work as a regenerative leadership coach and trauma specialist, which centers on actively restoring life — regeneration as an intentional practice of healing, growth, and renewal.

This shift requires not only changing how we think and talk but embodying new relationships with ourselves, each other, and the world. Recognizing the patterns that keep us stuck allows us to break free. Regeneration begins when we listen — not just with our ears, but with our whole being. It comes through choosing connection, presence, and imagination — actively restoring life in ourselves and our communities where disconnection and depletion have taken hold.

An Invitation: Shifting Toward What is Possible Together

Maybe - instead of knowing all the answers, we can hold the questions of meaning, of how we structure our common life, and of who we are to each other. It may seem that we are more divided than ever before — unable to speak across the differences we must engage to create the world we want for ourselves and our children.

In countries descending into authoritarianism, one of the first things to go is the right to assemble. Why? Because of what can happen when people come together, exchange information, inspire one another, test out new ways of being together. — Priya Parker

Priya Parker wrote these words for the prologue of her book "The Art of Gathering" in 2018. And they’re feeling even more relevant in 2025.

You and I have it in us to be cultivators of discernment and catalysts of healing. We have the language, the tools, and the calling — as human beings — to create hospitable spaces for taking up the hard questions of our time. This calling is too important and life-giving to wait for politics or media at their worst to come around.

We can discover how to calm fear and plant the seeds of the robust civil society we desire and that our age demands. This is civic work, and it is human, spiritual work.

We can learn for our time what moral imagination, social healing, and civil discourse can look like and how they work. How to speak the questions we don’t know how to ask each other? Can we find ways to cross the crack in the middle about politics and the meaning of community? How can we engage neighbors who have become strangers? Can we do that even while continuing to hold passionate disagreements on deep, contrasting convictions? You may have your questions to add …

Can we sit with these questions but don't have the answers, but deeply trust that showing up for the questions within a circle is the first step? We don’t need all of the answers to?do something.?Often, just simply putting words around a shared, urgent question can open the world.

Call me a romantic, but I believe in our shared humanity and the potentiality in these challenging times. Wisdom, in life and society, emerges precisely through those moments when we have to hold seemingly opposing realities in a creative tension and interplay: power and frailty, birth and death, pain and hope, beauty and brokenness, mystery and conviction, calm and fierceness, mine and yours. I’m still not good at surrendering or “living in the question,” but I am getting better.

It is up to us, where we live, to start having the conversations we want to hear and creating the realities we want to inhabit.

This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal. — Toni Morrison

As the results of this election unfold, my hope extends beyond the particular outcome. I hope we remember to choose words that matter and listen generously, so that we can create spaces of understanding, hope, and regeneration. Together, we can co-create the world we want for ourselves and our children. Because “what we practice, we become.”

It’s time to get to work.

Shifting,

A.