Since the election, a large majority of us have expressed feeling high anxiety and deep uncertainty around the country’s future. Seventeen months into the current administration, our nervous systems have been stuck on overload—by a sense of being under psychic, emotional, mental and spiritual attack almost daily.
Some folks, including myself, have found relief in exploring our internal world, expressing our experiences, hopes, uncertainty, pain and fears through Intentional Dialogue, a respectful, gentle 3-step communication process where we take turns “talking without criticizing and listening without judgment to each other.” It’s the same process I teach in my workshops and couples intensives.
The understanding and clarity that arise effortlessly when one surrenders to communicating using Intentional Dialogue—allow for the development of one’s own point of view and understanding of one’s motivation ,which helps promote a realization or discovery of new, not yet realized content. Dialogue creates a safe relational space where we can grow together. The vulnerable truth-telling and intelligent listening that happen through Dialogue provide two people with a sense of solidarity, validation, emotional safety and resilience.
I believe that what we are witnessing and experiencing is something unique, special, and gruesome; a society traumatizing itself on a mass scale. This is new and different!
We have been repeatedly exposed to events that threaten death, harm, and/or violation to our self and our loved ones. Such exposure to trauma, daily, causes biochemical changes in the brain — but those are just descriptors. What does it do to the mind, psyche and our inner being?
Trauma erodes the integrity, structure, capacity and function of a healthy mind. After we experience trauma we are easily triggered, or flipped into fight-or-flight-or-freeze reflexes. In other words, our automatic survival patterns kick in — and we begin fighting desperately for life itself even in moments where, perhaps, we don’t need to.
Thus, the inner life of a traumatized person often feels unlivable — we do not know it because we are constantly shifting, often uncontrollably, between fighting, fleeing, and freezing up, not just at a physiological level, but also on an intensely emotional and soul level. We may feel broken, dead or numb inside — because we are being twisted and scarred by just existing.
Here is what is often unseen.
The traumatized mind has come to see its world as a profoundly hostile and threatening place — one which it comes to unconsciously believe cannot be survived in for long. Annihilation might happen with the next step. So the traumatized mind is perpetually experiencing a deep, profound, terrible guilt, shame, and grief — the loss of the experience of being … of feeling safe. A mind that has been traumatized is in deep mourning not just for some ideal self, but terrified at not being allowed to go on “being.”
This is why many folks appear to erupt in sudden orgies of verbal violence on Facebook or Twitter, in parking lots, driving down Route 95, in our homes with our children, parents, spouses, colleagues and friends. This is why folks seem to go numb and avoid civic and community life altogether. Why folks are more obsessed with instant relief (prescription medication legal and illegal) out of the terror of “being.” It is also why we have so much trust and faith in our suspicions, cynicisms, superstitions, or that the world is flat—and other survivalisms.
These are the sides of traumatized social minds — fight, flight, freeze. They are dysfunctional and lead us to struggle desperately for life in a society that feels constantly threatening to eliminate us, if we are not strong enough, rich enough, ruthless enough, cunning enough. This is why I say we are witnessing something unique, special, and gruesome in history — a society traumatizing itself on a massive scale.
And until we see it — how will we begin to understand how to ameliorate, answer, or treat it? You see, when we are traumatized, the traumatized mind needs to feel, fundamentally, that it is safe. Safe in the sense that “being fully alive” is possible, that “being” able to relate, exist, function, play, and mate are possible . We cannot feel safe living in a hostile, existentially threaten state of being—that is unlivable and the opposite of full aliveness. But can we create such a place and space?
Those of you who know me, know that my go-to places for safety and refuge are 12-step spirituality, my marriage/home and Imago principles and practices.
The Imago Intentional Dialogue, in particular, is an effective practice and antidote to calm the “old brain’s” danger signals because conversations happen from a place of safety, which is crucial and helps our overloaded nervous systems to calm down. It helps us connect, rather than isolate, allowing us to explore our complex emotional landscape instead of dwelling in mental terror. It also helps with understanding, empathy and being mirrored into existence.
I have been practicing cultivating inner peace, connecting and safety by entertaining the notion that Donald Trump’s presidency offers us the opportunity to enlarge our spiritual lives and heal past and current traumas through safe talk and safe relationships. I sincerely think he wants to make America great (again?) and he also believes that he is the only one who can do it. To achieve this mission requires, in his mind, that he lash out at anyone who pushes back. And his ego is so tied to success and his image that his own nervous system is likely severely overloaded, traumatized and compromised by the hijack of the “old brain,” making him prone to critical missteps.
The crisis at the top is bringing out the best in many of us. For me, it points to the usefulness of holding a “safe relational space” for us to express our most sensitive truths, pain, uncertainty, and fear into compassionate and intelligent listening. This provides a visceral feel for the texture of love and relationship that I am open to. From that perspective, suddenly other compatibilities on my checklist pale in comparison to what it means to have this freedom of mind, connecting and spirit with another; what it means to meet in a field of mutual kindness … beyond opinions, competition, winning, controlling, dominating and right and wrong.
Dialogue enables two people to be conscious of the impact that their language (verbal and non-verbal) has on others. “Dialogue is a transformational process that makes it possible to talk with anyone about anything and experience connecting rather than polarization.”
Its magic and power lie in the fact that the structure makes it safe to talk and to listen with mutual respect for each other’s perspectives. Truthfully, “Dialogue” is hard. It takes time and patience. It is not a quick fix. Most conversations are actually monologues; two people talking at each other, both trying to win; which sets them up to argue, attack, feel attacked, misinterpret and misunderstand. Dialogue keeps conversations safe because we eliminate all negativity as well as words, tone of voice, facial expressions and body language that communicate a “put-down” to another person. Before two people start a Dialogue, I hold the assumption that both perspectives are valid. And, that is a good start to enable us to see the bigger picture.
Where in your life do you need to talk and listen with respect for another’s perspective?
