Beyond Conventional Wisdom

I spent the first half of my life as a strident hater of liberals. Then, upon losing a risky bid for Congress, my marriage, business and political reputation disintegrated. After struggling with and for political power for almost a decade, fueled by an undercurrent of anger and righteousness, I left Republican politics. Exhausted and disillusioned, I retreated to a mountain cabin in rural Virginia.

No longer feeling so sure of myself or my world view, and having been humbled to the point of living well below the poverty line, life delivered an unlikely set of teachers. The small town I had chosen was a haven for 1960’s and 70’s back-to-the-landers. For someone whose nickname in the military had been “starch,” this community of hippies was not my first choice for neighbors.

Slowly, I began to understand that the underlying values motivating their behavior – sharing, interdependence, equality, compassion for the weak, a strong sense of justice, freedom, creative self-expression, and a reverence for nature – were the heart that had been missing from my politics.

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“Don’t therapize me!,” “I hate it when you psychoanalyze me!”, or “Cut out that psychobabble!” Phrases like these epitomize commonly thought of adverse reactions to psychotherapy. What does your picture of psychotherapy look like?

The face of psychotherapy whether practiced in an office, from a book, or in the media typically looks like a guru giving advice, analyzing and directing people in how they should feel, behave and think.

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“Imagine” is one of the most popular songs of all time because it speaks to the heart of one of our most basic desires. When you allow John Lennon’s words and music to fill your heart, what does your heart tell you about your desire for peace? Not just living in a peaceful world but peace in all your communities, including your home, workplace and/or school?

Take a few minutes to READ or LISTEN TO “Imagine.”

Real peace is not what masquerades between nations or in families as a time between wars. It is living with a perpetual sense of serenity and security. Conventional thinking will never bring about that kind of peace. For real peace to become a possible dream a radical paradigm shift is required.

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My school memories are mostly unhappy. No one seemed to care about this very shy kid, who walked around feeling inadequate, wanting to hide in the shadows and remain anonymous. Classroom lectures were boring, and tests that required regurgitating facts were meaningless. Most of the time I felt lost, alienated and inadequate.

How would you characterize your school experience?

Being motivated to become a teacher, made graduate school a better experience. However, in my last class the professor delivered what he referred to as his most important lesson of caution. The poignant message and warning – “Don’t ever become personally involved in the lives of your students.”

Being older than most of my fellow classmates, I didn’t pay much attention to this message. I’ve often wondered how many prospective teachers are given, and follow, such a warning.

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Conflict!

What was your reaction to that word? If you felt tense, you’re not alone. Conventional thinking teaches us that when upsets occur, conflict or withdrawing to avoid a conflict are the only responses.

My parents never confronted their upsets and my mother and sister constantly argued. But, it was not just from my home that I got my ideas about upsets. In the media, at school and in politics upsets were “do or die” battles. The strong won and the weak either slunk away or lost the fight.

For me, upsets became inextricably entwined with humiliation, loss, pain, yelling, and feeling powerless. No matter how big I grew, the little boy inside with an omnipresent fear of conflict, responded to upsetting situations by either avoiding them or steeling myself into a warrior preparing for battle.

Upsets, stemming from situations such as unmet expectations, broken agreements and clashing styles of behavior, are inevitable. From the ashes of many unhappy relationships, I’ve learned another way of responding to upsetting differences. It is the road less traveled, the way of the heart.

The heart of upsets is learning. Mark Gerzon, a highly respected renaissance thinker approaches conflict in the following way. “By shifting the focus from finding a solution to changing consciousness, conflict resolution becomes a transformational process. A deeper understanding of the situation allows each side to gain respect for the other. From this change in consciousness, new possibilities for solutions that do not compromise the integrity of either party arise that cannot even be conceived of in an adversarial proceeding.”

In an upset there are always very important reasons for beliefs, behavior, thoughts or feelings. When heart-connected we compassionately and respectfully engage in wanting to:

• Understand the other person’s position.
• Learn about our own position and any part we may have in the difficulty.
• Search for resolutions that preserve everyone’s integrity.

Although staying heart-connected in the face of upsets is an ideal that no one is always able to maintain, losing our heart is not the problem. Failing to learn from those experiences is the Achilles heel that festers into serious problems.

Responding to an upset from the heart rather than from fear requires knowing that we have lost our heart connection  (See Feelings and Behaviors) Without that awareness we are stuck. Realizing that we’re disconnected we can:

• Take personal responsibility and acknowledge, without blame, that we have lost our heart connection. For example, “In trying to prove my point and get you to change, I lost my heart and I feel badly about that.”
• Do something to reconnect to our heart (See Ways to Reconnect To Your Heart).
• Learn more about the beliefs and fears that created our disconnection. “There are some important issues for me to confront here and I am committed to working on them. I’d also like to know more about your thoughts and feelings.”
• Express sadness about any wounding that occurred when we were disconnected and clean up the difficulties that resulted. Such as, “I feel badly that I disrespected you and I would like to heal any bad feelings.”
• Begin a compassionate dialogue to resolve the difficulties. “I feel open and caring. Are you ready to begin again?”

You can trace the flow of behavior and consequences from upsets in the chart From Upsets to Harmony.

What were your lessons about differences? What resources have been instrumental in changing your ideas about responding to differences? What questions remain unanswered?

Additional Resources

Conventional wisdom teaches that the heart is weak and fragile. From beliefs such as, “The heart is mushy and unmanly” I learned to stifle my sensitivity. I grew into a control freak from beliefs such as, “Being open leads to being taken advantage of.” Beliefs such as, “Heartbreak is devastating” led to clamping a lid on emotional giving.

Distrusting my heart, I developed my athletic, sexual and intellectual abilities on the road most traveled to fame and fortune. Except for rare occasions, such as those magical moments of falling in love, I kept my sensitivity hidden behind protective walls, (Even though my story represents a masculine perspective, I know that women also learn to keep their hearts safely tucked away.)

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