Healing cannot be one-sided or carry a political agenda. Healing is not about one gentler or more loving ideology winning over another. True healing must ultimately integrate (in a harmonious way) the people and ideas we previously assumed to be our enemies.
Paraphrasing Alan Watts, we cannot love our enemies or try to "heal" them as a clever way to win them over to our way of thinking. Instead, we must love them as enemies: recognizing that they have important gifts and truths that we are lacking, just like we have important gifts and truths that they are lacking.
In the political discourse we have today, both sides tend to condescend one another. They assume they know what's best for our country while ignoring the valid critiques and important insights their opposition advocates or defends.
This same things happens in all polarized systems, whether political, familial, and even internal (e.g., the polarized parts of a single person.)
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a systemic form of healing that I often rely on in my one-on-one healing work to resolve highly polarized inner conflicts. Lately, however, I've started to notice the way that it can be used for groups and communities as well.
I want to share a few points I've noticed about IFS that I think are helpful to remember when trying to bring greater harmony to a group or system of people:
1. Be respectful — Approach slowly. Listen and echo what you've heard. Empathize and try to understand their experience. Give genuine gratitude for their willingness to open up. Affirm their good intentions. Then do the same for all other sides present.
2. Apologize if you trigger defenses — Sometimes, we may inadvertently cross a boundary or trigger protective defenses around a wound or trauma. If this happens, hover. Don't move forward, don't move back. Acknowledge their feelings, apologize for the transgression, and slowly reestablish trust. Usually, a system will allow you to move forward again once trust is reestablished.
3. Let them lead you to healing — It's easy to assume that if we intend to heal a person or group that we should be the ones leading them toward healing. But often, the inner intelligence of an individual (or collective intelligence of a group) knows far more about what needs to happen to achieve harmony than we do. The best healers (and I believe the best leaders) trust themselves to be lead by those they're leading.
There are many other lessons from IFS that can be applied to working with larger groups. This is because systems have an astounding ability to parallel one another. What's true within a single person or between members of a family also tends to be true between different communities and even nations.
With the election coming up, look around you and look out for interpersonal conflicts, relationship issues, and family crises that parallel the political dynamics of the candidates. It can be startling when you notice it.
The leaders that I've admired most are those that speak firmly in support of healing and reconciliation in some of the most divided places in the world. Maha Ghosananda, a patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism, dedicated his life to heal his country during and after the bloody Khmer Rouge regime. Nelson Mandela helped the reconciliation of South Africa after the brutality and bitterness of apartheid.
I hope to help people cultivate the same qualities of soul and good will that allowed these individuals to bring healing to some of the deepest and most painful wounds of the 20th century.
True healing isn't about winning our enemies over to our side. It's about recognizing that there truly are no sides, and embodying that awareness.
Comments