Feel to Heal: Letting Our Egos Go for Our Hearts to Grow.

What Do We Do When We’re Broken in Two?

We know these are dangerous times, with hubris on full display with two old guys still running for the highest office while wars, famine, and disease are minimized, normalized, and sensationalized depending on their audience.

The harder part, in my opinion, is the divides within families and friends, people with whom you felt safe with until the differences of opinion because chasms of disagreement.

It’s heartbreaking to watch people around you refuse to acknowledge they may not know everything. Human egos are so fragile and none more so than when we believe we are being treated unjustly or believe we’re in imminent danger. It clouds judgement because we’re already in a trauma response, unable to process what we see.

Our frontal lobe, reasoning, is unavailable. Fear is a great control mechanism because no critical thinking can happen when our cortisol is through the roof. We lack the capacity to respond with a rational and calm body and mind and to be open to new info.

Righteous indignation is, to me, the marker of someone drunk on koolaid of any supremacist ideology—because without it, we see how fallible and vulnerable we are.

Without it, we’re forced to accept that we’re no better or worse than anyone else and that yes, my people are, and therefor, I am, capable of terrible acts against our fellow humans.

Without it, we don’t have a counter argument to stand on because we’re not standing at all…we’re sitting and listening with an open heart and an open mind. We are open to take in new information.

When you see righteous indignation it should alert you that someone is up to some shenanigans. Entitlement is not a key to common ground, community building, or conscious communications.

In fact, believing you deserve more than someone else—the twisted thinking your safety or freedom is more valuable or important than the freedom or safety of “others”—is a zero sum game.

And honestly, it’s sad AF that humans get to that place. It’s also infuriating to watch smart people who can’t see past their own damn story, who refuse to sit fully and listen to someone else’s experience.

Call it patriarchy; call it narcissism; call it capitalism…it’s driven by a fear that we are not enough, whether by design or our own mind. Whether drowning in propaganda or shame, we stay stuck, broken, afraid. This fear feeds on itself, and we become impervious to alternative viewpoints or evidence that would undo our world view—because we don’t realize we’ve made “stuck” or “broken” mean safety. (ICYMI...This, by definition, is cognitive dissonance.)

Here’s why that sucks. It’s so hard to reach people with new information, or previously hidden history, when they’ve been indoctrinated to fear and steeped in their own victimhood. (As a Jewish person, I’m fully aware of this phenomenon.)

And…try as you might to get them to stop and think, to listen for one goddamn minute, these people you care about will double down on their -isms. They’ll dig their heels in instead of healing themselves.

Reason? That doesn’t exist in this conversation. As my mom used to tell me, you can’t rationalize crazy. Rational is a straight line between A & B. Those with cognitive dissonance, learned helplessness, or other implicit biases do not see the connections from A to B.

They’ll give you reasons why “this is complicated,” or how they’re feeling unsafe every time you push in. They won’t accept that they might be missing a key piece of the puzzle or that they’re capable of being on the “wrong side.” They’re a “good guy,” ya know? They’re not the enemy.

They’ll crumble when you expose an uncomfortable truth that makes them feel…

…because righteous indignation does not want to feel; it wants to fuel hate. It has to, to create and maintain division at all costs—just to stay “right.”

When we feel, we admit humans are messy and capable of harm, and we acknowledge we’re not always our best selves.

This is incongruent with supremacy thinking that says “We’re the best.” We have to lose our humanity in order to stay above someone else. We have to convince ourselves, somehow, that we are the ones in danger—even as we’ve got our hand on the trigger. Even as we’re watching our people commit heinous crimes, we’re so confident in our being “better than they are” we ignore and give a pass to callous criminals.

Don’t be afraid of yourself or your people’s ability to cause harm. Be afraid of your own, or your community's inability to take responsibility, to repair and to care.

Until our ego is checked, we cannot become whole.

When you refuse to look at the truth in front of you, and bury your head in the sand, only to avoid the hard look in the mirror, you fail to see reality. You might continue to live without any shame or guilt, but you fail to see everyone as they truly are. You fail to view all humans as equally worthy of kavod—dignity, honor, respect. And, that includes knowing you’re worthy of the same.

To heal the world out there, we must be willing to upend the world in our own hearts and minds. We have to love ourselves enough that to refuse to challenge our own beliefs for the sake of getting along becomes impossible.

Care more.