Episode 193 Navigating Divisiveness: Embracing Reverence in Difficult Conversations

In this episode of The Real Enneagram, we continue to delve into the theme of "Know Your Soul," exploring the profound benefits of understanding our deeper selves, beyond the confines of our surface personalities. Joined by my co-hosts Scott Smith and Dr. Joseph Howell, we discuss the pervasive divisiveness in today's world, particularly in the realms of politics and personal relationships.

We reflect on how our egos often trap us in cycles of judgment and conflict, making it challenging to engage with those who hold differing views. Joe shares a personal story about overcoming his ego's resistance to connect with someone who had harmed his family, illustrating the power of approaching others from a place of soul rather than ego.

Throughout our conversation, we emphasize the importance of curiosity and receptivity in our interactions. We highlight that true listening involves being open to being changed by others, fostering empathy and understanding even in the most volatile discussions.

Ultimately, we recognize the power of being present and reverent to one another and open in our interactions, even when faced with challenging perspectives. Our hope is that by embracing these principles, together, we can contribute to a more peaceful and compassionate world. Thank you for joining us, and we look forward to continuing this journey of consciousness together.

To learn more about the Institute for Conscious Being, visit: theicb.info

Transcript

Scott:
You are now listening to The Real Enneagram, a podcast by The Institute for Conscious Being. To learn more about The Institute and its offerings, visit theicb.info. That's T-H-E I-C-B dot I-N-F-O.

Nanette: Well, welcome back to The Real Enneagram, a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Conscious Being. I'm Nanette Mudiam, and I'm here with my co-hosts today, Scott Smith and Dr. Joseph Howell. Hey, guys.

Joe: Hi, Nanette. Morning and afternoon.

Nanette: Wherever it is, we greet you. And evening. And evening. And the midnight hour, just whatever time it is. We're so happy that you are joining with us today. We're excited to continue to talk about our theme for this year, which is Know Your Soul. The benefits of knowing your soul are really the work of the Institute of Conscious Being. We believe that this is the fundamental reason why we have pursued this work of consciousness through the Enneagram is really to get to our soul. Yes, Joe?

Joe: Absolutely, because as the Enneagram points out, we have these nine ego points that track us in that mental structure that we have patterned ourselves with. And it absorbs us so much that we do not really want to look outside its own story or its own reasoning. And when it gets challenged, it wants to fight because it's a matter of survival for the ego.

Nanette: Well, and we say the word, it's trapped. You feel like you don't have any other choice. I mean, this is the way you do life. And It's what we keep trying to do. We seem to double down on it. And for those of us who have been blessed with the awareness of our soul and have come to some level of consciousness, we are so grateful for the liberation from the trap, to know that there is a way to pursue life outside of the ego and its many, many pursuits. That's one of the things that we really wanted to talk about today. And we recognize that the world right now is, and has been for quite a while now, pretty divisive. The world seems to be trapped in ego cycles, right? And if we look around the world at our politics, at wars, at struggles and conflicts, It's really quite discouraging to find that we still, you know, thousands of years into documented history, don't seem to have better ideas about conflict resolution, other than to double down, to turn to war, to turn to accusation and blame and scapegoating. And we are just wondering at the Institute, if we don't have a message to respond to that, which is better, which is from the soul. And if the soul doesn't have an answer to the divisiveness that's in the world. So, Joe, as I just introduced today's topic, can you just maybe give comment to that?

Joe: I'd be glad to. And it is my personal question, too. And I believe anyone who is on a strong spiritual search has the question of what am I trapped in? What's my ego trapped in? And can I return to some kind of freedom that I know my soul experiences when it's not trapped in the ego's thinking? And I know with people who I disagree with religiously and politically and even in maybe neighborhood issues, because it goes down the whole gamut. I have a choice. I can approach them from my ego's rendition of how this world ought to be, or I can approach them from the soul's perspective, which is a soul that is really able to speak with people who don't agree with myself. and look them in the eye and still see their soul and their worth. That's really difficult. I remember there was a gentleman who harmed my own children. And he did it by buying and supplying alcohol for underage children in our neighborhood. For me to have to be in the same room and on the same street with this gentleman was a very big challenge for my ego. In fact, my ego could not. And it was this work of consciousness that allowed me to be around him and to look him in the eye and to speak with him from my place of truth, even though I knew he couldn't hear it. And also, I had to get to the point where my soul could walk in forgiveness around him, even though my ego at the time was not willing to do that. It had to be a conscious decision that I would go with my soul's inclination for that. Since then, my ego has cooperated, and I'm able to wholeheartedly speak with this human being now. But I just wanted to let you know that we can talk on mental levels about consciousness, but we really have to look at it as individuals in our own lives, when are we going to, when the rubber meets the road, are we selecting ego and its exclusiveness, its own story, or are we able to go in another direction?

Nanette: I think that one of the things that we are trying to discuss and really trying to engage with our listening audience is something we've been struggling with ourselves personally, which is how do we live into the work of consciousness in really volatile times that stir us up emotionally ourselves. We have talked about how each one of us have been unable to have really honest and mutual and forthright conversations with people in our own families who have strongly different political views than us. And how do we have authentic and loving relationships with people who differ with us in such in such divisive times where we just, I mean, I know it's an overused word, but to where we're so polarized. So, where is the commonality? Is there commonality in consciousness? Is there real truth in consciousness? Can we find, I mean, truth has become like a relative term. It's not an absolute anymore. We will argue over what is absolute at this point. And so, how do we respond? How do we rise above the accusatory nature of conversations in this day and age where we scapegoat and blame. We want to be different than that. The students of ICB, the leadership of ICB, we would like to aspire to bring peace on earth. And so is that possible out of the soul? I believe it is. I think I know the answer. I just don't necessarily know the wisdom with which it will present itself. So someone recently, in response to my own political opinions, accused me of hating a leader in our nation. And I thought, you know, my first response was, no, I don't hate them. I do hold to Christian values that say we should love our enemies. So I know that's taboo number one. But the truth is, do I loathe this individual? Yes, which is probably akin to hate. But Scott, I thought it was so beautiful. You said, no, in my soul, Yes, maybe we do loathe them in our ego, but in our soul, we can have a different emotional response to our enemies, to people we do not like. And the first response is, well, maybe we actually pity this human being that we so disagree with. So can we shift into soul in order to help ourselves to navigate the world? And can we shift into soul to help us navigate those we love who view the world so differently? So I guess that's a twofold question. Can we do it to help ourselves? And can our soul help us to navigate those who differ from us.

Scott: I don't think we can do it without the soul. I feel like the soul is curious when the ego judges. So if we have these difficult conversations from our ego, We're just trying to present and impose our views and anything the other person is saying, we're judging it to see whether or not it conforms to our view of how the world is, of what reality is.

Scott: There's no room for curiosity there.

Scott: can't remember who this quote comes from, but real listening involves the willingness to be changed by the person you're listening to. Say real conversation is like that as well. And you can be presenting to another person or you can be present to them.

Nanette: Oh, that's really good. Say that again.

Scott: You can be presenting to another person or you can be present to them. And presence, to me, has an equivalency with receptivity. Like, we talk about presence a lot recently in our culture. But you can't be present in a vacuum. You're present to something, to another person, to a tree, to a flower, or to the present itself. And we can forget that. You know, if you think about it in terms of being receptive to another person, to a fly, to a tree, to receptive to the present itself, it keeps it relational and it keeps it from getting abstract, you know, because someone says, and I'm kind of paraphrasing Philip, my embodiment teacher here, if someone says, just be present, Half the time, the person organizes themselves. They sit up straight. They get their posture right, both feet on the floor, palms on their lap, or what have you. And I'm the picture of presence. But if you say, just be receptive. So all that to say, can we be receptive to and curious about the people we're talking to, rather than judgmental and trying to impose our views.

Nanette: There's some really good key words there, I think. I think they might be part of the wisdom that I think can be found hopefully in this conversation, which is curiosity. I think so much of our judgment avoids all curiosity. We've already decided what the other person thinks. We've already decided what their retort is to us. The receptivity, I think, is Well, it's a gift, right? I mean, for our audience to be receptive right now to listening to anything we say, what a gift that is. And a privilege that we have to be speaking in to their car or living room or, you know, walk on the road at the moment. So there must be something to the curiosity and receptivity in finding mutuality. Can you speak to that a little bit, Joe?

Joe: Yes, I think that curiosity is a tremendous soul quality in and of itself because it's the opposite of putting a bell jar over a relationship or a circumstance. It gives the relationship or the circumstance a feeling of freedom you allow it to unfold before you because you want to see what it's made of, what's happening. It's an arising in this very now, basically. And when I'm speaking with people who do not agree with me, in order to be present, I still have to find something that they're saying that I can relate to. I may have even said that myself, what I'm hearing them say in other contexts and in other times in my life. I think that curiosity keeps us from, as Scott said, judging, because we want to know about what's unfolding.

Nanette: And do you think if in this kind of consciousness, for lack of a more appropriate term than that, if we move from this perspective, do you think it's easier to be understanding of the other person, that this maybe stirs empathy in us for the person who may see the world differently?

Joe: It does for me because when I speak with somebody, for example, the gentleman who was supplying alcohol to underage children and had to do some talking, I knew that I was only going to be receiving ego from him. I knew that because he was going to have to defend his actions. But for some reason, As I was in my soul and not judging him, but being open to what he had to say, I was able to look into those eyes of his from my own. And I saw a gentleman who was in tremendous pain himself. And in some ways, I understood that maybe he was using alcohol himself and with others to dull pain all around him, thinking that that's what's best for other people as well as himself. And being so off base with his take on the world that he was willing to let children have alcohol who weren't really in a position of making decisions, mature decisions about it. And so the pity and compassion for that person came through, even though he was not owning his issues. And even though I may be wrong about what I was seeing, I was able to feel some compassion about somebody who was making such poor judgments about how to treat children.

Nanette: Well, I think it's important for us to say, too, that having compassion for this individual certainly does not justify his behavior, nor excuse it, nor make us necessarily feel better about it.

Scott: I'm just in similarly being, you know, receptive to someone you're speaking to, you know, being willing to be changed by them doesn't mean you're just going to wholesale accept everything they say. It doesn't imply a suggestibility. Yeah.

Nanette: Because the truth is we're not all going to become some homogenous, all same thinking people. I mean, we all have some autonomy and life experience and perspective that are always going to make our ideas unique. And really, if we're honest, we can only communicate as well as language and conversational skills allow us to. I mean, recently, I had an interaction with somebody on social media, and they called this a discussion. And I was like, it's laughable to think about a Facebook exchange as a discussion. I mean, discussions, beautifully right now, we are sharing each other's heart space, and tone and inflection and eye contact and body language, which all contribute to humanizing one another. It's really easy to vilify people that you're disconnected from. You can dehumanize them and whittle them down to just their, you know, Facebook tropes. And it's really easy to to reject that kind of person. But the truth is, that is the value of the people that we love in our life that are different from us. Because say I have people in my life, which I do, who have very different political opinions than I do. I can't completely discount them nor vilify them because I know them. Because I know that if I called them and told them I was sick that they would come and help me. That if I reached out to them in some way for assistance that they would respond to me. So they're not evil because they have opinions which I might think are evil.

Scott: Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. In our ego, it is so easy to just fall into, well, those people think that because they're evil. They want people to suffer. They, you know, cruelty is the point is the common refrain I see from like my people that are like-minded me that that's a response I see to that from them to people on the other side of the aisle from us as it were. Cruelty is the point. They're being cruel for the sake of being cruel. Very few people are cruel just for the sake of being cruel. Really good point. People that I very much disagree with politically that I that I very much believe their actions have an evil effect in this world, do cause suffering, they're not just doing it to be cruel, they think that they're doing good somehow. And to me, part of the challenge for me is, can I somehow manage to stay in curiosity and figure out, maybe not figure out is not quite the right phrase, but can I be curious about how it is that they think that this is good? Uh-huh. Yes. Because how else can we have a conversation? How else? If we're just talking past each other otherwise.

Scott: Uh-huh.

Scott: You know, we're just calling each other names. No, I'm evil. No, you're the evil one, you know.

Nanette: It makes me think and being curious about what it is the other person needs. What is their energy? Are they looking for security? Are they looking to be in control of their circumstances because they feel like things are so out of control and so chaotic? What is the fundamental need of our brother or sister?

Joe: I think to ask that question means that you're putting reverence for life ahead of your ego's need to have them be a certain way.

Nanette: Talk more about that.

Joe: I believe that when you regard a person with reverence regarding whatever their beliefs may be, that you've transcended the argument and you have validated their being. And if there is a conversation to be had, that's worth anything. It's that a conversation among two beings that see validity in one another and have reverence for one another.

Nanette: I think reverence is a beautiful word there, Joe. I heard a commentator speak one time about Jesus's command to us to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbor as ourself. And this commentator brought it into a Jewish perspective, which he asserted was that the translation would be more apt to say, to love God with all your heart, but because you can't see God for yourself, that we must love the God in other people. we are the divinity, the divine spark in each of us is the thing we must learn to love. That really has got to be the answer in escaping our ego's traps and finding the soul's answer to division. and to thinking about what productive conversations could be had if we speak in soul. I think ideally, I mean, this conversation is beautiful to have with the three of us because we can really dip into our souls to have it. I think the challenge is for us to have Deep soul driven conversations with people who are trapped in their egos. Right so how how do we how do we reach down into the ego traps of our friends and families and neighbors and coworkers. Is there wisdom to be had in thinking about it from that perspective?

Scott: I think that's the challenge. I mean, that's the challenge, isn't it? For one, it takes two to have a conversation. And also, you can't make someone else feel anything. You can't make someone else… Reciprocate. Yeah, you can't make someone else be receptive. It falls back into you can present to someone or you can be present to them. So you can be receptive, you can put your hand out, so to speak. So you have to be ready to not be received sometimes and be okay with that. And because there can be a risk. the falling into trying to manipulate them into being present. Presenting, can I present just the right thing so that we can be present to each other? And that's just paradoxical.

Nanette: Well, and the truth is, this may be the universe's lesson for us. As difficult as that might be, it may be that someone is not going to be receptive to us.

Joe: they will be receptive to our reverence for them, which transcends the debate between two egos.

Scott: You have to feel your way forward in the conversation and in this big question that we're addressing in general, I think There is no one definitive answer. There's no one neat solution. It's, it's how do I, how do you feel your way forward through this? But in a conversation like that, you feel through it. You feel what's happening in you during it. you feel how your own reactivity wells up in you as, as your conversation partner says something triggering to you. And can you feel that and allow yourself to ground it? Can you turn to the skills that your spiritual practice, whatever it might be, are helping you build, build to notice that to practice the pause, we call it sometimes, you know, to catch it before you shift into reactivity without realizing it, you know, can you navigate those waypoints through the conversation so that you can respond instead of reacting? And then again, like I said earlier with that, with the realization that the person you're talking to may just not be receptive, that just because you're taking the risk, answering your soul's calling, if you will. You're not guaranteed success.

Nanette: Nope, you're not. And it's certainly an opportunity for us to learn to love. I just so appreciate this conversation today with the two of you. And I am grateful to our listening audience. I hope that what we have spoken about today has been helpful to you. Because as we had our own private discussion before the podcast, we recognize that these types of challenges are presenting themselves to our own lives. And we really felt that because they were that they were also impacting you. So I pray today that you have heard us in the grace with which we have spoken. that you will be curious, that you will be receptive. And I think the greatest wisdom that I've really heard today is that we would find reverence for one another. And so that is our hope and prayer for you today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Scott: Thank you, Namira. Thank you. Thank you for listening to The Real Enneagram, a podcast by the Institute for Conscious Being. To learn more about the Institute and its offerings, visit theicb.info. That's T-H-E I-C-B dot I-N-F-O. The music for today's podcast was composed and performed by ICB faculty member Drexel Rayford.

Nanette: Thanks for listening today. We hope you liked what you heard. If you did, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this with your friends and family.