Posts from — March 2010

This is sometime around 1983.  This is what happens when you grow up a mile from a ski resort – in the 80s.

Those are my super-awesome K2 skiis.  (I would later be known as K2 in my legal career.)  For those of you who know my sister, that’s her in the red suit in the background.  We were rad.

Okay, let’s review:

We commit emotional violence on each other all the time, like when we talk about neighbors or delegitimize people’s feelings.

We do it because we’re suffering from mass Post Traumatic Stress Disorder brought on from the emotional trauma we suffered in junior high and high school (and every day after that).

Which causes us to use power-structures to marginalize each other.

We find ourselves in a hierarchical system that requires us to rank ourselves in relationship to each other.  What kind of car do we drive?  How much education do we have?  What kind of job do we do?  We all know which cars are valued more than others, which jobs are respected more.  If there’s any question, just watch an evening of tv and commercials.

Or we can look back at high school.  I remember clearly the day someone came up to me and asked the question, “so are you a jock or a hic?”  Boom.  There it was.  I was stunned.  I realized a couple of things in the seconds it took me to compose myself:  1. I don’t have a horse, but maybe I’m spending more time than I thought with the Rodeo crowd; 2.  I get to define myself; 3.  I better be careful how I answer this question.

I knew exactly where jocks fit in, as opposed to hics, as opposed to stoners, and punks and drill team, and student council and band.  Even the loners, who refused to be part of a group had a label and a rank in the system.

In this system, those at the top have more power, more influence.  In order for this to be true, the system requires there to be other people on the bottom.  So, in order to stay in control, those on the top need to marginalize those on the bottom to keep them from gaining influence.  To give them a label, and put them in their place.

I think I wore my letterman jacket every day for the rest of my high school career.

Here’s my background.  For a number of years, I worked in the realm of GLBT politics.  I worked first as a community organizer, a ground-level trainer, and then served in leadership positions on state and national boards.   I organized door-to-door canvasses, phone banks, community meetings and political rallies.  I sat in rooms with high-level operatives and I sat in rooms with disillusioned naysayers.

I learned a lot.

When all was said and done, I learned one thing in particular.  Something that has informed the way I approach individuals and groups representing communities of individuals.  Something that has informed the way I reach out to and react to others in both my political life, and in my personal.

We use systems of power to marginalize.  We do it as individuals.  And because organizations are made up of individuals, we do it organizationally, too.

Here’s how I started to see this in my life.  The organization I worked for purported to represent a minority community.  It was perhaps the best job I’ve ever had.  I loved training people to talk face-to-face about their lives.  I loved listening to community members who had ideas about how to best engage in a political and social movement.  I loved planning rallies, and bringing people to see legislators.  I loved making sure people felt heard.

I was a true believer.  I believed deeply in the issues, and in the people I was representing.  I believed in the power of people to affect the views of their neighbors by simply talking with them.  I believed in the power of communities to affect the views of legislators by doing the same.  I believed in my organization.

I watched as the organization I loved, an organization representing marginalized individuals, moved into a position of relative power.  I worked hard to help make this happen.  I watched as it gained relevance, found its voice, and developed friends in powerful positions.    Then I watched as the organization chose to use the precise system that had marginalized it and its members to isolate and marginalize others.  I say “chose,” but it wasn’t something conscious.

It took me a little while to figure out what was happening and why.  I was uncomfortable with the snide comments that would be made about fellow organizers – “competitor” groups representing the same community, and individuals with differing views.  The categorical discounting of anyone who didn’t agree with the game plan developed by my organization.  The unweilding push to isolate and discredit those who questioned.

So I volunteered to attend the “coalition” meetings of competitor groups, to engage those who had been discounted.  To talk with the people I felt we should be representing, and not just those who could bring the organization the institutionalized power it was seeking.

As I did this, I heard the fear in the voices of those who felt they had no voice.  I heard the anger of those who felt they had been shut out.  And I saw a different path emerging.

The power structures that pedal influence, that require a hierarchy to function, assume that there’s a limited amount of power and influence available; that anyone who gains power, does it at the expense of another.

But we don’t live in a world where there is a finite amount of power.  That’s not reality.

The reason we set up the systems that we do is that we’re stuck in a cycle.  We’ve been hurt, we’ve been wounded, we’ve been discounted and marginalized and isolated by those who we saw as having power.  And the second we find ourselves in a position of relative power, we do what we think we’re supposed to do when we’re in power.  We hurt and wound and marginalize and isolate others.  Because that’s the system we have been operating in.

But we don’t have to.

If we can take a step back, look at what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it, we’ll be able to find a new path.

Those of us who find ourselves marginalized at some point in our lives (and that’s all of us) can either work to put ourselves in a position of power, using the systems in place to marginalize others, or we can do something different.  We can reject the system altogether.  And that’s scary.

It means opening up.  It means being available to hearing conflicting ideas and opinions.  It means being vulnerable and engaging others with the imperfect language that we have, and the incomplete vocabulary of someone who is learning.   It means trusting that, by giving power to another, everyone’s power will increase.  That by helping someone else to find their voice, all of our voices become clearer.

It means forgiving ourselves and others for the harm we’ve done and recognizing that it was done with a complete lack of awareness.  It means committing ourselves to non-violence in our interactions with each other and ourselves.

And it means that we’ll have to stop ourselves, with great kindness, when we forget and fall back into the old patterns.

But it also means that we can move forward, intentionally, creating the relationships and the interactions that we want, unencumbered by our wounds.  Doesn’t that sound really excellent?

This is a little theory I’ve been testing out.  It’s part 2 of the Emotional Non-Violence series.  Let me know what you think.  Also, I’m not a psychologist, but still…

Psychologists say that when a person suffers trauma, a part of them freezes at that point, trapping the person in that moment and forcing them to relive the trauma over and over until it’s dealt with.  It’s a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Really.  If someone is emotionally or physically abused as a child, part of them stays a child until the abuse is dealt with.  (I know I’m simplifying, but bear with me.)  For me, and I think for a lot of people, some of the worst emotional abuse I’ve suffered came during junior high and high school.  It’s almost laughable – except that it’s not.

Think about how many times in our grown-up lives something happens with friends, or with co-workers that makes us think of high school.  How often do we use those exact words: “this is so high school”?  There’s a reason.

Once I realized that we’re all having some giant, collective form of PTSD, it started explaining a lot of the bizarre interactions I kept having.  Ones that didn’t seem to work for me anymore.

For a long time, I related to women (and probably men too) the same way I related to them in junior high.  I was the outsider – the uncool one who didn’t fit in.  Only, as an adult, nobody knew it.  And I didn’t want them to.

In my grown-up life, I was the lawyer, the athlete, the woman who was going to run for president.  The one who was in a ton of leadership positions.  I was.  Only the fear I had of being found out or left out dominated my interactions with coworkers.   So I’d sell people out.  If I saw someone getting thrown under the bus, that was fine.  I might even help, because at least it wasn’t me.  But it didn’t feel good.  And I didn’t really understand why I was doing it, which was frustrating.  It’s not like I wanted to be a jerk.

I finally realized what was going on when I found myself projecting onto a coworker who felt left out of lunch invitations and happy-hour get-togethers.  I stood up for her; wanted her to feel included.  Even when I didn’t want to invite her, I didn’t want to be the one not inviting her.

Because I was her.

Yes, if people were talking about each other at work, I’d join in.  I was afraid to be left out of that social experience.  But when it came to the actual invitation to be included, the exact type of emotional trauma I suffered in high school, I was put powerfully back into my 16 year-old self, afraid of not being included, and at the same time not wanting anyone else to feel left out.

And I started to understand.

It happened with my friends, as well.  Every time I was left off of an invitation it was like walking past the photo station at my Junior Prom and finding every one of my friends taking a group shot without me.  All of them smiling at the photographer that I’d hired, as I shuttled the punch and the cake and counted the cash, trying to forget that there was an unclaimed ticket waiting for my date at the front door.  I was Junior Class President.  Not so different from being chair of a city commission or a political committee, really.

The more I saw this happening with me, the more I understood that we’re all stuck there in a form of collective PTSD, reliving our high-school wounds.  Torturing each other the way we did in high school.  Or torturing each other the way we were tortured.  Talking about the neighbors, or selling out co-workers.  Doing whatever it takes to be included, to feel part-of.  Even at the expense of others.  We’re stuck – until we realize what it is we’re doing, and why it is we’re doing it.

And then we get to choose.

Because there’s something that happens when we see each other as “cool” or “uncool,” as “part of” or “left out”.  We buy into a dynamic, a power-structure that has been set up long before we get there.  One we’ve been a part of for a very long time.  One that’s an accepted part of our daily lives.  And one that’s violent.

That’s where we’ll pick up tomorrow.

I’ve been tossing a theory around for a while about emotional violence, the sources of it, and what it does to our interactions with each other as individuals and as members of groups.  Here’s how it goes:

We commit emotional violence on each other all the time.

We do it because we’re suffering from mass Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Which causes us to use power-structures to marginalize each other.

The next few posts will be about these topics.  Let me know what you think.

A few years ago, Willamette University invited me to speak at a MLK day luncheon.  They showed a segment of the “Eyes on the Prize” series that discussed the Selma to Montgomery marches, and then a few of us spoke about the state of civil rights for certain communities.  I was there to speak about GLBT rights.  As I put together my thoughts for the talk, I found myself contemplating the violence faced by previous generations of those fighting for civil rights, the non-violence movement, and how fortunate I was to be an activist in a different time.  That night, after a keynote address by one of Dr. King’s associates who had been on the march from Selma to Montgomery, I sat in a room with him and others.  We talked about what it was like to march.  What it was like to see people beaten down.  To see them killed.  And we talked about the work that was left to do.

As I sat in the little room, surrounded by activists, and idealists, I felt a great urgency to understand.  I needed to know everything I could about what we’d done to each other in the past so that we wouldn’t repeat it again.  I started thinking about what it would be like to be turned back by fire hoses and billy clubs.  And I realized that it is very unlikely that my generation will face these things the way my parent’s generation did (at least in the US).  I know there are occasional riots.  I know that protesters are still beaten back.  But as I sat in the little room it dawned on me that we will face something different, something we might never see.

When this hit me, I was terribly frightened for a moment and asked the question: “Is it going to take an act of great violence to move us to the next level?  Is that what it will take?  Does someone have to die before we realize that there is violence taking place?”  Because when there is violence at the level that was common in the south in the 60s, there is no denying it.  A non-violent movement makes sense in the context of violence.  You can make a choice, treat each other with violence, or not.

But when the violence is different, when it’s quiet and invisible, it’s hard to see why we would need non-violence.  The choice seems un-necessary.  Who needs to commit themselves to a life of non-violence when there is no violence?

But what if there is violence, only it looks different?  What happens when the violence isn’t visible the way we expect it to be?

Because that’s what I think we are facing right now.  Rampant emotional violence.  No, we’re not beating each other in the street because our skin color is different.  We’re beating each other every day at work.  Every day on television, every day in our cars, and when we call someone up to talk about the neighbors.

We commit violence on each other over and over as we buy into the power-structures that were set in place for us.  We commit violence on each other when we use labels, and make someone an “other”.  We take away bits of each other so that we can feel okay about the violence.  We make each other less human.  We call someone an idiot because they have different political views than we do.  They’re a freak, or a zealot, instead of someone with a different perspective, a different background.  So it’s okay if we don’t want to understand them.  Because they’re less than human.  Because they’re “other”.

We call someone an asshole because he cut us off in traffic.  And we commit violence on ourselves when we do this too.  Because next time we cut someone off in traffic, we’re suddenly an asshole, instead of someone who was tired, or didn’t see the other car, or just misjudged the speed.  Every time we make a mistake, we become that other person who we judged.  In that way, every time we take away a piece of someone else’s humanity, we make ourselves less human, too.

And that’s violence.

As I sat in the little room I thought about what it would mean to commit myself to a life of non-violence.  I won’t have to give up bar fights.  I won’t likely have to go to jail for it, or to march to the sea.   But in every interaction with another human being, I have to ask myself if I’m seeing them as “other” than me, or somehow less than human.  Every time someone starts talking about the neighbors, I have to decide whether to join in, or sit out and risk being talked about.

And that’s hard.  You know why?  High school.  Yup.  High school.  More on that tomorrow.

I find it pretty amazing how the way I feel about myself colors the way I feel about the world.  And sometimes the other way around.  For example:

When I went to Hawaii a month or so ago, I wasn’t feeling too great about my physical self.  I really do like almost everything about my body (I know, that’s a big statement.  It’s taken me a while to feel that way), but I go through cycles where I’m more content or less content with the way I feel about my physical fitness.  When I got to the island for the three week stay, I was already three weeks into the resumption of my workout routine.  Typically, it takes six weeks for me to see a difference once I start working out, so I was pretty sure I’d be feeling good by the time I left the island…as long as I kept working out.

I was feeling the effect of two months of over-eating in Italy.  And while I walked a crap-ton, I didn’t do a lot of cardio or weight training.  Things had shifted around in a way that made me uncomfortable in my skin, so I was committed to getting back to a place where I was happy chillin’ in a bikini.

So I started working out.

The condos had a decent gym, so I took advantage of the fact that my body was still on Pacific Standard Time, and got up early every morning to hit the elliptical for a good workout and then fell into my weight-training routine from college, something I’m super-happy to have in my memory bank.

It took about a week to see a change in the way I was feeling.  This was interesting, because it should have taken at least three to see an actual, physical difference.  I’m not sure my body changed much in the first week I spent in the gym, but the way I saw my body sure did.  I expected this to happen at some point.  I’ve gone through enough of these cycles to know how it works, but this time it was pretty dramatic.  It might have been due to the fact that I was also spending a fair amount of time in the sun, or the fact that I was texting non-stop with a beautiful woman.  It’s hard to say, really, but at the end of the first week, I felt good.  Really good.

I was excited to put on the bikini to go to the beach.  I stopped trying to hide the parts of me that I was least happy with.  I laughed, met people’s eyes, and even smiled at the super-cute lifeguard at the beach.  I took time for myself, thought through the next steps in my life, and felt generally excited about being me.  Not because I looked any different, but because I saw myself differently.  I saw the beauty above all else.

And here’s what I noticed:

People were beautiful.  I mean really beautiful.

I even turned to my mom at one point and said, “You ever notice how when you think you’re beautiful, everyone else is beautiful?”  And it’s true.  When things are working right for me, I project beauty out into the world, seeing everyone at their best, because I see myself at my best.

***

I’m back from the trip, and I’m in better shape now that I was when I started.  I’m still working out.  I look great.  But I’m not in the sun anymore.  And there aren’t texts from a beautiful woman anymore.  And I’ve been less sure of the next steps in my life.  And here’s what I’m noticing:

I forget that I’m beautiful.

It’s not just about physical beauty.  That part’s easier.  I forget about my inner beauty.

But I understand when other people aren’t at their best.  I give them a break.  When they cut me off in traffic, or say something mean, or just act like they don’t care about what they’re doing, I understand.  They forget that they’re beautiful, too.

I know how that feels, so I’m able to see it, and to have empathy.  For them.  But I’ve had a hard time when it comes to me.  I’ve beat myself up for not seeing the beauty in me, and then for beating myself up.  I’ve beat myself up for not having empathy for myself.  It’s a vicious cycle, really.

But what I do have is fantastic friends.  People who see the beauty in me even when I’ve forgotten.  The ones who give me a break when I cut them off in traffic, say something mean, or just act like I don’t care. They’re the people who have empathy for me.

So I think maybe, if I can see myself as a good friend, as someone who I care about, who has just forgotten how beautiful they are, I’ll be able to have a little empathy.  And to give myself a break.  And isn’t that all we really need?  To be our own friend?  To give ourselves a break?  To see how beautiful we are, so that we can see the beauty in others?  I think yes.