Heart Reading … Day 33
Lifting our heavy hearts together.
The past few days have seen a deep dive into the subtleties of interpersonal communication. When we hear of the cause of relationships falling apart, it is often “irreconcilable differences” which result from miscommunication and weak or flaccid interpersonal communication skills. The spectrum of expression, or the multifaceted aspects of this skill, is infinite and subjective — subject to dynamically shifting interpretation from multiple angles.
Add emotion to this broad spectrum of expression and interpretation and the potential for misinterpretation amplifies exponentially. Then add decades of habits and patterns.
But love does conquer a hell of a lot (maybe not “all”); and it bridges gaps, rebuilds foundations, and redirects the heart toward active hope. I just got a heart flutter as I typed those words — definitely a good sign!
My partner and I are deconstructing the patriarchal influences in our opinions and unconscious biases. Talk about an ambitious undertaking.
We are no joke in our approach. We’ve taken a significant “break” so that we each have time and space to reconnect with ourselves individually and this process is helping us to redefine what makes us us. We are literally reaffirming why we love each other (the words on the heart image above) and we are looking at “us” from these four perspectives:
- what I need for me
- what I need from you
- what you need from me
- what you need for you
There are a few clear things emerging. One is the topic of shame. Shame is a weapon of the patriarchy and it has been wielded by institutions like the Church to suppress freedom of expression — particularly gender and sexual exploration. There is no place in life for the infliction of shame. We may individually regret an action and spend time reflecting on our why of this action, but once this introspective effort is made a lover, a family, a community “should” be available for open hearted discussion and reconciliation.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commissions of the world are many and also ambitious undertakings to address tragic miscommunications and injustices. This fantastic in-depth Mother Jones article breaks down the reconciliation efforts surrounding the 1979 Greensboro N.C. massacre alongside details of various other TRC models and outcomes globally. The staff director of this particular TRC says, after the decades of due diligence, “What’s missing from these examples? The “R” in TRC. Studying the buried past is itself a herculean task for any commission. Pile on the burden of creating widespread social change and it’s really no wonder most commissions haven’t lived up to their promises. “There are too many people who want to jump straight to reconciliation, ahead of investigation into who did and knew what.”
I believe that the more familiar we all get with reconciling all conflicts, however small (which is a tenet of my engaged Buddhist life practice), the more effective will be the wider societal efforts.
On day 28 I wrote about my heavy heart thinking many of the neighborhood birds had been killed after all the air vents where I live were vacuumed. Come to find out, with the decline in many bird populations, many songbirds suddenly stop singing in the end of summer not having to defend their territories vocally. So my heart lifts slightly with this information. We must keep pursuing clarification where we are not reconciled within ourselves, and we must keep vigilant in all our relations in our open-hearted quest for interpersonal reconciliation. We are all interdependent; as we “heal thyself” the ripples of healing extend farther and wider.
