Beyond Outrage to Common Ground (and healing)

Facebook is filled with people outraged about lots of things that are indeed pretty outrageous. People are passionate about justice, sanity in government, peace, equality, and so much more. And I am entirely with them, to be honest.

Having said that, in 2016, I also want to find common ground with people I’ve assumed are nothing like me, and who in the past I’ve been pretty sure were “the problem.”

I feel I need to do this because

• I authentically want to work in the arenas of racism, gun violence and peace, but I don’t want to do it from the place of fear and demonization of the other which seems so much a part of our American conversation right now;
• as a bit of a Facebook addict, I find myself responding to issues in a way that I don’t always find in alignment with my desired outcomes and goals; and
• because my work in Family Constellations has demonstrated to me over and over that this is the only way forward for systemic healing.

This kind of work is expressed by many different fields, including constellations. For instance:

• Shadow Work — connecting with the darker side of ourselves and noticing how we’ve projected it onto others.
• Empathy Work – allowing ourselves to engage the fears, pain, and despair of those around us, whomever they are.
• Spiritual Discernment – in many traditions, the work of prayer that connects us with all of humanity, recognizing that “there but for the grace of God go I.”
• Trauma Work & Cultural Anthropology – which examines the heart-breaking sources of the terrible behaviors that we humans can take part in.

There are many more, but for me, the center of it is constellation work. Anyone who’s participated in constellations long enough has seen one of the fundamental movements that occurs frequently when a client has any ancestral suffering in their background that is due to oppression (whether on the receiving or giving end of it–or both).

Let me give an example of one of these constellations. The client was Armenian and was dealing with a lot of personal problems. If you know your history, you know that the Armenians suffered a terrible genocide in Turkey at the end of World War I. It remains a large part of the Armenian community’s consciousness in part because it has been steadfastly denied by Turkey, and has had only reluctant acknowledgement from the international community.

As the constellation unfolded, a representative appeared that was clearly very important to the client and their entire family system. Finally, it became clear who this was: a Turkish ancestor. The client was both Armenian and Turkish.

On the surface, this was terrible news: to find the oppressor is part of your family and part of your genes. That’s probably how many of us might respond if we found out similar news, or feel when hearing about it for someone else.

But this isn’t how it was experienced. Instead, both the client and the entire system (it was felt by everybody) relaxed. It was unhappy news, but it was truth, and when what was true was acknowledged and included, love in the system could flow undistorted once again, on behalf of the client.

The final movement for the system and for the client was to bow to all the ancestors and to say “Thank you for my life.”

This is not the same as approval. This is such an important point–finding common ground and connection is not the same as abandoning the work for justice we feel called to do. Indeed, it appears to be a useful energy source for continuing to do it with real joy and in a way that is actually sustainable.

Every once in a while I stumble on someone who says this so much more beautifully than I can. Here is a video of one such example. Please enjoy this remarkable clip that comes from Blue Cliff Monastery. They are spoken by someone only identified as “Sister Peace.” Please enjoy her challenging wisdom…

I am the child, mostly, of oppressors. I’ve done both the genealogical and the genetic work, and that seems pretty clear. Having said that, there is no way I got here without them, just as they were. How do I say yes to my life, say yes to a commitment to justice, say yes to the life of anyone I oppose, and remain joyful and hopeful?

This feels like crucially important work these days. The ease that Facebook offers to us to click our agreement or disagreement without depth or nuance. And to forget that we are deeply, terribly, amazingly connected.

This is the way of both communal and individual healing (for there is little difference beyond our day to day ways of thinking about it). The Armenian client experienced enormous healing. But it was because there was systemic healing in their family (and the healing could only come that way). The healing comes through the collective, into the individual, and then cycles back out into new collectives that are critical to the life of that individual.

What are your thoughts about justice, healing and the community in 2016? Please share your thoughts and comments on below.