Where the Head and Heart Meet

No one said it was easy

We live in a culture where so much is disposable – even each other. More than ever, I’m reflecting on how to guard against this in my own life.

At a recent board retreat, someone offered a short teaching about having difficult conversations. I keep thinking about the exchange he quoted between Shankar Vedantam and Alison Wood Brooks on the “We Need to Talk” episode of the NPR podcast, Hidden Brain.

Vedantam says, “One of the things that we often do when we’re having difficult conversations is that we fixate on the areas of disagreement that we have with someone else.” To which Brooks responds, “It’s wild. This has been very eye-opening for me. When you’re in a conversation, as soon as you stumble across even any sort of difference, […] it’s our instinct to focus so strongly on that disagreement or that difference that we almost completely forget about the 99% of other things that we have in common and agree about.”

This really rings true.

I am also thinking about lashon hara, usually translated simply as “gossip.” A rabbi I’m studying with elaborated the definition as “negative information that is true but doesn’t necessarily need to be shared.” In short, some values supersede the truth, such as protecting someone’s feelings.

And I often draw on learning I did with leadership coach Randi Buckley some years ago. The three words she includes at the end of everything she writes are “context, nuance, and discernment.” Without these three lenses, everything can become a generalization. Even the use of “generalization” requires context, nuance, and discernment. After all, there are indeed times when generalizations can be appropriate and relevant.

The important thing is to know what you are saying and why you are saying it. Is emotion erupting that might flood the banks of reason? There are times when that, too, is necessary and inevitable. But what about the damage it can cause if unbalanced by consciousness, compassion, groundedness, and intentionality?

I am often emotion-based. Recently, I attended a keynote talk by Rabbi Jan Uhrbach and learned of a model of spiritual leadership developed by Episcopal priest and theologian Urban T. Holmes.

The way Rabbi Uhrbach taught this, the vertical axis asks, how does one go about knowing, and the horizontal axis asks, how does one conceive of access to God? The “apophatic” refers to a more contemplative approach; “kataphatic” suggests a more expressive one.

I found that my strongest, or most intuitive, inclinations land me most strongly in the lower half of the circle. I am heart-centered, and I tend to oscillate between yearning for the ineffable and inexpressible mystery of God, and alternatively seeing God everywhere, in nature, in metaphors and stories, and my fellow human beings.

Like any useful framework, this isn’t about a good or bad, better or worse, way of connecting, studying, loving, praying, teaching, or living. What it does is help one self-identify these proclivities, which can subconsciously override or come at the expense of respecting other ways of being, seeing, and understanding.

This brings me back to the difficult conversations.

Sometimes, especially when the topic is heated and personal, I forget that someone’s difference does not make them wrong or bad, nor does it mean that we do not share common ground, maybe even a lot of it. But when my heart perceives a threat, especially if I am under stress or have been pushing aside difficult emotions or troubling thoughts, I can end up reacting in unskillful, even hurtful ways.

As a friend once said to me, “This is your brain on fear.”

The irony that I, a heart-centered person, can get so swamped by my own heart that I forget to treat the person I’m sitting with the kind of care and respect they deserve is not lost on me. This is what the young folks might call “cringe.” If I then go and talk to someone else about how terrible I think that person’s beliefs or behaviors are, am I committing lashon hara?

If my intention is just to vent, I think the answer might be yes. On the other hand, most of us have beloved confidantes with whom we can process hard things and perhaps even gain new insights by being able to speak openly. Again, Randi’s teachings are paramount: Context, nuance, discernment.

These questions play out at every level, and in these escalating and devolving times, the personal and political can be so bound up as to be indistinguishable. Perhaps that’s why the old adage, “The cobbler’s children have no shoes” floats to mind.

Sometimes, living our values can be more challenging in intimate settings than in more public-facing ones. Isn’t that just wild? Maybe it’s because we feel safer somehow. If that’s true, then it’s critical not to undermine but rather nurture that safety. This means bringing care to difficult conversations, seeking guidance when necessary, avoiding lashon hara, and encountering differences with a spirit of regard and respect.

This can bring us to the place where the head and heart meet. Here, our souls may find even fuller expression in the world. No one said it was easy, but if this work isn’t worthwhile, I don’t know what is.

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