Grace Upon Grace

Heyooo! I'm back! It's been awhile. Let me take a minute to get a little personal and explain where I've been.

I've been home. On the couch. In my own head. Hello depression and anxiety, my old friends! Lol, but really. I've struggled with depression for years, and this past fall I fell into my worst depressive episode to date. I felt exhausted, numb, pretty much dead inside at work, and wanted nothing more than to just go to bed at all times. What a joy I must have been to be around! ;) This particular bout of depression came on from a combination of things including a super busy summer of traveling (during which I completely abandoned all forms of self-care), as well as the extreme heaviness and hopelessness I felt about the world around me. I finally clawed my way out of this episode around November/December with the help of Lexapro, exercise, and a new therapist. (And of course my biggest supporters: my husband and my dog <3). Since then, I've been feeling a zillion times better. I've regained energy, joy, my love for my job, and (some) hope for the world. And I'm finally ready to get back to writing. But before I continue chipping away at the patriarchy via this blog, I do want to share a bit more about my recent shift in perspective.

I started this blog almost a year ago in response to the overturning of Roe v Wade. This time last year, I was angry, sad, and scared for the rights and lives of women. I felt an urgent desire to help restore justice in this country, and the best way I could think to do so was by building a little online community to share well-researched information (and discredit rampant misinformation) with anyone who would listen. And I still very much stand by that desire to inform. The problem was that, even though I was trying to cultivate a sense of love and understanding on this blog, I was doing so from a place of unprocessed fear and anger. I was trying to keep my writing fact-based and civil on the outside, all while actually becoming angrier and more cynical on the inside. In trying to fight harmful and close-minded thinking, I became somewhat close-minded myself. The best way that I can explain it is through this Friedrich Nietzsche quote: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." In fighting the monster that is this country's current hateful political climate, I myself began to harbor a hateful attitude towards those who did not see things my way. This negative mindset largely contributed to the depression that I spiraled into, and it wasn't until I took a huge step back from the heaviness of the world to prioritize my health that I finally began to unclench my fists and properly process my fear and anger. And while doing so, I stumbled upon a very well-timed and life-changing book.

Saving Grace by New York Times best-selling author Kirsten Powers, who is currently a CNN senior political analyst and USA Today columnist, summarizes her research on the concept of grace. Kirsten tells her story of how being a Fox News political analyst through the start of the Trump era (and therefore being constantly engaged in the country's toxic culture wars) caused her to slip into a dark place of perpetual anger and judgement. Unable to cope with the madness of it any longer, Kirsten sought to change her negative mindset to one that allowed for more compassion and humility towards those she fundamentally disagreed with. She was able to positively and permanently change her outlook on the world not only by drawing on Christian wisdom, but also by speaking with social scientists, therapists, and activists working for positive change. In other words, Kirsten does not discuss the concept of grace in an exclusively religious manner, but rather she frames grace as a tool accessible to anyone and everyone, faith or no faith. She teases out the psychology of how and why people tend to get so entrenched in their own views, and gives sound advice on how to productively engage with those we disagree with. Kirsten's holistic approach to grace was what really sold me on it - she offers it as a means of coping with our country's toxic political discourse and extreme division with no religious strings or pressure attached.

Because this book helped to lift the weight of crippling anger and judgement off of my shoulders and put me in a much better headspace when it comes to politics and advocacy, I would highly recommend it to anyone else struggling with the heaviness of the world in this way. But because reading a full book can be a time-consuming task, I've included my "SparkNotes" version below!

What Grace Is

Grace is "first and foremost a matter of the heart; an orientation toward the world and other people." Grace is the refusal to reduce others to their beliefs. It is the decision to instead see the humanity and wholeness of others, especially those who have had very different life experiences and hold very different opinions than you. It is giving others the space to NOT be you. It is acknowledging that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, and that marinating in judgement, rage, hatred, and resentment towards those with opposing views helps no one.

Grace is what Martin Luther King Jr. described as "redeeming good will for all." It is seeing the divine spark in other people, no matter how you feel about their views. And in Christianity, grace is "unmerited favor." It is the refusal to reduce people to the sum of their worst actions. It is something that God gives free of charge, even to those who seemingly deserve it least.

Grace is the practice of recognizing that people are doing the best that they can with what they have, and deserve to be treated with humanity regardless of how much you may disagree with their views.

What Grace Is Not

This is not all to say that we should just smile and brush off harmful views when we come across them. Grace is not being a doormat and taking injustice lying down. It is not accepting a harmful status quo or ignoring your righteous anger in the name of keeping the peace. It is not the avoidance of conflict, but rather it is a way to approach conflict more productively and respectfully. Grace does not mean, for example, that you have to ignore your friend's racist comment just to be polite. Instead, you can give your friend grace by calmly pulling them aside and saying "Hey, I know you probably only meant that as a joke, but can I explain how that made me uncomfortable and came off as problematic from my perspective?" This act of grace will of course not be well-received by everyone -- you still have to pick your battles. But grace is not about anyone else. It is about protecting YOUR heart from harboring judgement and hate; it is about how YOU see the world and others.

Grace should also not be used as a weapon to avoid accountability. Grace is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for racist/sexist/bigoted words and behaviors. When people from marginalized groups seek accountability from those harming them, for example, they are often told to "just show some grace" and forgive those causing the harm. Marginalized groups have been giving grace all throughout history though, and it is not okay for oppressors to abuse the concept of grace by refusing to learn from and fix their problematic behaviors. If your friend continues to make racist comments despite you kindly and repeatedly bringing the issue to their attention, for example, it is not okay for them to tell you to lighten up and demand they give you grace for their wrongdoing. Eventually, grace can run out. Some issues come down to core fundamental values, and grace does not mean having to unite with people who purposely and continually deny others their basic human rights and dignity.

Psychological Tendencies That Prevent Grace

Because grace is a matter of the heart, practicing it successfully requires you to get introspective -- to really take stock of your own behaviors and tendencies, and make some difficult but highly rewarding changes to the way you see the world.

One tendency that all humans gravitate toward is the illusion of moral superiority, or the assumption that we inherently know what is right and what is wrong better than other people do. The tendency to believe (sometimes subconsciously) that we are motivated by good, and those who think differently than us are automatically motivated by bad, is what social scientists call motive attribution asymmetry, and it explains why democrats and republicans often think the worst of each other. To overcome this psychological tendency, you have to "abandon the notion that you are uniquely moral and people who don't share your beliefs can't possibly have your moral intuition and discernment. In other words: it's time to dismount the high horse." This can be so much easier said than done. It requires us to drop our assumptions that we already have all of the answers, and instead keep an open mind to differing thoughts and opinions, as well as look for the good in other people. In Christianity, Jesus tells us to approach the world like little children, or to be in a perpetual state of curiosity and wonder about the world, other people, and ourselves.

Sorting people into the categories of "good" or "bad" is just one example of a major shortcut that all humans tend to use in this increasingly complex world. Reflexive dualistic thinking is the tendency to see things in black and white, right vs wrong, good vs evil. Our brains have a cognitive bias toward this binary way of thinking because it was helpful in ancient times when danger approached and we needed a mental shortcut to make quick, life-saving decisions. Unfortunately, this tendency is not useful when it comes to seeing other people and social/political issues. America's two-party political system is the ultimate example of a binary. Democratic and Republican platforms are almost always at odds with one another, and having just two parties to pick from is a zero-sum game: one party's win is almost always the other party's loss, even though most Americans hold views somewhere in between the two extreme ends of the spectrum. Having to choose between Democratic and Republican values makes finding common cause between the parties all the more difficult, and can lead to judgement of others based solely on their political affiliations.

This is something that I admit I am actively working on, and the more capable I become of giving compassion and grace to those I deeply disagree with, the more I have been able to understand where they are coming from. Opinions on specific issues (and, more importantly, the people holding those opinions), should not be automatically written off as good or evil with no further investigation. Writing someone off as a murderer for being pro-choice, or assuming someone who is pro-life has no compassion or respect for women, is close-minded and not productive. We need to overcome dualistic thinking if we want to create more productive conversations. We need to allow for and embrace nuance.

While becoming more conscious of and attempting to correct reflexive dualistic thinking, it is also important to be cognizant of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the unconscious tendency to look at new information and lock in on whatever bits of evidence supports our already-established views, while remaining blind to any evidence that would challenge those views. In other words, people tend to prefer sticking to their original views (even when presented with new information) rather than having to grapple with and make sense of a new view. This is because we do not like the discomfort of questioning ourselves and our firmly-held beliefs. Admitting that our opinions have changed or that we may actually be wrong can be deeply unsettling, and can even threaten our identities. Overcoming this discomfort is called having intellectual humility. This is an extremely hard trait to develop, especially because our society rewards certainty and discourages nuance -- (how often do you see powerful figures apologize publicly and sincerely when they make a mistake, for instance?). It can be especially difficult to question your beliefs or identity if there is a religious aspect to them. But in Christianity, the New Testament is filled with warnings against pride, and praise for having humility. "If we want to overcome our rigid certainty, we need to get to a place where we can recognize that we may not fully understand every issue and that our brain is often working against us when we try to discern the truth of a situation or person."

We also need to be conscious of the negative effects of social media on our brains. Social media algorithms are, frankly, wack. And while most of us are already aware of this (if you are not, I recommend watching The Social Dilemma on Netflix), it bears repeating in this context. Social media is not only designed to keep us scrolling as long as possible, but it is also overflowing with misinformation disguised as truth, it can push our views toward one end of a binary, and it can even affect our emotions and political behaviors (the Trump campaign has admitted to using social media to sway people into voting or not voting). Social media may have its benefits, but if we are not mindful of the damage that it can cause then we can easily fall victim to its toxicity. I highly recommend limiting use of it and being careful about what types of accounts you choose to follow. Does the account you are considering following share it's sources when they post information? Is there respectful language, inclusivity, and open-mindedness in their posts? It's understandable that we tend to curate our social media feeds to reflect our personal values, but I also recommend being careful not to cut out too much from the "other side." Completely cutting out anything that opposes your current beliefs can put you in an echo chamber where there is no room for alternative perspectives on important issues.

The final psychological hinderance to grace that I want to mention is trauma. Trauma is the result of being exposed to an emotionally disturbing or life-threatening event. This can have lasting adverse effects on a person's ability to function physically, mentally, socially, and/or emotionally. Trauma comes in all shapes and sizes, and does not discriminate. One well-known type of trauma is the PTSD experienced by veterans who have fought in a war. Trauma can also result from physical/sexual/emotional/religious abuse, abandonment, or the loss of a loved one. Trauma can even be experienced vicariously as a result of watching/hearing about a negative event, such as 9/11 or the torture and subsequent murder of George Floyd. Trauma can result from any negative event, no matter how big or small. And when we are saddled with unprocessed trauma (or trauma that has not been acknowledged, dealt with, and healed), the world takes on a different hue than when we are grounded and emotionally integrated.

Unresolved trauma can therefore make overcoming dualistic thinking all the more difficult. Seeing in black and white can create psychological safety, and so it is often used as a defense mechanism for those in pain. In other words, trauma creates a narrower window of tolerance for alternative perspectives, and can cause a person to become emotionally activated from seemingly low levels of stress/threat. Once emotionally activated, a person with unresolved trauma may try to force their binary thinking onto others by bullying and shaming them -- a fight response known as the rigid strategy. Or a person may use scapegoating as a coping mechanism, which involves putting blame on someone for the mistakes or wrongdoings of others. These are just a couple of examples of how trauma can present itself. Grace requires an emotional and psychological capacity that some people just don't have due to the trauma that they are carrying around. This should be kept in mind when engaging in debate with someone who does not seem to be responding well to the conversation -- they may be activated by their trauma and just trying to protect themselves psychologically.

If you think you may be coping with unprocessed trauma, I highly recommend speaking with a therapist. When grief and trauma are processed with a third party, that party can objectively hold space for it since they are not tied to the event in any way. This makes a therapist much different than a family member or a friend, who cannot hold space for your trauma quite as well due to having a personal connection to it. If you have experienced a traumatic event that is still causing you pain, give yourself grace and the space to heal by asking for help from an expert (or at least a third party unrelated to the event if you do not have access to a therapist).

Practicing Grace

Once we become mindful of and work through the above tendencies that can hinder us from having grace for others, it becomes much easier to interact with the "other side" of debates more productively. We can embrace healthy conflict. We can engage with those we disagree with to get to the heart of whatever is causing division in order to create wholeness. But why bother? Why call out problematic beliefs and behaviors? Why spend time engaging with those we fundamentally disagree with? As Martin Luther King Jr. put it, "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." Your flourishing is wrapped up in that of the people around you. We should engage in productive debate and healthy conflict not just for our own voices to be heard, but for the voices of those in deeper need to also be heard.

So what does grace look like? Grace can look like calling people in, or holding them accountable for a problematic comment, social media post, etc in a private and kind way. Grace can also look like dropping our own defenses when we mess up, marinating on our wrongdoings, giving sincere apologies, and changing our harmful behaviors when they are brought to our attention. Grace can look like being open to answering questions about our views on specific topics without judgement of the person seeking clarity. It can look like truly listening instead of just responding during debate.

Grace can also look like having boundaries. Boundaries create an emotional and psychological buffer between yourself and the beliefs/behaviors of others. This involves knowing where you draw your line. Kirsten Powers draws her line when people begin to disrespect, shame, gaslight, or dehumanize her or other groups of people. She chooses to put a stop to disagreements when these things begin to happen. Boundaries are meant to show others how to interact and be in a relationship with you. Most people are glad to have this information and will respect your wishes. The only people who will oppose your boundaries or try to cross them are those who were benefitting from you not having them in the first place. But setting boundaries is an act of love and grace because you are leaning into a relationship to make it work for you on some of your own terms instead of giving up on it completely.

In some cases though, you may just have to give up on certain relationships. As I've already mentioned, grace can run out. Take the LGBTQ+ community, for example: Should we really expect them to sacrifice their time, energy, and inner peace on people who continually harm them? Should they be expected to patiently engage with or maintain relationships with people who openly discriminate against them and actively try to strip them of their humanity? Absolutely not. The same goes with the black community. Black people have been trying to get white people to take racism and police brutality seriously for a very long time. They have been begging for their cries to be heard. And how has our country responded? We have ignored them, gaslit them, told them to wait, called their peaceful protests unpatriotic and terroristic, etc. And when their grace toward our indifference finally ran out and the protests became violent with looting and destruction of property, we had more to say about the materials and storefronts that were damaged than we did about the reasoning behind the protests. Grace can run out. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "a riot is the language of the unheard." We need to start truly hearing each other out before patience and grace are lost for good.

References:

All ideas and concepts of grace presented in this post are from the work of Kirsten Powers.

Her book is linked here:

https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Grace-Centered-Coexist-People/dp/0593238230/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Republican and Democratic views of one another:

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/08/09/republicans-and-democrats-increasingly-critical-of-people-in-the-opposing-party/#:~:text=Nearly%20three%2Dquarters%20of%20Republicans,or%20more%20dishonest%20(64%25).