Why I won't shame you for who you vote for

And why I may ask questions or move on

Yesterday I re-posted Taylor Swift’s post about her reaction to the debates.

Do I consider myself a Swiftie? No, I don’t. But I do respect the way Swift has navigated her career and shared her values without making anyone wrong. Her post was clear, kind, and heartfelt, and she shared her choices in a way that did not demonize or divide her fans.

And damn, that cat she is holding is fabulous. Hi, Benjamin Button.

The response to my post was immediate: within one minute about five people, mostly men, repeated the same word on my Instagram feed:

Sad

So I closed down the post to only go to my followers or people I followed. Then I shared this comment:

I am open to discourse. If we don’t agree I may be curious and ask questions. I may invite you to share what values you feel the one you are voting for holds. I may ask you what you are afraid of or what you are excited about.

Or I may just move on.

Or I may set a boundary.

But I don’t need to defend myself or shame you to create a clear boundary.

Sometimes on social media there is a belief that if you post something you must keep the comments on and engage with each person, or let them have their voice on your page.

You do not. You get to choose how you want to engage.

And yet if we just shut down everyone’s voice that we do not agree with, we are continuing to create division and sending a message that we will only engage with people who are like us. And I believe that is dangerous.

I made a choice on yesterday’s post to set a boundary: that only people who follow me or who I follow can comment. I let everyone know I was open to discourse.

One of our Warrior Goddess facilitators shared this on the post:

I respect her right to have an opinion, to have done her own research, to have her reasons for her choice. And as she shared: “I have no intention or ego around changing anyone’s mind.”

Now, I know some of you might say: but how can you leave this on your feed? How can you let someone in your community share that they are voting for Trump?

I don’t need everyone in our community to believe the same thing. We can disagree. We can see things from different perspectives. We can talk and explore. We can choose to not talk.

I don’t want to live in a world where I only engage with people who agree with me.

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Here is what I feel: if someone has made their choice and is firm on their decision we can talk and debate and explore… and most likely they will not be swayed. I don’t need to shame, belittle, or judge them. If I want someone to respect my decision of who I am voting for, I also get to respect their decision. I don’t have to agree. I don’t have to argue. I do get to stand up for what I believe in. I do get to educate and inspire others.

As a journalist and social activist I learned early in my writing and protesting and educating that we can create more change when we get curious about our common values, underneath our individual choices.

That even in the most divided situations there is an underlying desire where we meet; and connecting to that deeper need or yearning can create alliances in surprising ways.

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Anger can be a potent fuel for action, but it is not a great way to invite vulnerable conversation.

Compassion can be a pathway to connection.

If someone is undecided I may choose to deepen with them and explore.

I will not shame people for their choices.

I may not understand. I may feel scared or confused. I may feel angry or frustrated, tender or hopeless.

But I will not dump my emotional content onto you.

I will take responsibility for my feelings, my choices, and my values.

I will not shame you for your choices.

I will set boundaries as I need.

I will choose when to engage and when not to engage.

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Sometimes I will make mistakes and be messy. I’ll always do my best to clean up, apologize, try again.

Let’s do our best to not claim black or white, good or bad. Let’s do our best to not stand in righteous indignation, spiritual smugness, or the false power of belittling others.

And when we see those qualities in others, may we commit to doing our inner work to speak our values clearly, to take action on what we believe in from our full heart, and to not be pulled into scattering our energy by defending or making others wrong. Take your precious energy and take action, from your heart.

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A note: I almost didn’t write this article because I would like more time, space, and brain power to research it, lean into the hard places, explore the subtleties and nuances in challenging conversations. But I decided that I wanted to share what I have today, knowing I wish I had more to give. There are many, many deep thinkers and wise beings who are exploring these topics. adrienne maree brown is one of my favorite guides in these topics… https://adriennemareebrown.net/books/

I’d love you to share who you are leaning into for wisdom and guidance at this time… who inspires you? Who challenges you?

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And in the spirit of exploration and invitation I share an article today about getting curious and leaning into wonder from a remarkable poet and author, Andrea Gibson.

Do you remember how our childhood joy was born from all we did not know? The answers we did not yet have? How exploration was the source of our excitement? As a kid, curiosity was my life’s blood. I glowed with it. Are there colors on other planets that don’t exist on earth? If I touch a cloud will it be sticky like cotton candy? Does the tadpole know it’s going to become a frog? The questions themselves were magic. I lived in what I now call The Land of I Don’t Know. It is the sacred land of children, yes. But it is a land we’d all be best served to never outgrow. 

In Praise Of Not Knowing

As soon as I entered my teens I began to pride myself on knowing. I thought that to be lovable I had to be right. I believed that having the answer meant having it all. But know-it-alls don’t make great learners. To be in a state of not knowing is to be open and receptive, and to be otherwise is very often to be shut down. As I got older, my particular brand of rightness often landed me in judgment, criticism, and blame—which are quite miserable places to be in (regardless of how addictive our culture has made them.) I was never really happy being right. I was rigid, stressed, critical and vulnerable to the shame I felt whenever I was wrong. And most impactful was the fact that my rightness wiped out the curiosity, wonder, and awe that was the pillar of my joy as a child. But as most of us do, I lived with an attachment to being right for years.

When I woke up from the surgery that diagnosed me with cancer, I felt instantly returned to The Land of I Don’t Know. My rightness, my knowing, fell off of me like a heavy burdensome coat. I’ve written about this before, but on Titan (Saturn’s largest moon), raindrops are much bigger than they are on earth, and fall so slowly someone could look up, spot one coming, and move out of the way. Imagine seeing that for the first time––rain inching down from the sky? How wide your eyes would be following each dreaming drop to the ground? You’d be absolutely hypnotized.

The hospital room may as well have been Titan. Specks of dust moved like planets through the sunlight. My whole life, people had called me an old soul. But nothing about me felt old anymore. I felt made of wonder. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen the world,” I wrote after leaving the hospital. “I’ve only been seeing what my mind thought it knew of the world.” 

Recently, my friend Margaret sent me an article about people who long ago believed their bodies were made of glass. Whenever I learn about something like people thinking they were made of glass, I feel certain that I am equally delusional about something in my own life, something I’ve gotten wildly wrong, and it excites me to think I could be wildly wrong about something that enormous. What am I getting wrong? What am I not seeing clearly? Does the tadpole know it’s going to become a frog? Am I a tadpole still?  What will it feel like to be a frog?

“Once we admit we are not sure where life is taking us, then we are ripe for transformation,” wrote Mark Nepo. I now understand that to not know where I am going is my only true compass. 

I think the best teachers are those who ask questions in which the only correct answer is, “I don’t know.” In some ways that’s what koans are. Zen riddles that help people see the deficiencies of the mind’s reasoning. "What was your original face before your mother and father were born?" “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” The mind is stopped by these questions, and where the mind stops, the truth is found.

There is a big difference between a truth and an answer. When I land on a truth, I feel my being stretching like sunlight far beyond my physical body, and I experience the thoughts in my mind as passing clouds. And, when I find answers, they very often turn out to be just clouds. 

Will you tell me, sweet friends, about the impact of wonder on your life? Will you share a story about a time you chose curiosity over certainty? Or, for you, what is the difference between a truth and an answer? I cherish reading your words.

Thank you so so much for being here.

Love, Andrea 🖤