PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Alex Chang, MFS, RM
Framing, Healing, and Understanding One Another T
here is a phrase I’ve heard called ‘Dancing In The Conversation.’ In practice, the intent is to be open to see where a conversation may lead, not steering it to a preset outcome, but to dance in the conversation with another person. Imagine the opportunity to explore, to reserve our ‘mid-sentence judgements,’ and to better understand one another. What comes out on the other end may often astound and even inspire us, and I think it’s time we begin to mend old wounds. If we think about it, by the time you read this, we will have been adjusting to the stress, strain, and loss resulting from COVID-19 for nearly two years. Hard to imagine. The intensity, the conflict, the insomnia, the desperation we have all felt has indelibly shaped our emotions, our communication style, and our own self-mastery. We have been stressed for so long, living with resilience every moment, handling crises within ourselves and towards one another — we have become another version of ourselves. We are emotionally and spiritually depleted. And that’s a hard place to come from when trying to talk and understand someone on the opposite side of any aisle. Recently, I felt the need to add to the phrase: Dancing In The Conversation… In The Absence of Complete Information. I realized that in so many areas of my life, I was seeing this theme come up. For myself, I see that we operate on incomplete information about situations, about the intentions of others, and about how we show up for others through body language, tone and intent, back story, and generalization. Without having all the facts, figures, perspectives, and context, we can only craft incomplete stories on limited information, creating gaps and rifts. We do this by nature because, quite honestly, we have to. We will never get all the facts. So, what we must understand is that our process is what it is — flawed and incomplete. Only then can we dial it back and redraft our understanding, to allow new information to come to light. On one side, our own confirmation bias (listening to what we want to hear to confirm our existing beliefs) yammers inside us and feels great. But the better and more entrenched we feel about our own feelings, the less likely we can explore and hear those around us. Only by letting go, opening up, awakening our curiosity about the other can we cross the divide. Only through real and
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NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2021
“ Only by letting go, opening up, awakening our curiosity about the other can we cross the divide.”
authentic communication can we finally get to an “aha!” moment and talk it out. Not easy, not patient, never a quick fix, a real conversation takes a willingness to work it out, to pause and get away from ourselves and say it’s ok if I don’t have all the answers. I am human. So is the other. Mistakes will be made, but we are both necessary to paint a full picture here. I truly mean nothing but love and respect and kindness when I ask all of us to retune our frequencies, to forgive ourselves and those around us, to dance in the conversation, and to reserve judgement. I request that we allow the possibility that there are misunderstandings, that the math is not always correct. We know we have to interpret first impressions, and therefore must allow ourselves room to re-interpret as part of evolving conversations and understanding each other. I know I normally mention all the PSA offerings and important changes we are making (which are all available on our website). But today, I want us all to focus on community, on healing, and joy. Today, let’s take a moment to pull back the lens, shift the framework, and let the light in.
