This week I had the privilege of being interviewed by Pam Burton, Executive Producer of the Soul Care Conversations Podcast. I’ve included a handful of excerpts (edited a bit to make sense in a written format), but they don’t do justice to our deep and wide-ranging conversation about digital kindness, grace, and advocacy. Click the button below to listen to the entire podcast!
PAM: How do you engage someone on social media who has a very different opinion from you?
LAUREN: Most of us, at least of a certain age, have been educated in debate and argumentation and logic. You make your case. You prove your point. We're all vying to be more right than somebody else or show that we’re more right. And that isn't really how we connect as human beings. We connect through stories and experiences. There is no way to argue with an experience. This is what happened to me. Here's how I felt about thething that happened to me. Those are powerful statements because they don't demand anything of the listener other than to listen. When listeners feel like somebody's experience is an argument, that reveals a lot about where they're coming from. So, one of the ways to have those conversations is to talk about experiences - not about opinions, not about doctrines, not about policies or procedures or arguments, debates, facts, evidence. Take it back to that human level of here's what I experienced today and here's how I felt about it. There shouldn't be an argument over feelings. Taking it away from this concept of debate and proving and argumentation and bringing it back to a story level of human experience and what we share. Because we have a lot more in common than we realize. When we're looking at specific topics, we think we don't have things in common. Looking at things like I'm scared, I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm worried, I'm happy —those things are very universal and we can relate to those.
LAUREN: It's not about argumentation, it's about seeing our fellow human beings and meeting them where they're at and finding what we have in common and trying to work together for the things that we can. That's very different from the debate route that we have taken historically. I don't know if we ever lived in a time where you can prove your side more right, but it's part of our narrative that you could. We've idealized debates and the idea that whoever has the better argument and the more proof will win. I think we've seen that's not true a lot recently and probably wasn't true before… It's really about our stories and our connection and that the more that we can show our hearts and vulnerability, those things are hard to dismiss.
PAM: I wanted to read something from one of Thomas Merton’s books that really fits what we've been talking about. This is from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. And this is in 1965 so this is a while ago when this was written:
In the long run, no one can show another the error that is within him, unless the other is convinced that his critic first sees and loves the good that is within him. So while we are perfectly willing to tell our adversary he is wrong, we will never be able to do so effectively until we can ourselves appreciate where he is right. And we can never accept his judgment on our errors until he gives evidence that he really appreciates our own peculiar truth. Love, love only, love of our deluded fellow man as he actually is, in his delusion and in his sin: this alone can open the door to truth. As long as we do not have this love, as long as this love is not active and effective in our lives (for words and good wishes will never suffice) we have no real access to the truth. At least not to moral truth.”
And I just love that, looking at the other person wherever you are, whether it is digital or in-person, with love.
PAM: Besides listening, what are other ways that we can connect to other people online in a positive way? In a soul affirming way.
LAUREN: It's important to actually say I appreciate this. I just read that. Thank you for your perspective, I'm sorry you're having a bad day. Anything that acknowledges that you see somebody. If you think about a physical space, you acknowledge people's existence by smiling at them, maybe shaking their hand, maybe waving at them. We do a lot of non-verbal recognition of people's existence, and that’s not possible in a digital space. So it requires a conscious effort. Even something as simple as saying hi to somebody on their Facebook feed. You don't have to come up with really long, involved thesis. It’s simple: I see you. I hear you. You matter to me.
I noticed a friend this morning on Facebook had a situation that wasn't great and I didn't have anything to add to it. I had some thoughts about it because I like to talk about systemic injustice and all sorts of other things that her story was tapping into. But I didn't have time for all of that and I don't know that it would have been helpful in her situation anyway. All I said was I'm sorry this is happening to you. That's all. It’s an acknowledgement that I've seen your story. I hear your story. I wish that things were better or different for you. So it's really, really simple.
Some people will say that's meaningless instead of having a deep conversation. But if we think about it in terms of a wave, a smile, a handshake, a hug - the things we do that are non-verbal in physical spaces, then you see the meaning in that action is an acknowledgment of another person's humanity.
About Potter’s Inn Soul Care Conversations — A spiritual podcast where our souls meet the world. We invite you into a relevant, vulnerable, and courageous conversation with us. Living in a frenzied, chaotic world, our souls are under constant siege. Worse still, most people don’t know what their soul is or how to keep it healthy. Soul Care Conversations is a podcast that addresses this reality head-on.
More from Lauren M. Hug — Digital Kindness: Being Human in a Hyper-Connected World and COMING SOON Digital Grace: Pouring Benevolence into an Outraged World.