- Pro-choice versus pro-life,
Roe versus Wade,
family member versus family member,
friend versus friend.
I have some thoughts.
(bouncy music)
So we're here today filming several other videos
for the channel.
A couple days ago, Roe versus Wade was overturned.
My social media is flooded
with people having angry conversations
from both sides of this issue.
I see it on the news, and there's just a lot of vitriol,
and people are losing friendships
and relationships over this.
Unfriend me, unfollow me,
we used to be friends, I used to love you,
and then I realized you had this position on this issue,
and now I think you're a monster.
And you know, we can't,
I can't associate with you anymore.
There's a lot of this going around.
And honestly, I was not going to touch this.
(Jonathan laughing loudly)
I was like, even for me, this is too hot of an issue
to even come close to
because people have such passionate feelings
about it, understandably.
It is a moral issue.
No matter what side you are on,
it is a question of right or wrong.
And so I wasn't gonna touch this
because no matter what I say,
this is just a minefield.
And I would like Mended Light to continue into the future,
so I wasn't gonna even go there.
I've had a change of heart, though, because I can help.
I can help with the discussion.
I'm not an expert on reproductive rights.
I'm not an expert on the experience of women.
I'm not an expert on political discourse.
I'm not an expert on any of these things.
And some people would say,
"Well, you can still take a moral stand on the issue."
And yes I can,
but that's not what I'm gonna do here today.
What I am an expert on is how to have healthy conversations
about contentious issues.
What I am an expert on is how do we build bridges
where it seems like bridges can't be built?
The fact is, that this and gun control versus gun rights
and other issues are literally tearing us apart
to the point where we're not that far removed
from neighbor rising up against neighbor,
friend against friend,
family member against family member.
So far, it's not very physically violent
as a general rule on these issues.
I mean, obviously, violence is happening.
But most of us, this is verbal, psychological violence.
And the reason is that,
because it's a moral issue,
we tend to believe no matter what side we're on,
my side is the right side.
Therefore, we are the good guys,
those of us who see the world this way.
And those who see it a different way,
they're on the wrong moral side of the issue.
Therefore, they're the bad guys.
And then it becomes war,
and it becomes this sort of righteous fury
and this righteous indignation.
I can't relate to you if you want to kill babies!
I can't relate to you
if you want to take away a woman's right to her body!
And we just act like that is it.
And someone would say, "Well, yes at its core,
that's what it boils down to."
But the fact is, there's no room for nuance there.
There's no room for understanding.
There's no room for where are you coming from?
So I wanna give several of what I would call,
these are rules for just resolving conflict
in general that I'm going to apply
to political discourse in our country
and specifically to pro-choice versus pro-life, this debate.
The first thing to recognize
is that people arrive where they arrive
in their moral decision-making based on their experience,
based on what they've been exposed to,
what they've learned, and what they've gone through.
And by and large,
that is very different from what you've experienced,
learned, been exposed to, or gone through,
that people believe that their position is right
for a reason.
And it's not because they're evil or stupid.
Sometimes it's because they have pundits
on the news or in social media
or amongst their friends and family
who are stripping away all the nuance
and just leaving it as if it's just this versus this.
The fact is, most people who are pro-choice aren't saying,
"Hey, have sex without consequences,
and just kill all the babies, wee!"
And they're not just "Wicked Witch of the West" people who,
that's what they're all about.
They're thinking, "What if I'm a victim of rape?
What if I'm a victim of incest?
What if I get pregnant
and I grew up in an abusive home
and I don't know that I could give this child a home
where they will be loved?
What if I get pregnant
and I can't financially provide for this child
and they're going to grow up destitute without opportunity?"
And then you say, "Well, give the child up for adoption."
What if this child that is from me goes to a home
where they'll be abused,
goes to a home where they'll be raped or molested
or with things that I've been through?
Now, I'm not saying this is like the copy
and paste circumstance,
I'm just looking at an example.
What if my life is in danger
from the pregnancy?
What if my health is in danger?
What if I risk being shunned,
judged, scorned for getting pregnant out of wedlock
in my circle?
And there's a million things.
Most people who I know who are pro-choice
are looking at all this nuance.
And they're not saying it's good to kill babies,
they're saying there's a lot going on here,
and we need to consider all of it.
Most people I know
who are pro-life aren't saying no abortions, period,
for no reason whatsoever.
There are extremeness on both sides.
Most people I know who are pro-life,
most people who say, "I value the sanctity of this life,
this is a human being, even at conception,"
most of them are willing to make concessions
and say there are times
when abortion is necessary or appropriate.
And of course, this is just people I know,
but I know a lot of people
in a lot of different walks of life.
And getting my thumb on the pulse of the nation,
I feel like most people are more in the middle,
and they recognize that there's,
and maybe I'm naively optimistic when I say that.
Maybe more people are out here.
But we're shouting at each other,
and we're not listening to each other,
and we're vilifying each other.
And that's keeping us from understanding
why do you see things the way that you see things?
In our nation and in the world, we set up laws.
And the people and the elected officials,
they make the decision,
and we have legal recourse
if we don't like the decisions that are made, right?
And if there's corruption in high places,
then we start by rooting that out.
So the first thing is, that most people arrive
at their moral decision-making from a place of experience.
And their experience is not your experience,
and their perspective is not your perspective.
And you would say, "It doesn't matter,
at the end of the day, right is right and wrong is wrong."
But the fact is, we have to live together.
We have to work together,
and we have to make room for different views
and different perspectives
as we find a way forward together.
And that's on all the issues.
And we can't do that when we boil the issues
down to oversimplified sound bites
and then vilify and attack one another.
The next thing to keep in mind is that,
almost every issue is complex.
We want it to be simple, but it's not.
And we have to make room for nuance,
and we have to make room to hear each other,
which is the third thing.
I've grown in my life
so much by what John Gottman calls accepting influence.
Accepting influence means
that you hear the experience, perspective,
understanding, and wisdom of another person,
and you allow yourself to be moved by it.
You approach people with an open mind,
willing to have your perspective shifted in some ways.
There are moral issues
that I hold my ground on.
I think that's true for all of us.
There are moral issues that we hold our ground on,
but how we hold our ground can change with compassion.
How we hold our ground can change based on our understanding
of where another person is coming from.
And in some areas,
maybe we decide not to hold our ground anymore,
that the ground that we were holding was based
on a limited perspective,
that it was based on just one viewpoint,
just one experience.
And that when we take that of others into account,
that we need to grow beyond
and stand our ground in a different way
or on a different issue.
I'm being intentionally vague with all of this
because it is not my purpose today to project onto you,
"Here's the ground that you should stand,
here's the position that you should take."
But rather, "Here's how we should be
having these conversations."
Do not let the people on the news
who won't even let each other finish a sentence.
They invite a guest on their show
just so they can railroad them and stomp all over them,
and then their fans can say,
"Yeah, you really stuck it to the bad guy!"
And I don't care what side of the aisle you're on,
both sides do this.
Don't let those people be your role models.
That's not how to have these conversations.
Understanding, compassion, standing our ground
when necessary, but accepting influence as well
to make concessions, to make compromises,
to build bridges,
to meet in the middle is our way forward on this
and on many, many other issues.
It's hard when you're trying to take a stand on something
that you believe is right
'cause you don't wanna listen to the other side
because you think it's the devil's tongue, right?
That they're going to tell you something
that is going to sound good
but is actually gonna pull you away from what's true.
Trust in your own ability
to discern right and wrong enough to hear them out.
Trust in your own ability to make shifts in perspective,
to make changes, to grow and evolve,
and to stand firm when you need to
to actually listen to your neighbor
instead of just shutting them down.
We're a nation full of unfriend me,
unfollow me, block me,
I'm blocking you, I'm unfriending you,
I'm not gonna let you finish your sentence!
Or I'll let you finish your sentence,
then I'm gonna tell you how wrong you are
instead of making sure that I actually understood
what you're really trying to say,
instead of how I'm interpreting your words.
We're not taking the time to do that.
And as long as we do that,
it's gonna keep being an ugly mess out there.
And that's not good for anybody.
I know my psychology, my mental health is affected
by all the garbage,
by all the hate,
by all the bitterness and anger and vilification.
Straight up, I have conservative friends.
Straight up, I have liberal friends,
straight up, atheist friends,
religious friends, straight friends, gay friends.
You know what the common thread is?
They're all pretty decent.
They're all good.
They're all trying to do the right thing
even if they see the world differently.
We can learn from each other,
so let's give it a shot.
What difficult conversations have you had to have
that you feel like you navigated in a really good way
or that blew up in your face?
And what did you learn from that?
Let us know in the comments below.
Speaking of getting real and having difficult conversations,
some parents regret having their kids.
And I'm not talking in the moment,
I think every parent regrets it in the moment.
I don't regret it overall.
I love my kids.
I adore my kids.
There are moments where I'm like, "Ugh, why?"
(Jonathan laughing loudly)
But there are people for whom,
they feel like parenthood was a mistake.
So what would I say to them?
Here are my thoughts right here.
You're welcome, now you know what you're doing
for the next 10 minutes.
It's already planned out for you.
Just click, clickety-click.