The Answer To Racism

BREATHE!

Get out of the hind-brain stress loop. For a moment, move to the center of the storm, the eye of the hurricane, in which there is peace. Love yourself enough to care for yourself.

If you will do that, I will share my best thoughts on an apparently intractable issue. One I believe is not intractable at all, merely persistent.

But first…breathe. Sixty seconds of deep, slow, diaphragmatic belly breathing. Do that, and we will talk, you and I.

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Did you breathe? I’m trusting you. All right…let’s roll up our sleeves and get into it.

First, NEVER lose faith that there is an answer to the problem. My belief is that there is ALWAYS a way to reach my goals. That any time I’ve lost faith in that, I’ve simply not looked deeply enough.

Resolving any interpersonal conflict demands finding an answer. If you don’t have an answer, then you have to jump up a logical level, and commit to the PROCESS of finding an answer: “the answer is to find an answer. What is the best process to do this?”

In general, a great process is to agree on the goal, and then brainstorm: “how to we accomplish X?” (get to the moon, exit a burning building, increase literacy, or whatever). First agree on the goal.

Then you can test different approaches to accomplishing that goal. So from time to time, someone will ask: “If you ruled the world Steve, what would your solution to problem X be?”