Shadowdancing: Fear as a pathway to transformation

A story in two directions

“We suffered with Obama for 8 years, and now … ” began the Facebook post that caught my eye this summer. I was surprised at first, because the friend who shared the piece was an agnostic Jew from Southern California, fairly liberal and gentle-hearted. It did not seem a post that would be congruent with who I knew him to be. I clicked the “read more” line, and discovered something more aligned with his political views: an article outlining the accomplishments of the Obama administration that constituted this “suffering.” The accomplishments were compelling, after all, aligned with things I believe in, too—moving toward healthcare for all, various protections of Mother Earth, and various diplomatic achievements toward a more global society. But something new and tender in me was snagged as I read this “satire with a smile.” The article author used the springboard phrase “we suffered with Obama, so … ” to catch the reader’s eye. It worked with me. Then fiercely, with intentional dissonance, the author argued the “political accomplishments” as “suffering” in a way to catch progressive readers’ eyes. But the news piece packed a punch. It used suffering as an entrance into satire. Suffering became a punchline.

Now, from another direction, a circle of women writers gathered on a Saturday night to listen to one another’s stories about encountering difference in our public spaces today. Each had written a piece of her own experience of today’s toxic divisions, though anonymously to allow each to speak more vulnerably than perhaps she would have, if known by name. The pieces were collected in a basket and then distributed so that each story would be read by a woman different than the one who experienced it. The whole heard each story through the voice, body and reading of an “other;” each sister, in other words, intimately experienced in her own body the story of someone else. If we use the crass, either/or categories we live in so unconsciously in our public spheres: a progressive read the experience of a conservative, a straight woman read the experience of a lesbian, a Trump supporter read the experience of a Hillary supporter, and vice versa. In reality, that last sentence does not describe the actual experience of the circle at all, but it speaks the language we have become accustomed to, especially in literate, word terms.

Here is what happened in my own experience and language as a privileged white woman in higher education. The circle broke open to others’ suffering and it held the center, both at the same time. Women felt the experiences of those they had only presumed to know before. Those whose suffering had not been heard in its own terms were actually heard, listened to deeply, mirrored, and received. The effect on the whole had just as much breadth as that, of course—some stone-faced and processing, others visibly distraught, even others seeking means to resolve, to fix, to repress. Yet the circle broke open and it held. Suffering in its particularity was given voice fifteen times, and not once was it a punchline. Our participation in suffering, our complicity within it, was faced and relinquished to allow the wholeness there to hold center. Each became vulnerable to her own shadow. Each could begin to feel the dynamic of projection outward onto some “other.” Each “other” became, if just for a moment, herself in communion with “other.”

Held together, these two “stories” could be framed as one story of suffering, albeit in two directions. One “uses” suffering as a punchline—an entrance into satire. The other shadowdanced in suffering as a reality, diverse in its manifestation but real for each and all of us. The day of the Facebook post, I wrestled with what snagged in me for most of the day. I did not know that I did not know, and I felt freedom in a satire I could enjoy. Yet suffering is a non-negotiable word for me. It is a word that means STOP, LISTEN, BE WITH. I know it is so very human to refuse the suffering of others, even our own suffering. Who wants to draw near to pain? Who can withstand the felt sense of accusation, shame, guilt, or fear? As a white woman with overwhelming privilege in higher education, I have had the opportunity to refuse suffering of all kinds. I can delegitimate any suffering I cannot withstand. Now I am immersed in doing my own work, such that I can welcome, withstand, honor, and redress the suffering of others I had not seen before—black lives, Trump supporters who have lost their sense of worth or value, women who have been silenced for centuries, white men who fear the loss of identity, and more. But it is easier to refuse suffering. Those with privilege to do so, can.

Without a conscious path to learn and practice another way, many of us will continue to do just that: find a way to delegitimate and distance suffering not our own. Suffering in our age needs to become a singularity, a word that says STOP, no matter your privilege, no matter your desire. For that to happen, we need a conscious path to reawaken to others’ suffering in their own terms, and a container for holding suffering together. I invite us to consider shadowdancing within the ancient-new container of circle as one possibility.

Shadow

In a most basic sense, shadow here refers to all that we do not know about ourselves that we push “out there” in some fashion, into the light, seen primarily by others. Robert Johnson’s classic work, Owning Your Own Shadow, provides a good place to begin. “The persona is what we would like to be and how we wish to be seen by the world … The ego is what we are and know about consciously. The shadow is that part of us we fail to see or know.” ³ In this schema, shadow marks the part of us we never see, intentionally or unintentionally. A plausible organization of our psychological being, this trinity of persona, ego, and shadow gives voice to so many of the tensions each of us has to live, if we are to live sociably, in any sort of human collective. Our persona matches expectations imposed from without, received in the socializing forces of family, school, work, and more. Our ego—often maligned or judged as our “self-centered” way of being—serves us by negotiating conflicting desires and forces, providing a safe, plausible, even rational way to survive.

The shadow, here, is the place where so-called “positive” and “negative” things go to hide. It includes golden strengths we have been given but have not expressed, fearful aspects of ourselves or our private stories we hide from others, even ourselves. As Johnson describes it further, “The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into consciousness. It is the despised quarter of our being … Curiously, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more strenuously than they hide the dark sides.” ⁴ In some contrast to popular usage—even some of the interpretations of Johnson’s own work here—shadow marks all that we do not know that we do not know.

Another psychological voice that gives credence to shadowdancing is Bill Plotkin, a depth psychologist, ecotherapist, and wilderness guide who authored a book, Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche. He names shadow work as a process of reclaiming wholeness, reclaiming parts of the soul lost to “civilization” or the survival dance, the necessary tasks and accomplishments for living in the world. “To proceed toward wholeness and manifest the promise only you can bring to the world,” he writes, “you must investigate your shadow. It contains values and perspectives needed to round out your conscious personality. It contains personal powers you’ll need when you befriend or wrestle with the inner and outer dragons and angels encountered on your soul journey.” For Plotkin, the shadow is most essentially the “unknown or unrecognized aspects of self.” ⁵ He also offers a clearer picture of the forces at work that cause us to create our shadow in the first place. “Most elements of self in your shadow—your wildness, say or your carnality or selfishness—were disowned and repressed during your childhood and adolescence … Far from being a mistake, this self-rejection was necessary in order to form a socially adaptive ego and personality, your first identity.” ⁶ In both Johnson’s and Plotkin’s sense of it, then, shadow is a creative and necessary partner in any psychological and soul discovery of our greatest passions and that our transformative opportunities many call “problems” or “challenges.”

Shadow marks what we do not know that we do not know. We can therefore receive an implicit invitation, if we are willing, to lean into this unknown, no matter how fearful it may feel. Second, shadow names this quest for what we do not know with a sense of adventure or even wandering into possible sacred or holy ground. What we do not know that we do not know has necessary and beautiful characteristics. It is necessary for the way the world is, the way we really are that we may not want others to know or see; it is beautiful because even the most fearful things mired within us with shame can become some of the most powerful energies of redemption and freedom. It can be, when explored, held well and wisely. As Plotkin describes it, “Often we discover our shadow holds something sacred: our deepest passion … We name it foolish, selfish, odd, crazy, or evil. This misnaming protects us from social injury, from being rejected or marginalized by our family or peers.” ⁷ Diving into shadow work, what I like to call shadowdancing, offers a sacred path of discernment and inquiry that a world in wholeness requires. What is it that we do not know, that we need to know, about ourselves, about those around us? How might we become curious about what we do not know? Projection as a perceptual process offers us some clues in how to proceed.

Projection

Herman Hesse quipped this nearly a hundred years ago: “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us” (Demian 1919/2002). ⁸ Long before Freud had opened the door to depth psychology, and psychoanalysis was seeded to blossom and grow, and long before Melanie Klein wrote her unpublished notes, crafting the common sense of today about projection, Hesse observed that human beings have energy about things that concern themselves in some intimate way. If you do not identify or feel connected with something, or someone, then there is little feeling or awareness of it. An object held within our awareness, however, will demonstrate the dance of attachment or aversion—being drawn to it, in some fashion, or repulsed by it, pushing it away. Hatred is an intense energy, an intense, directed awareness. This kind of awareness only manifests if it connects, unconsciously, with something deep inside the one who hates. The one who hates is said to project onto the hated whatever s/he does not want to see or know in the self. Psychoanalytic tradition has long coined the term for this dynamic projection.

Whereas mid-century interpretations of this psychological function leaned in the direction of projection solely as “ego-defense” or even “aggressive identification” in quasi-pathological human behaviors, more recent research reconsiders projection as a natural perceptual process for all human beings. Projection is “a perceptual process that tests and evaluates the object in terms of its acceptability to self … It is the insertion of self into the object with the immediate and mostly unconscious purpose of assessing the object either as nourishing or toxic.” ⁹ This is the most expansive sense of the word. All human beings project in order to come to know what they have not known before. We do this by inserting our awareness into the object or situation at hand and sensing how it matches or contrasts with previous experiences, feelings, assumptions, and more. Melanie Klein wrote about these “knowns” as “unconscious phantasies” or “cognitive and experiential schemata.” ¹⁰ We all have them, and we all project outward to connect reality with what we have known before. Joseph M. Malancharuvil, therefore, urges us to consider projection, at its most basic, as a perceptual process engaged to discern if something is nourishing or noxious. From the youngest infant to a mature adult, a human being engages her environment to seek the nourishment she needs and to avoid anything that would be toxic or harmful for her well-being.

Popular usage of the word projection, however, infers an aggressive refusal of that within us we do not want to know or feel. Projection in this sense is “an operation whereby qualities, feelings, wishes or even objects, which the subject refuses to recognize or rejects in himself, are expelled from the self and located in another person or thing”; an internal perception, so suppressed, enters consciousness therefore as “an external perception.” ¹¹ The ego learns to do this in order to avert anxiety about the self, qualities, or characteristics that would disintegrate the sense of self or threaten injury from without, by family, peers, or society at large. In this way, projection has often been characterized as an aggressive act of defense in which a person inserts hated parts of himself into the other in order to harm or control that object and refuse whatever is within for the sake of perceived safety. The object is then perceived as the “persecutor,” absolving the ego not only of responsibility for this hated part, but also deflecting any need to integrate, perceive deeply, or grow in any new ways. An elementary observation then reveals that every human being projects, and only some of the time in an ego-defense or aggressive action. Projection is most often a slow and bumpy process of personal growth in self-awakening amidst the conflicting and comforting streams of community.

Another renowned voice in psychological circles, James Hollis, describes the function of projection within the contexts of eros in his classic text, The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other. “Projection, as a psychological phenomenon, is ubiquitous and inevitable … It employs multiple strategies, of which splitting, substituting and sublimating are but a few.” ¹² He defines it as an inner dynamic of shifting energies within the connections desired in relationship, in the push and pull of eros. Hollis’s work also provides a possible fivefold schematic for withdrawing our projections, working with them toward self-transformation. ¹³

Held within the flows of eros, through yearnings met and unmet, a person first conceptualizes her experience as “out there;” her inner experience feels like it is coming from beyond herself. Any other is, therefore, an outward focus of inner experience and communion. The second stage of projection involves a gradual awakening to increasing discrepancies between inner experience and the realities presenting themselves to be perceived—“the widening gulf between who the Other is supposed to be and our concrete experience.” ¹⁴ Questions arise, growing into doubts. Consternation arises too, as one attempts to hold onto the reality of who one desires. Inevitably, however, one begins to question the reality of the Other. The projection is beginning to get lost, unattributable anymore in the same way. This can be a most painful and grief-stricken moment or duration of moments, because nothing seems to be as it so surely was before.

Hollis continues, “The third stage of the projective process, whether in or out of therapy, obliges the assessment of this new perception of the Other.” Who, really, is she? The most promising practice here is one of curiosity. How can one learn to become curious amidst the felt sense of loss—the uncertainty in what had been so certain before? The fourth stage of this schema for withdrawing projections leads one “to recognize that what one perceived was actually not real, that one was not experiencing the Other out there, but the Other in here.” Hollis calls this moment “an act of ethical courage.” Here the one projecting himself onto the Other can magnanimously learn to free her from his own needs and desires. He can face himself in all frailty and passion, becoming precisely who he is and allowing her to be just as she is. The fifth and final stage of the projective process then requires “the search for the origin of that projected energy within oneself.” ¹⁵ What was the meaning of the projection? Which part of the self was projected and why? The journey to wholeness requires the integration of these projections, withdrawn, received, assessed, welcomed, and understood more fully within. The Other is then free to be him or herself, in all flawed, fabulous humanity.

The pain of discrepancies in these stages can alert us to projections functioning inside our unconscious energies, even though we can never know what is truly unconscious. There are other ways, however, to ferret out projections, by definition unconscious, which may yet be pulled into awareness and discernment. First, each of us has predictable situations in which complexes or projections are likely to be activated. Intimacy is an obvious one, which brings in all facets of earliest provision, nourishment, neglect, and socialized ego dynamics (repression, denial, etc.). Self-reflective practices, such as writing or life-groups, can alert us to those situations that will trigger unconscious material, refused and potentially projected outward. Second, projection can sometimes be surmised in a physical way, with symptoms that seem to have no direct physical cause. “A churning stomach, a quickening heart, sweaty palms, and so on are somatic states that can alert us to the likelihood of projection,” observes Hollis. ¹⁶ Finally, any situation in which a tremendous amount of energy erupts or arises—energy that is disproportionate for the activities at hand—suggests projection may be at play. For instance, a colleague receives an invitation to some collaboration, then is rudely dismissed and passive-aggressively attacked by the one who invited her. Energies explode into the larger community through triangulation and unsubstantiated accusation, without any willingness to have a conversation or engage in measured discourse. Projections run rife here, in all directions, leaving no one untouched. Were we to obtain a clearer picture of how we come to know that which we do not know in the natural process of projection, we might also begin to perceive a conscious choice of curiosity for how we can learn more, connect more authentically, even awaken to the world as it could be beyond our fears.

Hollis takes from all this that our primary task, humbling as it is, is becoming conscious. “What we do not know can and does hurt us, and others too.” ¹⁷ This is a moral imperative for him, and for one of his mentors, Maria von Franz:

We average human beings … will hardly be able to avoid the necessity for the rest of our lives, of again and again recognizing projections for what they are, or at least as mistaken judgments. It seems to me, therefore, to be extremely important to bear constantly in mind, at the very least, the possibility of projection. This would lead to much greater modesty on the part of our ego-consciousness and to a readiness to test our views and feelings thoughtfully and not to waste our psychic energy in pursuing illusionary goals. ¹⁸

Much more could be offered in various methods or models for dealing with projection toward human wholeness. I only want to draw attention to one for the purposes of this article. Heinz Weiss offers a detailed and plausible multiphase model for understanding projective identification and working through the various dynamics of projected energies. ¹⁹ A significant contribution that Weiss weaves into his schemata is the theoretical work of Wilfred R. Bion on the necessity of a container/contained relationship for healthy transformation. ²⁰ Bion argued that transformative processes toward wholeness unfolded when the projective identification was held within the container of analysis. For him, “container” referred to a “receptive structure” that could hold unprocessed psychological material long enough for it to be witnessed, examined, then eventually integrated by the one projecting it outward. Dynamics of love, hate, and knowledge intertwine between client and analyst in this projective process, all of which could be then be transformed over time as the client could begin to become conscious to his own projections. In the holistic ecology of psychotherapy—formal structures, economics, professional presumptions of confidentiality, trust, etc.—these projections enter into the internal processes and expertise of the analyst, trained and supported to re-frame the situation significantly enough for necessary discrepancies and resulting loss to be witnessed anew and held with care. Bion’s work describes this holding space and the dynamics of psychotherapy as the container/contained vessel for transformation.

The final section of this article points to this container/contained ecology necessary for entering into the vulnerability of shadowdancing and the challenges of withdrawing projections back into Self toward wholeness, connection, and transformation. The circle way delineated below offers the only ancient-new method or “organizational operating system” ²¹ I know which is capable of this work which invites freedom from fear today.

Circle as “container” for shadowdancing and projection withdrawal

I first encountered circle ways in the work of Christina Baldwin, Calling the Circle, ²² then in practice with a couple of circles of fierce feminine women exploring this ancient-yet-new way of gathering in sacred intention for cultural transformation. Such women rarely think small, after all. I have since then seen circle-way communities sprouting up in widely diverse contexts from successful corporate board rooms to rural community villages to suburban creative arts communities. After completing the 2013 Conscious Feminine Leadership Academy with Women Writing for (a) Change in Cincinnati (www.womenwriting.org), and leading the 2017 Academy, I now invite you to consider the circle way as an ancient-new organizational operating system able to hold both the shadow and the dance of projection in ways that human beings can be vulnerable, safe, and heard, all at the same time. This, then, invites personal and collective transformation beyond contemporary expectation. It is not rocket science, but neither is it easy, nor ultimately will it not take root. It is simply the most plausible way in longitudinal perspective to nourish human hearts, one at a time, with the broadest collective good in mind.

Circle way is essentially and ultimately collaborative, though not at the expense of societal or planetary well-being. ²³ Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea observe in their work for corporate board room leadership: “The circle way is a practice of re-establishing social partnerships and creating a world in which the best of collaboration informs and inspires the best of hierarchical leadership.” ²⁴ Far back before human memory, the circle created spaces for collaborative conversation around the fire. A circle defined physical space by creating a rim with a common source of sustenance lighting up the center. It creates a different kind of space and energy than, say, the triangle, another archetype of group formation as old as the circle. The triangle is the basic unit of family—father/mother/child, for instance. It is a familiar philosophical form, dividing how we often have been taught to see ourselves—body/mind/spirit. This archetype manifests in our systems of socialization and political process. We get leaders tacitly given power located at the top, with followers, employees, and ordinary citizens at the bottom, with gradations of authority assigned and maintained in a status-based worldview. Neither the triangle nor the circle is going away today, but they do need to find a better, more integrative, more sustainable way of collaboration. As Linnea and Baldwin give language to it: we need to reestablish social partnerships and create a better world in which one inspires the best of the other.

The basics of the circle way can be seen regardless of the particular community, although each community brings its distinct expression and charism to circle-way practices. ²⁵ For Linnea and Baldwin, every circle begins at the rim with three components: personal preparation, invitation, and hosting. There is a center that is held by all, for all, but no one stands or sits or speaks from that center. Attentive listening, intentional speaking, and tending the good of the whole name the practices of council in their approach. A guardian and a scribe may be assigned in the flow of conversation, stop-gap invitations to check-in from time to time with how consciously the circle is communicating, whether folks are truly speaking and listening from the heart. A couple organizing values that have shaped Women Writing for (a) Change over the years, congruent with Linnea and Baldwin’s work, are invitation, not obligation; presume good will; every voice matters and is given equal time; acoustics of intimacy; and catching courage from one another. Each could be a chapter of circle-way wisdom on its own, but suffice to say, each offers a space and an energy quite distinct from ‘“it bleeds, it leads” media habits or social media shaming.

The flow of the circle, held within these values and practices, begins with a start point and a set-center that marks the entrance into circle space, as opposed to social space. This way of gathering uses the architecture to create spaces for equanimity to grow. Men and women socialized to hijack the center can still make a circle into a triangle-energy space, of course, but a circle true to its practices holds the center for each voice to be heard, for equanimity to be practiced, and collective compassion to grow. This is a space where each has “an intensified sense of ‘showing up’ for all concerned,” seen by everyone—there is literally no space to hide out or multitask, leaking energy from the whole. ²⁶

Each circle rests upon shared agreements as well, aimed to empower participants to understand, contribute to, and abide by rules of respectful engagement. These explicit and implicit statements provide “an interpersonal safety net for participating in the conversations that are about to occur.” They are the “circle’s self-governance,” creating a way for “each member to hold both self and others accountable for the quality of interaction.” ²⁷ These agreements can be articulated and invited at the first circle that gathers, evolving as the circle way deepens in intimacy. If holding the circle within a lineage of circle practice already established, these agreements can be communicated in the invitation. This has the advantage of inviting people into a set of values and practices discerned by years of circle-way gatherings, but also the disadvantage of any established communal practice. The freedom to come into a circle yet to name its shared agreements is greater than the freedom in entering agreements already decided. Possible participants may experience an established circle way’s agreement as inhospitable to them in some way, deciding not to enter in at all. Regardless, and in general, shared agreements tend to include the following: confidentiality—what it means and how it is practiced; listening with curiosity and compassion, withholding judgment; asking for what we need and offering what we can; and from time to time, pausing to regather thoughts or focus, when necessary.

With these rudiments in mind, we return to the context of our vulnerability in shadow and the ever-presence of projections in today’s civic environments. Most of today’s institutions are triangular and square in constitution. A leader is given tacit power at the front, and there are followers, employees, ordinary citizens below with varying gradations of power. Such hierarchical leadership structures can serve their purpose well, until they simply cannot: when all voices but the powerful few become unwelcome or silenced, when more and more people are finding life impossible to survive, or when targeted populations suffer systemic violence while the untargeted refuse the suffering of others. Today’s “containers” no longer are able to “contain” (if they ever really did, but presume goodwill). Vulnerability is high-risk and unlikely at the depth of human need. There are very few places where human beings can become vulnerable and safe at the same time. Without safe containers in which to be seen, be held, and be heard, human beings act out of their fears, their worst proclivities and projections. Attentive listening disappears. Intentional speaking disappears. Attending to the well-being of the group breaks down into tribal factions, with projected fears and hatred onto “the others” on the rise. Without a collective container able to hold every voice as equal, the center as a place where no one stands or speaks, social partnerships break down.

We need to change how we gather as human beings, seeing the human being in each and every one who names her suffering. We need to make decisions in different ways, more attentive to each voice, slower in pace, intentional and self-reflective in voice, and curious about the other with compassion for his suffering. We need to be willing to become vulnerable to our own deepest Self, awakening to the called passion within and the redemptive stories we are too afraid to tell. We need to learn the steps of withdrawing our projections from others, from those we hate or have been taught to hate. The only container human beings have even known for this level of sustenance work is the circle. White supremacy, industrialization, individualism, and commodity cultures killed as many of this communal wisdom as we could. Yet the wisdom remains. It will always remain, as wisdom is. ²⁸

Conclusion

Today, we seem to be in collective stories always inviting two directions (at least): minimize the suffering of the other or welcome the suffering that then painfully touches your own. Well-shaped in circle-way living, I now know such either/or options are part of the old—part of the past. There is always a third way, if all willing are held in containers safe enough to await its emergence. We have explored here one possible third way: becoming curious of your shadow, in all its hiddenness and gift, and developing intuition for catching projections and practicing their withdrawal, both of these dynamics dancing together in a circle way in which human beings can be vulnerable and safe at the same time. No one wants to become conscious of the things they have spent their lives keeping unconscious, so to be safe and secure in what they know. Awakening in public can be excruciating, perceived as simply too difficult, until you are regularly invited into a deeper way of living—a different way of being human together that liberates you from your fear, shows that your greatest passion is a gift to which you must be responsible. Even then, it’s hard to “stay woke,” as the saying goes.

A spirit-friend asked me recently if I knew how a radio transmitter worked. As a science major in college, I used to know, I told him. “But tell me,” he responded. A radio is a device that you can tune up and down the dial. When you hear something, it means your radio has landed on a frequency with which it resonates. You cannot hear anything but static most times, nor do you spend time there, focusing on frequencies that do not resonate with your device. “Fear is much the same way,” he concluded. We smiled, resonating. Today we are invited to drop down into deeper body-listening spaces, even though most of us do not have the skill set to listen in this way. The sensations of fear pour into us through media outlets all day, all night, latching onto “something” when our “device” encounters the frequency our bodies know. It can be conscious or not, but fear rises as we resonate between what is within and what is coming in from beyond.

As such, fear can become a gift for us to hold gently, befriend, even learn from, if we can consciously practice with it. Allowing ourselves to become sensitized to the sensations of fear, we can become vulnerable to our own shadow of present potential and past experience. What is within me that has energy about this situation, this perception, this tangle of projections? Because if it were not within me somehow, I would not even notice it. We can then learn to sense our own habits of projection and withdraw them from the unsuspecting “other.” We can choose more and more to be in containers that will hold this center for us gently, with hospitality and invitation, goodwill. Perhaps, little by little, each of us can be transformed, one heart at a time, one community at a time.

Undergirding circle-way communities, rooted in an abundance mentality and the groundedness of Mother Earth, shadowdancing flows best within the practice of presume goodwill. It might feel Polly-anna-ish at first. It is extraordinarily difficult to presume the goodwill of someone, or a race of someones, refusing to become conscious of your own suffering. But when I practice the presumption of goodwill, I find that it grows between me and the other. It may not lessen my own suffering at first, but it does live a different hope into the world I can begin to sense. I fail at the practice regularly, which is what makes it a practice. Those closest to me can push my buttons seemingly effortlessly. Those furthest away from me politically or ecclesially or psychologically—those who seem so unlike me as to matter little for my own well-being—can be so easy to delegitimate, to project upon all that I do not know that I do not know. When I practice the presumption of goodwill, however, I begin to see the “other” with a glow that I used to reserve only for myself, “my own,” or my own yearnings. Feelings of compassion grow within me. I learn that my greatest passion is a gift the community needs, my voice matters, and there is a fullness of freedom intended for all. I dare you then: presume goodwill. Dance with your shadow. Learn to withdraw what you project onto the other. Come hold the center where suffering is held with compassion.