A quick example.
I was in line at Dunkin’ Donuts (the coffee and pastry version of McDonalds in the United States) the other day, and there was a customer in front of me who was enraged and ranting.
And because demographics are frequently relevant in our current political climate, I will share that this ranting customer appeared to be white, male and roughly 55 years-old.
Amidst his rant, the customer turned toward me (someone who is also white) in line, and shouted: “and people think we should pay these people $15 an hour!”
For a moment I was just bewildered at his statement.
Though aware of this customer’s presence (how could I not be with all that yelling and anger?), I was not paying particular attention to him.
So when he turned toward me, my initial thought was:
A.) Who is “we?” and B.) Who are “these people?”
(For those of you living in other areas of the world, the “$15 an hour” reference was to the dollar amount that many advocacy groups for low-income and working-class people are fighting for to be the minimum wage in the U.S.)
However, before going down that political, social, economic, and racial polarized divide in my mind, I stopped and really looked more closely at this poor man.
And I’ll tell you, he looked totally stressed out!
His entire body looked like one big ball of tension. Every muscle in his face was constricted. His skin was red. His arm muscles were protruding.
In short, he looked terrified and threatened.
Which caused me, for the first time, to take a look at who was actually standing behind the counter that could possibly be the catalyst to threaten this man’s very existence?
And to my surprise, no one was there.
All of this man’s frightened and angry energy, that was apparently prompted from the fact that he was not being served as quickly as he would have liked, was generated around the hypothetical person or the stereotypical person who this customer imagined would work in a minimum wage restaurant job.
About 5 seconds later, a pimply faced, white, teenage boy with a piercing in his chin, showed up at the register from the back of the restaurant, and the customer said nothing.
They say stress is formed in the mind/body from a “perceived threat.”
What does that mean though?
Well, if you have ever read the book Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn (the co-founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center), you might remember that stress, or the body’s alarm system found the sympathetic nervous system (a.k.a. fight-flight-freeze) is transactional and highly effected by point of view.
Stress, as defined by researcher Dr. Richard Lazarus,
“is a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being.”
Or, in other words, that unfortunate man in Dunkin’ Donuts was actually going into a fight-flight-freeze Stress Response due to his mere thought about how someone “other” receiving an increase in the minimum wage would have a catastrophic impact on his own very well-being.
If that is not a sad scenario, I don’t know what is…And yet, it makes sense.
Jon Kabat-Zinn reminds us in his chapter called “Stuck in Stress Reactivity” in Full Catastrophe Living that:
The fight-or-flight reaction can be triggered in animals when they encounter members of another species. It also comes into play when animals are defending their social standing within their own species and when they are challenging the social status of another animal in their group. When an animal’s social position is challenged, the fight-or-flight reaction is unleashed and the two animals in question fight until one either submits or runs away…
People have many more choices in situations of social stress and conflict, but often we get stuck in these same patterns of submission, fleeing, or fighting all the same. Our reactions in social situations are often not that different from those of animals. Yet animals of the same species seldom kill each other in social conflicts the way humans do.
Much of our stress comes from threats, real or imagined, to our social status, not our lives. But the fight-or-flight reaction kicks in even when there is no life-threatening situation facing us. It is sufficient for us just to feel threatened.
By causing us to react so quickly and so automatically, the fight-or-flight reaction often creates problems for us in the social domain rather than giving us additional energy for resolving our problems. Anything that threatens our sense of well-being can trigger it to some degree. If our social status is threatened, or our ego, or our strongly held beliefs, or our desire to control things or to have them be a certain way (‘my’ way for instance), then the sympathetic nervous system lets loose. We can be catapulted into a state of hyperarousal and fight-or-flight whether we like it or not.
Think about Kabat-Zinn’s words in the context of the reactivity of the customer in Dunkin’ Donuts.
Think about it in terms of the violence against African American men by police.
Think about it in terms of the recent murders of police.
Think about it in terms of the clashes among protest groups outside of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio this week.
Think about it in terms of the hateful statements and chants by the delegates and speakers inside the Republican National Convention this week.
Think about it in terms of the last time you got on the defensive when someone was verbally attacking you.
Say what you want, human beings may be at the top of the food chain, but we are exquisitely sensitive creatures.
This, in and of itself, is not a problem per se if we act skillfully. If we commit to taking wise wholesome action. If we do not rationalize harming others for our own gain.
I’ve thought about what I might say to that fuming and terrified man in the Dunkin’ Donuts, and the words of Buddhist teacher, author and activist Thich Nhat Hanh came to mind.
In an interview with TV personality Oprah Winfrey, Thich Nhat Hanh illustrated for viewers how a human being could begin to talk to another human being in a time of conflict and misunderstanding.
He said:
Dear friends, dear people, I know that you suffer a lot. I have not understood enough of your difficulties and suffering. It's not our intention to make you suffer more. It is opposite. So please tell us about your suffering, your difficulties. I'm eager to learn, to understand.
In the same interview the famous Zen Master emphasized the importance of what he calls “Deep Listening.”
Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of the other person. You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose, help him or her to empty his heart. And if you remember that you are helping him or her to suffer less, and then even if he says things full of wrong perceptions, full of bitterness, you are still cable to continue to listen with compassion. Because you know that listening like that, with compassion, you give him or her a chance to suffer less. If you want to help him or her to correct his perception, and then you wait for another time. But for the time being, you just listen with compassion, and help him or her to suffer less. And one hour like that can bring transformation and hearing.
If you read his books and watch his interviews, Thich Nhat Hanh writes and speaks with conviction that this type of skillful, nonviolent communication is a means to a more peaceful end.
Peace within the self by having fewer reactive stress responses in the middle of Dunkin’ Donuts, and peace within our communities and nations by having fewer instances of violence and war.
Hanh asserts:
It has to start like that, loving speech. And if you are honest, if you are true, they will open their heart and tell us. And then we practice compassionate, deep listening. And during the process of deep listening, we can learn so much about our own perception, and their perceptions. And that is the best way, the only way, to remove terrorism…The fear, the anger and the despair is born on the ground of wrong perception. We have wrong perceptions concerning ourselves and the other person, and that is the foundation for conflict and war and violence.
Tonight is the last night of the Republican National Convention in which Donald Trump will accept the Republican nomination for president. Next week, the Democratic National Convention will make their nomination for Hillary Clinton. As you watch these events unfold, if you watch these events unfold, I encourage you (and I) to watch for our own Stress Response.
Pay attention and create awareness around when your muscles begin to constrict and your face starts to heat up in a red flame just like the Dunkin’ Donuts customer. And when it does, if it does, consider breathing in one big breath of oxygen, slowly letting it out, and taking a moment to listen deeply and try to seek some understanding.
I will try to do the same. We have to start somewhere.
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