The 2024 elections are over. It is early and our emotions are raw. The election results have created divisions and hurt feelings in our families, workplace, and communities. And that makes it all the more important to share this time appropriate learning.

Our values, experiences, and world view shape how we view the outcomes of the 2024 election. According to scholar Morris Massey, gut level values are programmed in about the age of 10 and shape how we interpret the behavior of others and how we see the world. Humans have immediate reactions when we perceive our values are being violated. Our stomachs tighten and we dig in our heels. We get angry and defensive because we are 100 percent sure that our way of seeing the situation is the “right” way. It is a very human reaction and no one is immune from the all consuming feelings that emerge when we feel our values are being violated and our worldview challenged.

In the Beegle Poverty Immersion Institute, we have an activity that helps participants better understand how to re-frame situations from many different points of view to avoid conflict, relationship breakdowns, and improve communication. This activity teaches the valuable art of “Dialectical” thinking and empowers us to see from someone else’s world view. Most people in America are “Dualistic thinkers”—my way or your way—black or white. Dualistic thinking and our value programming can prevent us being able to try to see from another point of view.

For example, in the institute activity, there is a daughter who wants to be with the love of her life, but the only way to get there is to sleep with a man who owns the only boat that can cross the river that divides them. She tells her mother of her dilemma. The mother says if she does that behavior she will no longer be her daughter. When the institute participants try to reach consensus and rank the behavior of the mother, some will say that mom was the worst behaved because you do not disown your child and you should love her unconditionally. Others will say that mom was wise and she was trying to protect her daughter because she knew what would happened if she did that behavior. The ranking of the behavior depends upon how the situation is framed.

Scholar Kenneth Burke says any situation can be defined in any number of ways—depending on how you frame it. Plato and Aristotle encouraged us to get as many points of view as possible so we can see from other perspectives and get closer to understanding one another. If I am framing mom’s behavior as disowning her child and my priority value is unconditional love, I am going to rank mom as behaving badly. However, if I am framing mom’s behavior as wise and protecting her daughter, I am going to rank her behavior as positive. I have had people get upset and leave a group because they feel mom was doing the right thing and others see her as disowning her child. They were initially unable to calm their interpretations and emotions to re-frame and see from another point of view.

If I interpret President Trump as a convicted felon, insurrectionist, and racist who devalues women, I am going to be upset that he was elected. I am going to feel all the emotions of my core values being violated. However, if I am framing his actions as protecting America’s boarder and improving our economy, I will see him as the appropriate choice for this job.

I have been working through my own values and interpretations of this election. I am not in any way saying the healing that has to take place will be easy. Even though I teach Dialectical thinking and re-framing as a tool for improving communication and relationships, I am human. I fall prey to defining the situation based on my value programming and framing of the outcome. And my emotions are still high. What I want to help people understand is that being able to re-frame and think dialectically does not mean that we have to let go of our core values. It simply gives us a tool to avoid the overpowering emotions that can prevent us from being able to hear how someone else with a different world view is framing the same situation. That provides a starting point for learning, growing, and getting along with our fellow human beings.

We have upcoming institutes in December in Portland, Oregon (Poverty Institute and Coaching Institute), Lafayette, Louisiana (Poverty Institute), and New Orleans, Louisiana (Coaching Institute). I encourage you to come. Send teams. It will not only empower you to improve outcomes for youth and adults in poverty, but it will help you to gain skills for communicating and relating with those who may see the world differently.