The Off-Ramp Project

How do we talk to each other when we've been trained to see each other as problems to be solved -- instead of as real human beings? I've been searching on this question for more than two decades now, and reading book after book on communication, conflict, and how to speak the truth without erasing the truth of other people. Of course, I've also been studying emotions and empathy. At this time, whe...

There is a secret heart inside violence, but most of us are taught to avoid violence, which means that we don't tend to learn much about it. In this episode, I explore the conditions that create healthy forms of violence and the conditions that make violence frakked up and a losing game for everyone. Violence has an important purpose, and it can be understood and addressed intelligently. In fact,...

Hierarchies give us ways to grade things and put them in order, which is helpful -- UNLESS we use them to grade human beings. What I call "hierarchies of human worth" create unnecessary trouble for everyone. At this painful and chaotic time in American history, we are struggling under multiple hierarchies of human worth: race, gender, sexual orientation, wealth level, and religiosity, to name a fe...

Knowing the deeper story -- in a time when the stories we're told tend to be shallow and manipulative -- is a way to reclaim your humanity, your emotions, your empathy, your attention, and your power. It's also a way to reclaim the humanity of the people who have been set against you -- as you have been set against them -- as a way for the people in power to control us all. Well, sorry neither! Th...

When I talk about taking an off-ramp -- from a group, a relationship, an ideology, a way of living, a way of doing anything -- I'm really talking about retrieving yourself and retrieving your power. In this time of end-stage capitalism, an out of control attention economy, and the burden of multiple, abusive "hierarchies of human worth," it seems that everything wants to control our time, our atte...

Your emotions belong to you, but they are also for sale in the attention economy and in end-stage capitalism. Many people are making a great deal of money by jacking into your emotions and manipulating your empathy for their own gain. But there are things you can do to reclaim your emotions and yourself. In this time of intentional chaos, emotional and empathic manipulation, and manufactured polar...

Ideas have fluidity; they can change and be added to, and they can be wrong, and that's fine. It's just an idea; we have thousands of them. But ideologies become rigid very quickly, and they tend to become hierarchical (they claim to be the best, such that other ideologies are not worthy), which means that the people who have signed up for them may have a very hard time taking off-ramps from them....

Socialism is a bogeyman term for a lot of people on the right -- just as fascism is a bogeyman term for a lot of people on the left. So let's look at what socialism is, why it was developed, how it contrasts with capitalism and communism, and how it can moderate the most damaging excesses of capitalism. Many countries combine capitalism and socialism in some way. The two systems don't need to canc...

Here in the United States, the word "fascism" is being thrown around a great deal, and when I went to study the history of fascism, I found it being propped up by a large number of "fifteen-dollar words" that are unnecessarily complex. I also found that historians and social scientists are arguing about what fascism is -- to this day -- even though the Italian Fascist government (the original Fasc...

Dr. Janja Lalich and I talk about cults (we are both cult survivors and cult researchers) and we meander through these topics: Why people jo in: The main thing that attracts people to cults is their own idealism. Most people are recruited into cults by friends and family. Making enemies and monsters on the outside is one way that cults keep people trapped. Isolation is a key way that cults and abu...

During a grief ritual I was teaching, I got a question about hatred on one of my YouTube videos, and it helped me see how soothing and orderly hatred can be. In a time when we're losing so much, and things feel out of control, the simple act of hating and adoring people can give us structure in an otherwise overwhelming time of chaos and loss. Idealizing and adoring our leaders -- or hating and de...

One of the ways you can tell that a social structure is unhealthy (and even cultic) is by the presence of what I call "hierarchies of human worth." The suffix "archy" means "to rule" or "to be first." Hierarchies are rigid structures that grade and order things from first to last, and if we apply order to things, hierarchies can be very useful. Think of the PEMDAS hierarchy that helps you make sen...

There will be situations where you can't be an off-ramp, and it's important to face them and know where your edges are. It's also impotent to have temporal empathy for yourself -- which is the capacity to hold a vision of yourself figuring things out one day. It's okay to fail, and as the Tao de Ching says, "The glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall." I mention Braver An...

In this time of end-stage capitalism, when everything is for sale -- our time and attention, our emotions, and our empathy -- it's important to know that we have a choice. Empathy is not simply the ability to feel alongside people; it's our capacity to interact with anything -- people, animals, art, literature, music, concepts, ideas, and even inanimate objects. Our capacity to empathize is a part...

In a time when our emotions, our empathy, and our loyalties are being manipulated constantly -- and when we're being pitted against each other for the benefit of the people in power -- how do we find our way back to ourselves and each other? How do we reclaim our good minds, our empathy, and our emotional lives so that we can face the serious troubles in our world together, with courage, camarader...

Episode 16: How do we create off-ramps for ourselves, and become able to offer off-ramps for other people -- especially people we're being urged to distrust, hate, or even dehumanize? In the 16 episodes of this season, we've looked at some of the complex factors that have led us to this polarized and endangering time of emotional manipulation, cultic mechanisms of control, cruel hierarchies of hum...

In this episode, I'm joined by authors Doug Teschner and Beth Malow to talk about their new book: Beyond the Politics of Contempt -- and it's such an important book for our polarized and contempt-filled times. We've been taught to polarize ourselves and see difference as absurd or dangerous, and we've been invited to show contempt for people who don't believe or vote as we do. These are social inj...

Your situational depression is an essential emotion that helps you become aware of realities you may have been avoiding, and it removes your ability to move forward doing the wrong thing with the wrong intentions for the wrong reasons at the wrong time. Sadly, we've been taught to see our situational depression as an unwanted thing -- a psychiatric disorder, and something not to be trusted. This i...

Episode 13: Many people avoid shame, but don't realize that in so doing, they avoid growth, empathy, evolution, and becoming truly themselves. It's essential, then, to understand the difference between your own chosen, appropriate, and necessary shame versus the shame-blame that people use to control or abuse you. In this episode, we look at ways to know the difference, and what to do if your esse...

Episode 12: Many of us have been chased away from shame, because it seems to cause nothing but pain. However, shame itself is a crucial social emotion that helps you become an upright and empathic person who cares about others and has a strong sense of ethics. The key to working with shame is to understand the difference between shame that helps you maintain your morals and ethics, and shame-blame...

Episode 11: Your panic is powerful, and if you don't know how to work with it, other people can grab its power to fuel their own ideas, their own movements, and their own ends. But be aware: If people are grabbing onto your emotions, especially the powerful, life-saving emotion of panic, they don't in any way mean you well. Your emotions belong to you, and no one should be jacking into them. The f...

Episode 10: Hatred is a powerful emotion, and as it is with anything powerful, it's a double-edged sword. It can be a astonishing force for good. No kidding. We're seeing hatred everywhere, and it's a sign of trouble throughout our species. If you don't know how to work with your hatred, its power can wound and destroy. This is especially true if you've been manipulated into hatred, because this i...

Episode 9: You don't need to avoid stress. In fact, avoiding it is a truly bad idea if you want to do anything worth doing, or be of help in difficult times. And in fact, stress is a weasel word that hides the essential emotions that arise to help us deal with trouble. Learning to reframe stress, name it properly, and work with it intentionally can improve and deepen every part of your life. And i...

Episode 8: There's something you can do right now to support yourself in this time of intentional chaos and intense polarization. The Braver Angel's organization is a nationwide group of people who have come together to help us learn how to talk to each other again. And to learn how to disagree and be in conflict without tearing each other apart. No one wins when we're pitted against each other li...

Episode 7: What can we do when polarization, dehumanization, and unhealthy mechanisms of control are at play? We can understand the powerful forces that are acting upon us, and do the work to become well-informed, emotionally whole, and prepared to reduce polarization, emotional manipulation, and dehumanization inside us, and in the world around us. Books mentioned in this episode: Missing the Sol...