The Ecology of Communication

Watch Video: The Ecology of Communication

Several months ago, I was listening to a conversation on YouTube between five people, organized by Nate Hagens, a podcaster and University professor, called The Ecology of Communication: Moving beyond polarization in service of Life. It is the underlined link above this paragraph. As a couple’s therapist who feels honored to witness the patterns of communication between life partners on a daily basis, I often think about how these arrangements are supposed to imply an unbreakable alliance between these two people, and yet they are so often frought with conflict. I can’t help but ask, “What’s that about?”

These folks in the video were looking at the macrocosm of our political discourse, where I’m usually looking at a microcosm of an intimate relationship. But I’ve been noticing the same patterns emerge in both of these realms.

Part of why I’m here is to publicize a book I’ve written called How to Change the World by Changing your Mind. I hope that it will be published sometime in 2025. I’m also a devoted student of A Course in Miracles. This is a book that belongs in both the psychology section and the spirituality section. It’s a spiritual text book of sorts in that it has a text, a workbook, and a manual for teachers. I should also mention that it was a channeled work. The voice that dictated A Course in Miracles identified its self to be Jesus, and most of the followers of ACIM do believe, as I do, that it was, and that Jesus is with us to this day. One thing it explains in depth is precisely why we struggle with communication and it does so in the most logical and meaningful way that I’ve ever come across. As I relate to it, it’s a believable theory of everything.

If you’ve heard of Marianne Williamson, who is one of the obscure also-rans in the last two democratic party presidential cycles, she is probably the world’s foremost teacher of A Course In Miracles.

I wanted to explore some of the principles of communication they discussed in the Ecology of Communication video, and to examine how aligned they are with the principles discussed in A Course in Miracles since I’ve already accepted that book is pointing at the Truth.

Like Nate Hagen’s forum, I am aware of the fact that our world is slipping into a more chaotic phase. Thanks to being a student of A Course in Miracles, I don’t happen to believe that suffering is real, but I do know the experience of suffering firsthand, and having found it unpleasant, I wish it upon no one. Whether it’s real or not, it’s an experience that feels real for the person having it and that alone elicits my compassion. I also agree with this forum that looking closely at how we communicate, and investigating whether it is in alignment with certain ecological truths about nature could be the beginning of an effective prescription for the world to reduce the suffering within this current episode of dis-ease.

If we start to see communication as a system itself, then perhaps, we can better learn how to communicate from thoughtfully observing nature. The principles I’m bringing to your attention here could be looked at as alternative premises, or axioms in an equation for more effective communication which I am presenting to you for your thoughtful consideration.

The first principle I’d like to discuss is what Rex Weyler, who was one of the founders of Greenpeace, mentioned. His habit of looking to how nature solves its problems when he is confronted with a problem himself. Instead of giving examples of what this might look like, I’m going to try and justify the practice itself in metaphysical terms. A Course in Miracles says this:

The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real (CE:W-132.4)

Essentially, Jesus is saying that what you are experiencing as the world is actually nothing more than a projection of your inner desire reflected out onto a blank screen. To me, this implies two things. First, I can look to nature as a reflection of my nature, and, secondly, I can also see how nature solves its problems and apply those same processes to my problems.

Next, I’d like to talk about the art of listening. It’s an element of communication that is undoubtedly important because lapses in listening are often the root cause of misunderstandings which are, themselves, often the root cause of conflict.

We all have mental maps of various ideas or thought systems. If you and I are talking about budgeting for example, I have a mental map of that issue that is comprised of all my past experiences with budgeting. It has facts about budgeting in it, like the facts that there are checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards and debt. There are principles and values in my mental map, and explanations, perhaps due to my personality, that would explain why I make decisions around budgeting in the way that I do.

You have your own mental map of budgeting, and the roads on our maps are not all in the same places. There are destinations on my map, like cities and towns that don’t exist on your map as of yet and there are some destinations on yours that don’t exist on mine.

If a hypothetical person A says something to person B, person B naturally hears it through the filter of their current mental map of the topic. If they were to repeat back what they heard – a practice known as active listening – there may naturally be some discrepancies between the message received and the message that was intended by person A. Like in the game of telephone. Person A has a complete mental map of this topic in their mind at this time. Person B has their own mental map around budgeting and there are likely some roads on their maps that differ.

If Person A is talking about a certain aspect of this subject which he deems to be significant, like putting money in savings for example, and that doesn’t map onto person B’s map of budgeting, when person B repeats back the idea that Person A just described, they’re likely going to get to that destination by their own logic (route) and there will be some discrepancies between the intended message and the received message.

There’s a name for this phenomenon in the world of debate. It’s called strawmanning. This is defined cynically as “misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to refute or dismiss.” On the surface it does appear to be an intellectually dishonest practice. I like to think of it as a natural tendency because of the simple fact that we have different mental maps of topics. But… and this is a big but. It’s still a problem for effective communication that needs correcting. One of the things that makes communications go off the rails, in my experience as a couple’s counselor, is the sense that both people usually have that they are not being seen and understood. This is where big emotions often get triggered and where communication breaks down.

The simple correction for unintended strawmanning is called steelmanning. This is defined as “presenting the strongest, most charitable version of someone’s argument to engage with it fairly.” This might take a lot longer. Because one really has to understand someone’s argument fully, which means truly understand the roads on their mental map, to understand the sequencing and logic of their argument correctly. When you do, and when you reflect it back to them, they feel understood, so long as you heard them correctly, which will result in a sigh of relief for them. They will also feel more compelled to listen to you in return. This will happen naturally. Communication when done in this way is a collaborative process rather than a competitive process because shared understanding creates a shared purpose for the communication. There may still be some disagreement, but at least we agree about what it is we’re disagreeing about. We’re both looking at the same map. That will make the communication much more efficient and less emotionally disruptive.

The first step in steelmanning is the acknowledgment that you’re strawmanning. Since strawmanning is an unconscious activity. You can’t choose to stop doing something that you’re not aware you’re doing. Understand that you are not hearing their argument exactly as they are sending it, and then seek clarity and understanding. Make that the goal. Usually, being right is the goal. But we have seen it enough times that when two people both carry that goal into a conversation, it doesn’t lead to harmony, effective solutions or the acknowledgment that the other person is right.

You can’t behave appropriately unless you perceive accurately [CE T-1.42.3:4]

This is a logical statement which A Course in Miracles makes in its first chapter. The idea that appropriate behavior depends on correct perception seems obvious when you think about the garden hose that gets mistaken for a snake. If you’re misperceiving the intentions of someone else because your mental maps are out of alignment, then in in a literal sense, you cannot possibly react appropriately.

The third principle they discussed extensively in their forum was that everything is related to everything else in a complex web of cause and effect. There’s consensus amongst the ecologists that this is how it works in nature. Nate and company see that it works this way in communication too. When we think of problems in a linear fashion, we are disregarding unintended probabilities that could be avoided if we had looked at it holistically.

This runs parallel to A Course in Miracles definition for justice:

Salvation is God’s justice. It restores to your awareness the wholeness of the fragments you perceive as broken off. [CE M-19.4:1-3]

In this light, A just solution could be seen as one which recognizes everyone’s inherent equality as God’s creations, and it would emphasize fairness. In other words, it isn’t just unless it works for everyone. That seems impossible to achieve. To these folks, and myself, it isn’t impossible so much as it is a necessary prerequisite for any solution that will work. It has to be this way. The first realization that springs from this is that just solutions are not quick fixes. Linear thinking provides the quick fixes, but they usually turn into a game of whack a mole, with new unintended problems springing up all over the place.

Of course, It’s going to be messy at times. These fundamental principles for effective communication, like steelmanning for instance, are there as guardrails to prevent the messiness from boiling over.

Part of what this looks like in practice is bringing more voices into every conversation. Say we’ve got an economic problem. We don’t just talk to the industrialists and the economists, we talk to the historians and hear their perspective. We listen to the social scientists, and the natural scientists, and the anthropologists too, and the working people who will be impacted by the decision. We might need someone to explain how this will impact our relationship with Mexico, or Russia, or Canada as it most likely does. If we see that our solution to this problem is going to have disproportionate impact on the lives of black people more than white people, or people from a certain neighborhood, we listen to representatives from those communities. We start from the premise that the chain of cause and effect of any decision reaches in all directions and far past our personal experience, and we use our intuition to imagine where it might go, and bring in the people who know more than we do about the systems it will impact.

This brings us to our fourth shared principle. Have conversations that are life affirming. Whether we view nature as a competitive struggle or as a cooperative process is subjective. We don’t know how the prey feels about being the prey. We can anthropomorphise all we want but we can’t know with certainty how they feel about it. Perhaps the competitive elements of nature get folded into an order that affirms life’s regeneration. It certainly appears that way. Life does seem to go on in nature as long as nature is there. We can see for ourselves that nature maintains balance, it finds order in chaos or it wouldn’t exist because clearly there’s a lot of chaos bubbling up all the time.

Appreciation of this principle brings grace to the forefront. It’s an admission that effective communication is often messy but achievable with a little willingness. If I walk into this conversation; one in which I have expectations of disagreement, with a trust and faith that these principles found in nature will create order through the chaos, I’m positioning myself as a good faith negotiator. I need to trust in the other person’s good intentions as well. Even rely on it. And I’m willing to speak up when I see gentle corrections that might need to be made.

If the purpose of the communication is to seek a solution that works for everybody, then everybody must be heard and understood. This brings up the principle from before about justice. The solution must be affirming of all life so it must be inclusive which speaks to diversity. In nature, we can see that diversity is a life affirming principle. We can see, for instance, how communities that are genetically diverse are more resilient to novel viruses. This suggests that diversity must be life affirming. We can assume that solutions that don’t promote diversity, then, are probably misdirected. This is also how it works in your gut. If you don’t have a rich ecosystem of microorganisms in your gut, your immunity is challenged. Ideas that lessen diversity will literally be a first step towards sickness and dysfunction for the system as a whole.

Another principle brought up in the Ecology of Communication was that we might want to pay attention to the emergent.

What does that mean?

Well, First the obvious. Right now, in this present moment, things are happening. In the past, the things have already happened, and in the future, they haven’t happened yet. But things are currently happening so let’s focus on that. That’s the emergent. There’s a principle called the free energy principle or FEP that I will talk about much more in later articles, but I want to touch on it here, briefly. The FEP describes the dance between order and chaos. It sees how the drama unfolds right at the boundary between the past and the future, a little flash of time we know as the present moment. It happens to not be just a flash in time, because it is eternally, the present moment. Within every system there is both a force that is seeking order, and there are accidentals, surprises, variations, and fluctuations that create chaos at the emergent level. Those accidentals are the free energy emerging. Mysteriously, order always gets restored even as new chaos emerges.

I’m going to use a moment of consilience from this morning to illustrate this point. There’s a musical artist that I like named Sharon van Etten. I wanted a break from writing so I opened up Spotify and saw a new single of hers and decided to investigate. With her latest album, she decided to write all the songs in collaboration with her band for the first time in her career and this is what she described happening as a result:

Sometimes it’s exciting, sometimes it’s scary, sometimes you feel stuck. It’s like every day feels a little different – just being at peace with whatever you’re feeling and whoever you are and how you relate to people in that moment. If I can just keep a sense of openness while knowing that my feelings change every day, that is all I can do right now. That and try to be the best person I can be while letting other people be who they are and not taking it personally and just being. I’m not there, but I’m trying to be there every day. —Sharon van Etten

Sharon is speaking here, to the ideal of open-mindedness. When we meet the present moment without expectations of what it will be, we allow ourselves to surf the free energy rather than drown in it. We allow for the messiness as well as for the moments of connection. We celebrate the idea that because person A said this, a related thought sprung up in person B’s mind that adds to the conversation in a surprising and unexpected way, and, now, both of us can marvel at the miracle that has emerged from it. We build off of each other. We co-create reality.

We can peak into another system, natural selection, to see some of the hidden gems of free energy in the present, emerging moment. Natural selection is a life affirming process. It’s what keeps organisms in alignment with the changes in their environment. Sometimes accidents happen in the form of genetic mutations. Some of these accidents turn out to be unfortunate accidents and some turn out to be positive adjustments to the environmental changes and they get selected for by natural selection, thus moving that species in a direction that is in the flow with nature’s changing environment. This same thing happens in communication. Accidents emerging from free energy like big emotions getting triggered, misunderstandings, and conflict eventually get resolved into shared understandings through applying the principles described here.

If we’re surfing this free energy instead of drowning in it, we get a broader perspective on the whole scene. We begin to handle conflict and surprises with more grace and patience.

Another idea touched on in the ecology of communication was an acknowledgement of our limiting factors. One such factor is language. Language is vulnerable to misinterpretation, which can often be the unintended cause for misunderstandings.

In ACIM, Jesus says,

…words are but symbols of symbols. They are thus twice removed from reality. [CE M-21.1:9-10]

Acknowledging and accepting this limitation of language allows us the grace to appreciate that we need to slow down communication and correct for free energy—the misunderstandings— as we forge ahead. The words are imperfect representations of the ideas or images they’re pointing at, but if we’re patient, and if we clarify the nuances of our position, we can overcome those too.

Other limitations we can accept and acknowledge are our split wills. We’re all divided approximately in half with regard to a key belief. Either we are one connected being or we are all separate beings that are disconnected from everything. It sure feels that way sometimes. Most of us prefer both options. It sure seems as though we’re all experiencing an ebb and flow in terms of our allegiance to these two opposing thought systems. There is the messiness again.

“The major problem that you have is the continuing split will, which naturally interferes with your true identification.” [CE T-2.IX.15:1]

The idea that we are separate is the key premise of the ego thought system, and the ego acts a lot like gravity in that it’s very hard to pull away from entirely. Understanding the gravity of the ego can also allow us more grace when we are trying to communicate with another ego.

Accepting that sometimes communication is impossible is part of harnessing this principle. According to ACIM, The Holy Spirit and the ego don’t agree on a single thing. When person A is under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and person B is guided by the ego, no real communication is possible, meaning nothing gets created. I don’t mean ever, just right now while these conditions persist. So you might assess the situation and determine now isn’t the right time to try; that It will be wasted effort. That doesn’t mean it won’t be possible in twenty minutes or maybe this weekend.

This is a nice segue into the next principle discussed in the video. Try not to form expectations of the outcome. To be clear, I mean try not to form expectations of any kind, either positive or negative. Expectations often limit your willingness to accept the outcome that doesn’t wind up meeting them. Whatever the present moment is, it simply is. You don’t have the choice to change what it is, but you do get to choose your attitude towards what it is, as well as the meaning you give it. If you hold onto the idea that the future will be like the past, the future will indeed appear to be like the past. This pertains mostly to negative expectations.

With the positive expectations, it’s a bit more nuanced. It is fine to expect that Love will eventually win out. That is true. Whether it will win out on my timeline is a different story. Expecting it to can become a barrier to grace because my disappointment and frustration will arise when the love doesn’t win out on my timeline. Now might not be the time for Love to win out because the ego is still involved in the dialogue. But that’s just for right now. This too shall pass.

Another unfair expectation that some of us put on ourselves, is that we will show up perfectly in every interaction. Does nature work that way? In the larger sense, yes, in that life continues to regenerate, but is it always pretty? No. It’s perfectly imperfect. We’re all susceptible to the ego and to emotions, and sometimes we will show up imperfectly. Some of those imperfections will turn into happy accidents and some will not. If we continue to accept and love ourselves and others fully, regardless of the messiness, we’ll be far less likely to compound our mistakes through impulsive reactions without thoughtful consideration.

Guilt and shame have no place in the solution, and guilt and shame over not being perfect is how a perfectly unreasonable expectation about ourselves usually gets resolved. As Sharon Van Etten said earlier, sometimes there will be moments of fear, moments of excitement, and moments of feeling stuck. None of which could be described as perfect feelings, but if we get in the habit of just witnessing these feelings, rather than resisting them, we’ll eventually accept them fully and find ourselves in flow with the life that is unfolding around us.

The next question that came up in the Ecology of Communication dialogue was this: Are we trapping ourselves and each other in our assessments of each other?

“Do I trust this person’s intentions?” is a worthwhile question to ask. If the answer is “no”, then the self-inquiry must go on. “Why don’t I trust their intentions?” I judge them as having unsavory intentions. “What do I base this on?” and, “Do I know this for a fact?” would be reasonable questions to ask next. Unless they’ve told me that to my face, it might just be a story I’m telling myself. With only a partial view into their intentions, am I someone who is well positioned to judge their intentions? The intellectually honest answer would be “no”.

What I’m really talking about here is guilt and blame. What ACIM explains about guilt is that when the ego gets it’s hands on guilt.

You project guilt to get rid of it, but you actually merely conceal it. [CE T-13.II.2:2]

We continually project our guilt onto other people, or situations that are beyond our control, or sometimes God or the Universe. If you register that you’re feeling guilty the next time that you are, and begin to observe where your thoughts go from there, you will see it happen. Usually, our thoughts flip and flop back and forth from guilt to blame to guilt to blame, endlessly, until we finally see the pointlessness of this game. None of these corrections are conducive to better communication, or to finding solutions.

If you don’t think you’re negotiating with a good faith actor, you will be suspicious of their intentions, but see that as a choice that you are making to see them that way. The will to collaborate and understand each other disappears with this suspiciousness, and eventually the suspiciousness will result in viciousness as you begin to regard yourself as being attacked. I don’t think I need to explain further that this isn’t going to work out well.

According to ACIM, The Holy Spirit in me has its own solution for guilt. It judges everyone, including myself, as God does; as invulnerably innocent. It is a position we are always free to take, and I recommend it highly because you will automatically begin to feel less fearful. Blame is not constructive in that it leads to competition not cooperation and collaboration. We have free will, so we can decide for ourselves if people are good or evil or both. I am suggesting that if we want to solve shared problems, deciding to see people (and myself) as good is a great premise to start from. From this position, you begin making decisions from love instead of from fear.

Pointing fingers isn’t communication. It’s the absence of communication. In communication, links are formed, while in blame, links are severed.

The last piece of advice I heard from that YouTube video on the Ecology of Communication is simple: Don’t take sides. Why? It hasn’t ever worked. That’s one reason. We’ve been trying it that way for years and it hasn’t created a lasting peace, just more tragedy compounding tragedy. “Side” is, of course, a linear kind of word. You’re either with me or against me is a linear thought. There are no sides in the complex tapestry of interconnectedness that is life on earth. They can’t be defined. That is reality. We are imposing something unreal onto reality when we even consider the idea that sides are a thing. And through this framework, we will relate to discussions as having a false purpose; to convince the other person that you are right and they are wrong, rather than for finding some shared agreements by walking towards one another in the interest of lasting Peace and understanding.

Sometimes, it only appears that I’m not on your side. My nuanced position, which holds with most social issues, is that it’s a far more complicated issue and that the nuances should be talked about exhaustively by as many people as want to be involved in the discussion, before finally, the right solution will emerge that works for everyone involved. I understand why, from your vantage point, it might not appear that I’m on your side, but because I choose to identify as the collective OneMind, I maintain a disciplined perspective that I am with everyone.

Eliminating or cancelling our enemies has proven itself not to work if it’s a lasting peace we’re after. And we’re wrong in the first place in thinking we have enemies. Since the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results, I’m proposing a more sane solution. Something we haven’t really tried fully as of yet. We might want to make creative and constructive communication a top priority in our culture. I personally think this should be taught in every kindergarten class. We might want to educate ourselves about what makes communication effective because we have to live with one another, and wouldn’t it be better if we could learn how to get along?

So I am presenting all this information for the sake of advocating for and promoting a remedy to the situation where we find ourselves today. And to put some proposals on the table. We are in a moment of increased tension and chaos in the world.

Also, another purpose for creating this and sharing it with all of you is to signal that I really don’t want to lecture you about this, I’d rather converse with you about it. I want to talk with anyone who wants to talk with me about it. These might be great ideas, they make a lot of sense to me, but they’re far from all the great ideas out there. To access those, we need to include everyone in the conversation. I believe that practices like steelmanning are necessary to nurture collaborative communication instead of competitive communication, and I would ask that we use that tool when we converse, especially if misunderstandings arise. I have a version of it called Open-hearted listening which I learned years ago from another couple’s counselor, and have modified to fit my values since then as a practicing couple’s therapist. I facilitate Open-Hearted listening all the time. It is a more heartfelt version of steelmanning in that it includes emotional validation, which is something that further aids constructive communication.

Talk to me. Leave a comment below and if you want to have a private conversation, I’d be more than happy to have one with you. Let’s talk about how we want to talk to one another.

It is with a very strong sense of conviction, that I believe if we begin to talk honestly about how we communicate, and correct some of the errors we find therein, it will aid us in getting through this crisis we are all facing of a world that has much more uncertainty and instability than it has in a very long time.

I’ll leave you with another passage from A Course in Miracles:

The ego uses the body for attack, for pleasure, and for pride. The insanity of this perception makes it a fearful one. The Holy Spirit sees the body only as a means of communication. And because communicating is sharing, it becomes communion. You might argue that fear as well as love can be communicated, and therefore can be shared. But this is not so real as it sounds. Those who communicate fear are promoting attack, and attack always breaks communication, and therefore makes communion impossible. [CE T-6.VII.A.3]