Current e-Journal
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July 22, 2025
Toxic Polarization and the Stories We Tell Ourselves
In this week’s Systems Change Newsletter…
- Invitations and Announcements
- Catalytic Thinking Exercise: Toxic Polarization and the Stories We Tell Ourselves
- Resources to Further Your Practice
Money and Politics and Churches
The IRS is preparing to allow churches to endorse candidates (and potentially raise money for them). This decision was part of a campaign promise made by President Trump.
Churches are not required to file 990 financial disclosure forms. They also receive automatic tax exemption without the onerous examination that other nonprofits go through. This means that any group can now claim to be a church, then funnel large amounts of money to candidates with no public accountability.
Call your representatives and senators. Ask them to maintain the Johnson Amendment - the rule that prohibits churches from formally endorsing candidates. Then learn as much as you can about what your nonprofit can legally do to advocate for political causes.
Catalytic Thinking Exercise:
Toxic Polarization and the Stories We Tell Ourselves
Toxic polarization. We all lament it. We all have our ideas about who is to blame.
And yet we all participate in it. We mutter “a&%hole” when we see someone from the “other side” on TV. We stay away from people we disagree with – even if they are members of our own family.
Here’s what we know:
Toxic polarization starts with the stories we tell ourselves about those “other people.”
Those stories may be factually true – or they may be simply the way we’ve interpreted what we’ve experienced in our lives. Either way, those stories are the foundation for our assumptions and beliefs. Because our assumptions and beliefs are nothing more than stories we tell ourselves, that we believe as “the truth.”
Whether or not they are empirically true, those stories and beliefs are how we answer the questions we encounter in life. Can I trust that person? Am I safe around them? Will they hurt me? Our beliefs are our answers to those invisible questions, whether or not those beliefs are factually true.
Our assumptions and beliefs are simply stories we tell ourselves, that we believe as “the truth.”
Here’s what that means for dismantling toxic polarization:
The first step in unraveling the toxic stories we tell ourselves is to make all those invisible stories visible. Luckily, that’s what Catalytic Thinking is all about! By asking ourselves a different question, our answers can create a completely different story.
That new story can then become our “truth.”
Gayle was experimenting with Chat GPT when she had an idea. She spent some time writing the story of her life, all through the lens of the traumas she had experienced. She wrote of the difficulties she had endured throughout the decades of her life.
She then fed that story into Chat GPT. And she asked the AI to reframe her story. “Make this a story about what I’ve learned, how I’ve grown.”
When she read what Chat GPT had reframed, it was not a story of trauma. It was a story of strength, resilience, possibility. It was a story of how the worst things that had happened to her had made her the strong, capable woman she is today. “My whole life changed,” she told us. “I am a different person just by seeing my life differently.”
Toxic Polarization Starts (and Stops) Here
Because toxic polarization starts with the stories we are telling ourselves, we can step into our power to stem the tide of toxic polarization by simply telling ourselves a different story.
Just as Gayle reframed how she looks at her life, we can all reframe how we look at people on the “other side.” Those people. The ones who voted for the other candidate. The ones who oppose the work you’re doing.
We don’t need Chat GPT to help us reframe the stories we are telling ourselves. We can start by simply asking ourselves a different question.
Try this
In our most recent podcast interview, Joshin Byrnes opens with these words:
“How do we put ourselves in situations where we might see people who are different from ourselves as kinfolk?
It requires some self-discipline to say, “I'm not going to greet Uncle Joe with the label that I've stuck on him. I'm not even going to greet him with the label he stuck on himself. I'm going to take off my old glasses and put on some new lenses. I'm going to look at this person in a different way.’”
The questions we ask ourselves can help us put on that new pair of glasses. This is the exact circumstance that Catalytic Listening is meant for – opening ourselves to the possibility in the people around us.
As you listen to your own Uncle Joe (or to the people you see on TV), instead of confirming the old story in your head, think about these questions:
- What does that person want life to be like for them and the people they love (their aspirations)?
- What is really the most important to them (their values)?
- What is good and strong about them (their strengths)?
- How are they experiencing life right now? (seeing beyond the surface)
These questions are the keys to unlocking our minds. We don’t have to “challenge our beliefs” (which is never fun). We can just look with an open mind, asking ourselves questions that help us look at that person through the lens of possibility. Our answers can then become a whole different story for us.
It all starts when you realize that your assumptions and beliefs are simply stories that might be true – or might not be true. You begin to see all that might be possible when you tell yourself a different story. And that can open up a whole different way of seeing the world, and yourself inside that world.
That is why Catalytic Thinking focuses on making those invisible questions visible, to make sure we are asking questions that lead to possibility, inclusion, and strength. And it is why Catalytic Listening is such an integral part of the Catalytic Thinking framework.
Resources to Further Your Practice
- READ: Curious about Catalytic Listening? This solid intro is a great start. Read it here…
- LISTEN: Creating the Future’s podcast series provides wisdom from some of the greatest social change thinkers. Give it a listen here…
- WATCH: De-polarizing is not about changing minds. It’s about showing people on the “other side” that there are reasonable people on your side, too. Watch here…
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