…And What We Can Do With That

A compassionate, practical look at why people dig in — and how to find your footing when you can’t understand why.

I get asked this question a lot, in one form or another: How do I make sense of people who hold so tightly to beliefs that seem — from where I’m standing — completely at odds with reality? It applies to politics, family dynamics, religion, workplace culture, you name it. Why do people double down instead of opening up?

Here’s the framework I keep coming back to, both in my own life and with clients: developmental thinking. Not as a way to judge people — but as a way to genuinely understand them. And maybe, in doing so, find a little more peace.

We All Grow Through Stages — and Not Always at the Same Pace

Think about how children develop. A six-year-old isn’t being difficult when they can’t think logically — their brain literally hasn’t developed that capacity yet. Around ages seven to twelve, kids move into more black-and-white thinking: rules matter, things are right or wrong, fair or unfair. Then adolescence arrives, and suddenly it’s all about identity, relationships, and figuring out who they are in the world. Some kids even begin grappling with their values and what they believe at a deeper level — a kind of early spiritual development.

Here’s the thing: this developmental process doesn’t stop when we turn eighteen. Adults continue moving through stages of thinking, feeling, relating, and meaning-making throughout their lives. And — importantly — not everyone moves through them at the same pace, or in every dimension at once. You can be emotionally sophisticated and intellectually rigid at the same time. You can hold a graduate degree and still think in very black-and-white terms in certain areas of your life.

“We can’t expect someone to operate from a place they haven’t yet arrived at — any more than we’d expect a seven-year-old to reason like a philosopher.”

Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset — It’s Not About Intelligence

You’ve probably heard of Carol Dweck’s research on fixed versus growth mindsets. In a fixed mindset, your traits, beliefs, and identity feel set — they are who you are. Change feels threatening. In a growth mindset, you’re more curious, more willing to question and update, more comfortable with the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing.

When someone is operating from a deeply fixed mindset, their beliefs aren’t just opinions — they’re identity. Challenging the belief feels like challenging the person. And the brain, wired to protect us from threat, responds accordingly: it shuts down, doubles down, gets defensive. This isn’t stupidity or malice. It’s the nervous system doing its job.

Fixed Mindset Patterns

• Comfort in certainty
• Black-and-white thinking
• Identity tightly tied to belief
• Discomfort feels threatening
• Questions feel like attacks
• Doubling down as protection

Growth Mindset Patterns

• Comfortable with ambiguity
• Can hold nuance and complexity
• Identity separate from belief
• Discomfort as information
• Questions feel like invitations
• Updating as a sign of strength

People avoid discomfort the way water finds the path of least resistance. It’s not laziness — it’s human wiring. When someone has found a belief system that feels safe, familiar, and reinforced by everyone around them — their family, their faith community, their neighborhood — stepping outside of it doesn’t just feel uncomfortable. It can feel like losing themselves entirely.

The Power of One Curious Question

So where does that leave those of us who want to connect — or at least understand — across what feels like a vast divide?

I’ll tell you one of my favorite tools: a single, genuinely curious question, asked in a neutral tone.

Try This — The Mindfulness Mindset™ in Action

The Question

“Tell me how you got to that conclusion.”

Not a challenge. Not a debate opener. A real invitation. Said calmly — without the eyebrow raise, without the sigh — this question cracks a door open, even if just by five percent. It gives the other person a chance to actually hear themselves think, possibly for the first time about this particular topic.

They may not answer well. They may not have thought it through. And that’s information too — not ammunition, just data. Real curiosity is neutral. It doesn’t have an agenda. That’s what makes it powerful.

When You Don’t Align — and That’s Okay

Here’s something I want you to hear: if you’re someone who genuinely loves learning, exploring new perspectives, sitting with questions that don’t have easy answers — you are going to feel it in your body when you’re around someone who operates very differently. That’s not a character flaw. That’s somatic intelligence. Your nervous system is reading the room.

You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to pretend it feels fine. But you also don’t have to go to war with it. There’s a lot of ground between full acceptance and all-out conflict — and that middle ground is where most of us actually have to live.

The Weather Analogy

If you’ve ever lived somewhere with weather you don’t love (like me in Seattle) — say, relentless gray winters or swampy summer heat — you know this experience: you don’t love it, but you accept that it’s real, because that’s where your life is. You don’t spend every day raging at the sky. You grab an umbrella. You plan accordingly.

Knowing that people with very different worldviews exist around you is a bit like that. You don’t have to love it. You don’t have to pretend it’s fine. But you can learn to move through the world with it, without letting it consume you.

The Hardest Part: Love Your Neighbor (For Real This Time)

Now here’s where I ask something that may feel impossible. Stay with me.

Across every major faith tradition, every contemplative practice, every wisdom lineage — the same teaching appears: love your neighbor. Not perform tolerance. Not pretend agreement. Not exhaust yourself trying to change them. But find, somewhere inside yourself, a genuine wish for their wellbeing.

This doesn’t require spending time with people who drain you. It doesn’t require silence when you disagree. It can be as quiet as a meditation, a prayer, a moment of intentional sending of goodwill — even to someone whose choices baffle or frustrate you. Think of it less as an emotion and more as a practice. Something you do, regardless of how you feel in the moment.

And while you’re at it — take a look at your own blind spots. We all have them. The areas where we resist growth, avoid discomfort, or cling to what’s familiar. That’s not an indictment. That’s being human. The invitation is just to stay curious — about them and about yourself.

Spreading the Love — Outward and Onward

One of my favorite mindfulness practices is what I think of as expanding your circle of compassion. Start with yourself — find some peace there first. Then let it ripple outward.

You

Home & Family

Neighborhood & Community

City · State · Country

The World · The Universe · The Beyond · All of It

Let your compassion expand — one breath, one circle at a time.

This isn’t passive. This is one of the most powerful things you can do. When you show up as a grounded, curious, open-hearted person — in your home, your workplace, your community — you are literally offering people around you a different way of being in the world. You don’t have to convince anyone. You just have to be it.

Your Soul’s Mission Matters Here

I believe each of us has something we’re here to do — a deep pull toward a particular kind of contribution, connection, or creation. I distinguish between your soul’s mission (the what — the essential thing you’re called toward) and your life’s purpose (the how — the specific shape your life takes in pursuing it).

When we get consumed by frustration, by the dissonance of living alongside people whose worldview feels incomprehensible — we can lose the thread of that mission. We spend our energy on the gap instead of on the gift.

Your gift — your curiosity, your openness, your capacity for love and nuance and growth — is genuinely needed. The world needs the frequency you carry. Protect it. Tend to it. And when you do engage across difference, do it from that grounded, rooted place — not from exhaustion or contempt.

Focus on the Love.

The Rest Is Noise.

You don’t have to resolve this. You don’t have to fix anyone. You just have to keep showing up — curious, boundaried, alive to your own joy and purpose — and trust that love spreads in ways we can’t always measure.

This lifetime is short. Live it fully. With a smile on your face, laughter in your heart, and people around you who see you and celebrate you for exactly who you are.