You Are Us Quotes

“Scott was sweating. He felt nervous but peaceful inside. No one in the group responded. After a pause he said, “Being here with you all and experiencing your love, respect, and concern toward me has shown me who I really am. I don’t like seeing that, but because of your friendship, I am able to see it. I had to take a look in the mirror and take a cold hard look at myself, and when I looked in that mirror, I saw the problem. The problem wasn’t with Black people, with Jewish people, or anyone else. The problem was staring right back at me.”
― Gareth Gwyn, You Are Us: How to Build Bridges in a Polarized World

“The automatic way he engaged as a force against the status quo was rooted in his childhood trauma and conditioning, as was his need to cling to a philosophy that pitted one group against another.”
― Gareth Gwyn, You Are Us: How to Build Bridges in a Polarized World

“I started to see how, perhaps, my parents weren’t really in a debate about politics at all but were defending aspects of themselves that they felt were unaccepted by the other.”
― Gareth Gwyn, You Are Us: How to Build Bridges in a Polarized World

“The stories in this book show how these skills are developed across varying contexts and can be used in various forms of leadership. They are also part of my foundational research and are based on live interviews I conducted with each person individually. They explore the paradox of self-realization and illustrate my point that true leadership and social justice flourish deep within the practice of individual awareness and healing.”
― Gareth Gwyn, You Are Us: How to Build Bridges in a Polarized World

“When I think about extremist or absolutist mentalities, I now wonder first about that person’s sense of worth and their connection to love—or, more specifically, disconnection from love. I have seen all too often how disconnection from love can lead to overidentification with a rigid belief system, like a cult, religion, or political perspective.”
― Gareth Gwyn, You Are Us: How to Build Bridges in a Polarized World

“This othering process is myopic in that it doesn’t take into account that our own wholeness is dependent on reclaiming the alternate pole—the person we think we are not, the other within us. When we are able to relate with each pole from a place of responsiveness, where we stand in recognition of our own innate wholeness, the experience of polarity can be one of expansion, flow, contrast, and generative transformation rather than division. Once we reckon with the paradox of how the perceived other is both distinct and a direct reflection of us, then we see ourselves in that mirror. We see everyone and everything as reflecting an aspect of our self that we get to reclaim. Those we might have judged become guideposts for our own liberation. Our triggers become welcomed signs that we have rejected something inside us.”
― Gareth Gwyn, You Are Us: How to Build Bridges in a Polarized World

“The polarities of personality often present as victim and oppressor, the haves and the have nots, rights and wrongs, and other seemingly persistent divisions in our society. These polarities are not the source of this tension, but when we relate with the polarities through a reactionary state of operation, we can easily divide ourselves along those lines. Us and them. The familiar and the other.

When we don't own our own wholeness, when we identity too much with something other than our core worth, we collapse into one pole, as in being with or against others. This othering process is myopic, in that it doesn't take into account that our own wholeness is dependent on reclaiming the alternate pole, the person we think we are not, the "other" within us.

When we are able to relate with each pole from a place of responsiveness, where we stand in recognition of our own innate wholeness, the experience of polarity can be one of expansion, flow, contrast and generative transformation, rather than division.

Once we reckon with the paradox of how the perceived other is both distinct, and a direct reflection of us, then we see ourselves in that mirror. We see everyone and everything as reflecting an aspect of ourself that we get to reclaim.

Those we might have judged become guideposts for our own liberation. Our triggers become welcomed signs that we have rejected something inside us.

The idea that you are either with us or against us is a limiting lens that perpetuates humanity's suffering. The recognition that you are us, that everyone is us, allows our self-love to humanize others into belonging.”
― Gareth Gwyn, You Are Us: How to Build Bridges in a Polarized World