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The Space Between – Heaven on Earth is a companion podcast to Awakening – Heaven on Earth.
Through intimate, heart-centered conversations, this series explores the lived experience of awakening — the questions, integrations, paradoxes, and sacred pauses where transformation truly occurs.
This is the space between knowing and becoming…
where Heaven meets Earth through honest dialogue.
Welcome to the space between heaven on earth. This is a companion podcast to awakening heaven on earth created as a space for reflection, conversation, and lived experience. Here, we enter the pause between knowing and becoming, between insight and embodiment, between heaven and earth. These conversations are not about answers or conclusions. They are about presence, about listening, about reasoning together, about meeting one another honestly in the unfolding journey of awakening.
Jeffrey Aylor:I'm your host, Jeffrey Aylor. Again, welcome and thank you for entering The Space Between with us. Welcome to this episode of the space between. In our last episode, we explored what it means to embody unity. Not simply as an idea, but as a way of living.
Jeffrey Aylor:And today we're going to bring that question into the world around us. This episode is called Heal the Divide Unity in Action. Because if we're honest, we live in a world and in a time where division seems to be everywhere. Political division, religious division, cultural division, ideological division, division in relationship, and beneath so much of it is fear. The fear of being wrong.
Jeffrey Aylor:The fear of losing your identity. The fear of the other. But perhaps the deeper question really is how do we remain human with one another even in our differences? How do we embody unity in a divided world? So as we go forward, Joe, Sherry, so glad you joined this morning.
Jeffrey Aylor:This is such an important topic, and it's so fun because the three of us get the opportunity quite a bit just in our personal interactions to have conversations around these things, and and it's it's nice that we're going to be able to collectively be able to share a lot of our thoughts. And we're going to touch on this in a couple of different. Sections, the first one. Is really us talking about why why the world feels so divided? So the first question I want us to think about is really that.
Jeffrey Aylor:Why do you think people feel so divided right now?
Joe Dermody:I I think it's just like you said in the beginning. It's fear. And I think that we are being divided by our social media, by our fear of the unknown. I think we choose fear over love in a lot of situations. We are being led.
Joe Dermody:I've said it a lot in the past. I I think that our governments right now also believe that it's easier to control people in chaos that are in a state of chaos than are in, you know, a state of order. And I think that's a common that's something that has been around for a very long time, unfortunately. And until we unify as a people and start choosing love over fear, I think that's that's just how it is. I think that there's been a shift, though.
Joe Dermody:I think that a lot of people are starting to to see this. I think that good works like this podcast and people starting to see things clearer and starting to choose love over fear are are starting to slow that down. So, yeah, I think there will be a shift in this soon.
Jeffrey Aylor:Well, you know, it's interesting because the organizations that their whole system is built on fear, and fear for the purpose of being able to control, I think they're feeling the shift that's occurring, and they're doubling down in some cases because they are afraid of losing control, and people becoming awake to what's happening in and around them, and not tolerating that anymore. And when people are in a state of fear, you think of a dog, when a dog is afraid, a dog especially if it gets backed into a corner, the first thing it's going to do is jump out a bite. Even if it naturally loves you instinctively because of the fear, it will jump out and bite you.
Sherri Keys:Well, I I think that there's a a root underlying root cause. This is my my view that there's a need for money, control, power, and all of those three elements lead to a state of fear. And that fear is kind of like how you control all of that stuff. And that somewhere we have not learned a lesson. So we are being introduced that lesson again.
Sherri Keys:But I do believe that as a society grow in a space that will continue to learn it and grow. There are signs of that, but I do feel like it's almost like we're we're needing to go back and learn a lesson. And because not everybody got it. Right? And that's always been my view in life.
Sherri Keys:So
Jeffrey Aylor:we talked about this before that, you know, life is all about learning. And unfortunately, the lessons that the universe wants us to learn are going to continue until we learn them. And if we continue to fight against that, the lessons get harder and harder and more difficult because it's trying the universe is trying to get our attention, and unfortunately society and the world have defined success as the accumulation of money and power and control and influence. Right? Those are the things that in the world's view define success.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yet I think people who are truly successful are people who love. To Joe's point, know choosing love over fear is really the ultimate question, and I think that as the world is raising in vibration, the earth is raising in vibration, and people are rising with it, and the systems that are built on those things vibrate at a very low frequency, and they're feeling that pressure. I don't like, although I think conspiracies sometimes are quite interesting to dig into, There is some substance to the conspiracy theories that people have. Otherwise, I don't think that they would have them personally, and now do I think that some people take those two extremes? Yes.
Jeffrey Aylor:I think everything happens in extremes, and and a lot of times, that's what's interesting to people. That's why the media is totally based on extremes because nobody cares about the middle. It's boring to everybody. Right? So and Joe, you touched on this and it's going to lead us right into our second question today.
Jeffrey Aylor:Do you think technology and social media have amplified separation?
Joe Dermody:Yeah, absolutely it has. I think that a lot of the stuff that goes on has been going on for a very long time, but it just hasn't been as readily accessible. Now everything that's done is captured on video or audio. And
Jeffrey Aylor:And it's instantaneous.
Joe Dermody:Absolutely. It's out there. As soon as it's done, it's out there. And I'm very thankful that everything wasn't recorded and out there when I was a kid. Oh, man.
Joe Dermody:My parents would have known everything I did right away immediately and couldn't have hit everything. So, yeah, I'm I'm glad. Not that I did things that were super bad when I was little, but just thankful that it wasn't all recorded. And and that's just me personally. Now everything's recorded, though, and the worst part is is that what's recorded now, you can't even be sure if it's true with everything else that can be modified and technology that can be changed.
Joe Dermody:Again, not trying to get into conspiracies and whatnot of anything like that, but it it it is there are things out there that can be modified, changed, altered for good or for bad, I think that that is it's not always it it makes it so that you can either divide people or it could be used to unify people. And it's a tool that is scary good or scary bad. And
Jeffrey Aylor:You know, unfortunately, it's not even just social media. I mean I've been getting when you go through a political season, you are bombarded with television ads. You're bombarded with mail that is totally designed to create hatred and division and separation, and I know that I mean even people's characters can be assassinated through through these things, and you know, and unfortunately a lot of this, there is no they'll take snippets of things out of time, and and they'll go into somebody's past, and they'll pull stuff out of the past that may be not relevant in this moment today in the in the now, and they'll present it as though it's something that is applicable to now, and there is just no forgiveness and highly judgmental, and and it's it's designed honestly to kill people's character and their integrity, and to kill and to divide because that's how you gain control is over is through division. You know, the military, we were taught that the best way to overcome the enemy is to divide them, and there's a lot of tactics and techniques that are used to break them down internally, so that they become weak mentally, and emotionally and psychologically so that you can overpower them, right?
Jeffrey Aylor:So these aren't new and this is not new at all. None of this is new. Anyone who thinks it's just to your point, think it's just the fact that it is so easy to access and it's instantaneous.
Joe Dermody:And it's just a way to reach so many more people so quickly.
Jeffrey Aylor:Right? Absolutely. And you can't tell me that many of these messages are not fabricated. They are totally fabricated.
Joe Dermody:Right. Right. You're we're doing this we're doing this to people. Right? And it's but but it's so much easier to think about doing this in this way from a technological standpoint instead of right there in front of each other.
Joe Dermody:And I think that's I know we're gonna get into this probably later on, but it's still this is this is the hard hard truth of the It's cowardly. It's cowardly because
Jeffrey Aylor:you do not have to face the people that you're specifically attacking. Right. You know, they're armchair assassins in other words, in my opinion. Right? They go again.
Jeffrey Aylor:They go after people's character, but they don't have to stand in front of them and confront them.
Joe Dermody:Yeah. They've turned it into a video game, and it's a lot easier to do this when you take the people out of it, and you're just doing it to something tech a lot technological.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yes. So Sherry, you're one of the people I know who don't engage in social media very much, if at all, right? No. You're probably a happier person.
Sherri Keys:Yeah. I'm not like one that I mean, I yeah. That's not something I've really embraced even when Facebook first came out. So it's not been something that has been important to me. Getting back on this topic, I do think that the world is different.
Sherri Keys:Technology obviously is where it is today. Things are out there quicker than they used to be back when I was growing up. But from my perspective, I think is how you digest information that you see is rooted in your perception. That's kind of what I think. If I perceive something to, because of whatever set of norms that I've been exposed to throughout my development or both as a youth and as an adult, then I'm going to perceive things, digest things that are given to me right, wrong, or indifferent.
Sherri Keys:I believe this is what I this is my belief of what I've already have thought about a situation already. What I've been raised to think and feel and view. And I think that that is part of the equation that needs to be addressed and viewed. Because I, you know, just because somebody gives me information that is not rooted in truth or has altered at some point, I'm gonna take my own norms and values and the way I see people culture this world, and I'm gonna filter that. And I don't think that that happens.
Sherri Keys:And it's unfortunate. And I think that's why there is this divide. I think it goes further back than just on the surface.
Jeffrey Aylor:I totally agree, and you know the whole purpose of this podcast is designed to help us stop and think about what we're hearing and what we're seeing, and not jump to a reaction based on emotion, but to process and think and respond consciously to something. And most of these systems of social media, the media in general I believe, are all structured to try to create a shock and awe environment where they shock people quickly, and they want to try to get a quick and emotional response, A reaction, not a response. That then can start to escalate. You know, when I watch someone post a thought or an idea and then people almost immediately attack them. Because they're they're they because they're different.
Jeffrey Aylor:What they think is different than what that person does, and of course everybody thinks they're right. So including us from time to time we, you know, I just really do believe that that it's it's designed to keep us on the edge of chaos for the purpose of control, and the more people start to realize that and recognize that and not allow it to control them, but them control it, That is going to that's going to become. I mean, we understand this in the work we do. You know variation exists everywhere and these. The more you are able to see it and you're more the more you're able to control it and not let the variation control you.
Jeffrey Aylor:Your system then stabilizes. Well, the last thing in the world people who want to control you want is a stable system. So it's a vicious cycle, and but it's a cycle nonetheless. So We know people psychologically have a tendency to identify more with groups and labels. Then with the collective humanity.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's almost like it's easier for them to to do this, but I also believe that this is why, and I noticed this just what I just said about how people respond in social media, how quickly people turn toward defensiveness and judgment. Have you noticed that in not just in social media, but in the workplace, at home, in in different environments that you're in?
Joe Dermody:I have because it's almost like we've been conditioned to be triggered. Right? We've been conditioned to, just follow what we've heard, not think. Plus it's it's easier to to parrot what you've heard and not to stop to think about it.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yeah. It's yeah. Do what's easy, not what's right.
Joe Dermody:Thinking is hard.
Jeffrey Aylor:It takes energy.
Sherri Keys:It takes energy. Right. So I I agree. I mean, it's just it's easier to lean back on what how you perceive something to be than really what it is. It's less it's less energy.
Sherri Keys:It it feels better because you don't really have to peel off the Band Aid and and and look at things the way they are, not the way you want them to be. Less work.
Jeffrey Aylor:Sherry, you know a lot about labels. You understand the impact that has and the
Sherri Keys:Oh, it's it's it's huge. It is huge. And I just feel like, I mean, history is trying to repeat itself. And I think I was saying that before, I think that the world we're in is slightly different. Our tools are different.
Sherri Keys:And in some aspects, the baseline is different. And I'm not sure if whatever forces in the world and society that are trying to go back and figure out how to gain back or continue the experiment of control, what that looks like and what that is. I think that it becomes a little harder because as they've learned from history, so have people through time learn from history. And I think it's driven more awareness. But, I mean, like you guys were talking about, I mean, we tend to always go back in the corner where it feels comfortable and safe, and our triggers are as easy.
Sherri Keys:We're comfortable with that.
Jeffrey Aylor:Well, those are the stimulus we talk about when we when we look at Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning and the whole purpose behind this particular the whole structure of our of our awakening podcast series is based on this. There's a stimulus. There's a time of reason, and then hopefully a conscious response. And again, is where this is what differentiates people, humans from animals. Now mind you, I think in some cases animals have more con they have more conscious response to what they're stimulated by in some cases than than humans do.
Jeffrey Aylor:And it's it's it's what causes us to get we get so wound up, So wound up. I mean, it's a mob mentality. There are people who will riot, and they have no idea why they're rioting just because they get caught up in the emotion of the of the of the moment. And and, you know, I don't know why I'm upset, but I'm upset. And it it it's it's devastating.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's devastating because it it is the exact opposite of how we were built and designed to function. And it should cause us to when we see it and feel it, we should feel that dissonance that that mental dissonance. That this this isn't right. Somehow this is just not right. This doesn't feel good.
Jeffrey Aylor:It doesn't feel right.
Joe Dermody:When our bodies are telling us. Yes. I mean, look at the sickness that's going through us all, everything that's just spreading rampant, and we just don't recognize it as that mental dissonance.
Jeffrey Aylor:Right. So in the next section of questions, we're really gonna go back to go forward here where we've talked about this quite a bit. How inner division is really being projected outward and causing external division. So why is it people are so judgmental? Why is it they respond so aggressively?
Jeffrey Aylor:Why is it they in most cases, know, and and psychologically it's it's it's called projection. They have their own internal divisions and fears, and they're projecting those out. Right? So a lot of the division that we see externally may actually be the source of it is internal. You know, I just the parts of ourselves that we reject and try to ignore being shown outward and it often shapes how we react to other people.
Jeffrey Aylor:So based on that, how how do you perceive that unresolved pain and inner conflict can influence the way you see the world? It's it's
Joe Dermody:everything that we've talked about in this podcast up to this point. Everything that's happening internally is going to be projected
Jeffrey Aylor:outward. Have you seen have you seen moments where someone triggered something in you and you later understood and saw that it was really based on something deep within yourself?
Joe Dermody:Well, just just about everything. I mean, fear has caused me to lash out and be angry, you know, internally. And my internal disassociation with myself, right, has caused me to be angry for no reason. Right? I I used to be angry all the time, and I didn't understand why.
Joe Dermody:And it's because I stopped to listen to myself. You know? I I I stopped listening to myself. And because I didn't have that inner unity, I was angry with everything. Once I stopped and and started to listen to myself and took time to get to know me internally, I was no longer an angry person.
Joe Dermody:I was able to to pretty much eliminate that anger internally. And, man, what a happier person I am all around. It allowed me to do all kinds of fun things like lose this weight to to stop and meditate and to calm my mind and see things from a totally different viewpoint externally now. So now I really do take the time, you know, to try to
Jeffrey Aylor:see what's going on. World is divided as much as you did before?
Joe Dermody:So I see how I see the division that's happening, but I also see that we are all one people. I see beneath the division. Right? So I can see how people are fighting, but I see us all as one people. I no longer see us as this side versus this side.
Joe Dermody:I just see us as one people that are confused that need to get over themselves. Right?
Jeffrey Aylor:There's a proverb, and I always love it, that says with much knowledge comes much grief. And when you have that, what you're talking about, if you have the ability to see the division and then recognize beyond that, that it's not necessary because in reality that division is being totally created in people's minds and their hearts, and it's being outwardly manifested because of that. You know it doesn't have to be that way, and you grieve.
Joe Dermody:Yes. You grieve. It's the same with great power comes great responsibility. Right? It's the it's the the whole, hey.
Joe Dermody:I see what's happening here, and it can be fixed.
Jeffrey Aylor:The world does not have to be this way. No. No. Work environments don't have to be toxic. Home environments do not have to be toxic.
Jeffrey Aylor:Relationships and period general do not have to be toxic. Right. They don't. It's totally self inflicted, and when you see that and you recognize that people are doing things that are generating that and you know that they that we we have the power to stop it ourselves,
Joe Dermody:world would
Jeffrey Aylor:be a totally different place.
Joe Dermody:Self inflicted but motivated by others.
Jeffrey Aylor:Oh, we're totally influenced because, again, we're all one. Right? Yeah. And we are influenced, but the fact is is that you know the only person who controls how you respond to something is you. Right?
Jeffrey Aylor:So I mean in even in Christian religion, know Jesus's response to the attacks that he was getting was totally counterintuitive. Everybody wanted him to fight. He turned the other cheek. He allowed them to to say things knowing they weren't true, and he endured it because he knew deep down that it wasn't true. And to add any fuel to that fire is just making more fire.
Jeffrey Aylor:The only way to get rid of fire is to get rid of fuel, because fire will burn until it has no fuel. Stop feeding it. Stop feeding the fire. Right? Oh, it sounds so simple, but you know, have to you have to become aware of it and cut yourself.
Jeffrey Aylor:Am I adding fuel to the fire? What am I supposed to learn from this?
Joe Dermody:I think the other side of it too is just change the change the perception of the fire. Right?
Jeffrey Aylor:So Well, fire does two things. We know that, right? We talk about it. In alchemy, fire is critical, and this is why a lot of people say, you know, the trials that you experience are for your refinement, because that fire can either refine you or it can destroy you. Yeah, right.
Jeffrey Aylor:Fire will harden certain things and it will melt other things. But it's all fire and and, you know, behold what a matter a little fire can kindle right a little spark can start just massive. And and and there are some in some cases I think people want to start the fires. Right? There's a purpose behind them starting a fire.
Jeffrey Aylor:It could be to distract, it could be to destroy, it could be to whatever. I mean, there's just any number of reasons why. So Yep. Bring us home, Sherry.
Sherri Keys:Love you guys. I mean, I think that there's what I believe is that people are lonely and they're wanting to reach out to have a sense of belonging. So when you're in that state that you will follow blindly because you just want somebody to lead because at this point you're just very you feel lonely. I think the internal battle is within ourselves is that you you've gotta love who you are, which, you know, that's a that's a pretty in-depth journey. And people either are unaware or haven't been willing to take that that journey to to love yourself because it's really hard to show love and give love if you don't love yourself.
Sherri Keys:And I I think think that's part of this equation.
Jeffrey Aylor:I wholeheartedly agree with you, and you know when I when I look at loneliness, to me loneliness is still an effect. The root cause of loneliness is the belief that you're separate. It's this whole concept we've been talking about throughout this whole book of unity is that there is an there is a veil of separation that exists that makes us feel like we're alone, that we're lonely. And we're not. We are never alone.
Jeffrey Aylor:In fact, we got a song that we wrote based on the content of the book called You're Never Alone. You're Not Alone, and you are so correct in saying that look that fear, The fear of being alone, the fear of not being accepted, the fear of not being approved and seeking approval outside yourself versus finding and seeking the approval inside yourself, and then projecting that outward, not not in arrogance, but in confidence and in and love as as the manifestation of that. It totally it it people feel isolated.
Joe Dermody:And they they act out the way that they do because of that. They wanna belong to a group no matter what group that is. And, yeah, I think you're totally right, Sherry, that because they want to belong in the group, they they do that and it's
Jeffrey Aylor:So let's ponder this. Let's let's talk about the concept of us versus them consciousness. Right? This is absolutely one of the deepest patterns in human history is this creation of us and them. In order to get to us and them, you have to divide.
Jeffrey Aylor:You have to separate yourself from them. Right? There's us, and then there's them. And it can be by race, it could be by gender, it can be by religion, it can be by culture, it can be by nationality, it can be by any number of things. If you take that list that I just gave you, every single one of them is a major source of perceived division in the world today.
Jeffrey Aylor:Once somebody becomes other, compassion for them gets a lot harder. So why do you think humans tend to separate into opposing groups like that so easily? And I think we've already touched on it, we'll get to it.
Joe Dermody:I think so too, but I think again we're I think we're pack animals, You know? I think part of that that initial makeup of us is it's part of that nature part. Right? It's I think we're pack animals. I think it's just how we are.
Joe Dermody:That's in But we're not
Jeffrey Aylor:animals, right? We've talked about them. Well We act like animals.
Joe Dermody:But I think part of our of our mind, part of our our body there, it goes back to that that initial makeup. Yeah. Yeah. That basic instinct is that we need to belong to a pact to a pack. And I think that's just what's comfortable.
Joe Dermody:Right? That's that's how we we want we want to be a part of a pack. We wanna be part of a group, and that's what we
Jeffrey Aylor:Well, you said it earlier. It's easy.
Joe Dermody:It it's a lot easier. Easier. Don't have to think about being an individual then, right?
Jeffrey Aylor:Or maybe having a broader sense of reality. You can limit what you focus on by being a part of this limited group of people that believe in a limited number of things. Yeah. It's a
Joe Dermody:lot easier to to say what you've heard than to have to think about it, and you can do that and hide in a group a lot easier.
Jeffrey Aylor:Right.
Joe Dermody:Again, That's you have to right. It's easier to be part of the hairball instead of coming out and orbiting it and figuring out how to untangle it. Yeah.
Jeffrey Aylor:Sherry, you're not part of any groups, are you?
Sherri Keys:I don't believe I am. I think I think it it it kind of is people getting a hairball because they have spent a lifetime leveraging these perceptions and how they were conditioned growing up and absorbing other people's beliefs and thoughts and right, wrong or indifferent, and forgot that God has given us free will and maybe not even understanding what truly that means. So I think you take that and you couple it with a world that in some aspects feels like we're in isolation. And then you've got people in a hairball that kind of feel lost and they're going to back. And when you feel lost and threatened and you're feared, you're in a state of fear, you're going to back yourself back in a corner where it feels comfortable and comfortable.
Sherri Keys:Feeling comfortable is going back to those norms or things that people are telling you is the way that you need to perceive the world.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yeah, and they're seek they're seeking validation externally. Right? Versus versus seeing it and feeling it internally. And being okay that what they think and feel internally is different potentially. Than maybe some of the people very closest to them.
Jeffrey Aylor:Know family can be some of the biggest group that cause us pain and difficulty, and I think we all know and experience family. And if we can't get family right, it's really kind of difficult to get society, community, nationality, world right, right? I mean, it's it's a little microcosm.
Joe Dermody:Well, we say that, but I think we're also blessed with great family. Not I don't think everybody is.
Jeffrey Aylor:And But a lot of that is how you see.
Joe Dermody:Mhmm.
Jeffrey Aylor:You see them as great. Therefore
Sherri Keys:They are. Yep.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yeah. If you saw them as as, yeah, as as a problem, they would be a problem.
Joe Dermody:Yeah. And we're also blessed because I also see all of you as family. So, you know, I have multiple my family's huge. I have I have my biological family, and I have you as my family. My my family is huge.
Joe Dermody:My family grew yesterday. I know it's off topic, but it's also very important to me that my brother just had a his child yesterday.
Jeffrey Aylor:Oh, no wonder.
Joe Dermody:It is very good. But family is important. Family but family can play a couple different roles, I think. Because I think in in this society, family not only can help you unify. In some instances, it pushes some people away, and I I think that's it's it's sad, but it it happens.
Joe Dermody:But it's overcoming that. And you're absolutely right. It it's the way that you see this. When we are talking about this, it really brought to mind, you know, all these movies, all these books, everything that talks about the the social outcasts, and and how they are not part of the hairball because nobody wants to include them. But as I'm thinking back on this, they're the ones with the greatest opportunity then to stop and reflect if they're able to, and that's also the hardest part because being socially not included or not included socially, that they're dealing with a lot of internal issues that are so hard to overcome.
Jeffrey Aylor:Well, we hear this. We unite and listen to the telepathy tapes, and you hear this with the autistic community, especially the non community, how they're perceived as being damaged and external and not able to be included, when in reality they are actually more aware
Joe Dermody:than anybody
Jeffrey Aylor:about what's going on in in the fabric of all those relationships. And yeah, it's it's fascinating to me because that just is more evidence that you know our bodies are just a way for us to express and they struggle with doing it because they struggle with connection to their body.
Sherri Keys:No. I I think the family question is a a perfect experiment. I mean, you can't divorce your family. So you take the good, bad and the ugly with what you get and you work through that. And because we rootly in most cases really care about kind of the outcome, We value that when we stick with that.
Sherri Keys:And if we could somehow mimic that way of thinking, when we look at our extended families, I think that we would be more accepting of our differences and being able to want to understand how to work through those differences because we really care. And I think the family element of it is huge because there are things in that element, I think that all of us share, no matter what culture we're in, everybody has, they come with a lot of differences. And we're able to kind of we're accepting of that because we have no choice. I mean, our choices might be like, okay, we put a little distance, but at the end of the day, it's the playbook that you're given. And so most of us, I think would say that we still would work through it and we will figure out a way to embrace the differences so that everybody can exist.
Sherri Keys:And I it just would be a beautiful thing if people looked at the world as their extended family. And I I love that you said that, Joe, and and understand like, maybe we can't divorce this extended family because we're all part of God. Let's work through our work to understand the differences where we can't change, but we can definitely change who we are and how we approach things.
Jeffrey Aylor:100% agree with you and we think of the family as a laboratory. It's like a little laboratory. Again, if I can get family right, I have a higher probability of getting my work culture right, of getting my community right, of getting all the greater or collective right. So even within family, we'll go on to this next question. How can we still hold very strong convictions and beliefs without dehumanizing people that disagree with us?
Jeffrey Aylor:Why do we have to hate someone if they don't agree with us in some cases? We do that in our family. We do that outside of our family. So how do we do this and not dehumanize people?
Joe Dermody:You you have to remember that the people that you are disagreeing with are still people. Remember that they are remember they're your family. Remember that they are still the people that you know and that you love. No matter what they're saying, no matter what is coming out of their mouth, stop and don't be triggered by it. Just listen to what they're saying.
Joe Dermody:Even if you don't agree with it, just remember that that they are people. I've I've had this conversation with multiple people, and it's it's just over the last couple weeks, and they are getting so worked up about stuff that is just words. They're they're it doesn't it doesn't even matter about the stuff they're getting worked up about. They're they're being triggered by something that is out there, and I tell them, stop for a minute. Look at who what you're saying.
Joe Dermody:Look at what you're saying and who it's about, and and they'll stop for a minute, and they'll actually stop and think.
Jeffrey Aylor:And they're like, yeah. That's silly. Like,
Joe Dermody:most of the time it is. And then we'll sit and we'll talk. And and, man, every time that we've done this, I've done this at work for years. Right? Most of the time in our work environment, when somebody is so worked up about something, we'll just get the right people in the room and we'll discuss it.
Joe Dermody:Most of the time, they're not upset about the people. They're upset about whatever problem it is. And if we can get upset and work together against the problem, we can solve this problem very easily and all take all the emotion out of it. And 95% of the time, that will fix whatever is wrong. And I think that stopping, listening to what is really aggravating the people involved, they're not normally mad at the people.
Joe Dermody:They're mad at whatever the problem is.
Jeffrey Aylor:So what I'm hearing you say, let me make sure I understand, you're really almost forcing them to stop and enter a space between the very essence of this podcast, right? What you're doing is learning that we each can be facilitators. Yes. And help create space between a stimulus and a response that will become a better overall experience.
Joe Dermody:Yes. Now the hard can do that with people. Yes. But the hard part but the hard part is getting them to first calm down and listen. You have to pull them out of that that hyper state of being triggered and defensiveness that they will automatically be in and then and then into a state of listening.
Jeffrey Aylor:So yeah, that's exactly though, that is exactly the art and science of facilitation. That's what a facilitator does. They facilitate communication between people that struggle to have that communication on their own without somebody guiding it so that they'll stop and not move so fast and act and react versus respond.
Joe Dermody:Yeah, And the first step of that is to stop and just don't be triggered by what you're hearing. Let's take it. Yourself.
Jeffrey Aylor:Right.
Joe Dermody:That's right.
Jeffrey Aylor:The facilitator can intervene.
Joe Dermody:That's right.
Jeffrey Aylor:And really what this whole episode is is trying to get us to recognize is that we can be facilitators of unity. We can be facilitators of that. And if we can do that collectively, think about how we would deescalate and how much better the decisions could be and how much more we can get people into harmony. It's not that you're gonna prevent some of the the reactions initially, but it's containing and controlling and keeping them from getting bigger than what they have to be. Absolutely.
Jeffrey Aylor:Well said, Joe.
Joe Dermody:Well, I just said words. You put it all together. What what a great facilitator you are.
Jeffrey Aylor:There you
Sherri Keys:go, man.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's natural.
Sherri Keys:It's natural. It's natural. It's just natural. I I think we have to lead by example that, you know, it tends to make the the environment of being a good facilitator more acceptable from others if they see people that are kind of serving that road approach problems and situations the same way. So I think that that becomes key as people trust.
Sherri Keys:And I think also that getting to know and understand, taking the time, caring about where a person is at that moment, I think is important. I think we've mentioned that 99% of the time, whatever that conflict is, is probably not even the conflict is coming from something else that is causing that person to feel the way they do. And the only way that you're really going to understand that is to take the time to care about people, you know, whatever it is that they're gonna share with you in their lives. I think that that makes the conversations around conflict a lot easier because I'm going to not perceive the way somebody's talking to me or what they've said if I have insight in terms of other things that are happening around them and their lives, because I care to get that insight. And I think today we don't take the time to do that, but I think it's a very important part of a conversation and it's a very important part of, in my opinion, being an effective facilitator.
Jeffrey Aylor:So perhaps unity then does not require sameness. Perhaps it just requires us to remember, to Joe's point, that another person's humanity is not erased because of difference. Yeah. To me, if everything were the same, everything would be vanilla. Everything would be humma.
Jeffrey Aylor:Everything would be boring. God wants to experience life. The source, the universe wants to experience life through us, and it will the diversity is what makes it interesting. It's what makes it exciting, and it allows us to learn. The only way you're going to learn is to learn something you don't already know, or to be exposed to something you're not familiar with.
Jeffrey Aylor:And instead of reacting in a negative way to that, what if we reacted in an inquisitive way? Hey, I wonder why they think that way. You know what? There's probably some validity to their their thoughts given what they experience and where they're coming from and what they have to go through in their life. So as we start to transition this commute, this this content more towards unity in action, right?
Jeffrey Aylor:So this is what makes unity meaningful. It's it's when we go beyond the concept, the theory, the you know, and the words we've we talk about into action. What is unity in action? In presence and into the way we actually live. So we've already touched on a number of really kind of simple, not easy, simple, but practical ways we can begin to heal division in everyday life, in our in our personal interactions.
Jeffrey Aylor:So how do small interactions influence the collective energy around us?
Joe Dermody:Oh, it's huge. Every little thing you do contributes to the whole. Stop and listen. You care, to Sherry's point. Be be there.
Joe Dermody:Listen to people. Be present and be be get into the hairball so that you can figure out how to entangle it, but don't be entrapped by it. Right? I think you have to see what's going on. Look at it from both sides, but don't be entangled by it.
Joe Dermody:And I I think it's it's important to be empathetic with the people that you are facilitating, inside of this. In order to facilitate, you have to see things from both sides. You don't have to be an expert on it, but you have to be able to listen to both sides.
Jeffrey Aylor:Oh, and you don't have to agree That's right. With it.
Joe Dermody:Yep. Yep. I I that that is a 100% correct, but you have to be able to let both sides say their piece. And and then, normally, as they're talking talking it out with each other there, the true issue will come out. And a lot of times, like we just said, it's not even the issue that each of the people are thinking about, you know, or think that it is.
Joe Dermody:The real problem will arise and then we work on that problem together. And that's the beautiful thing. It might even be just an issue with one person. That one person might have the issue internally and let that person talk that issue out amongst themselves. You know, you're facilitating with one other person.
Joe Dermody:Let them talk it out, and it's amazing how that can work.
Jeffrey Aylor:Well we know we know from experience that one person can have a significant influence on a collective. On it. And in many cases, we talk about the elephant in the room. A lot of times people don't want to deal with the elephant in the room. They just keep walking around it.
Jeffrey Aylor:They keep talking around it. They act like it's not there. Yet it is. And it's how do we deal with that and deal with that in a way that is constructive versus destructive? That's unifying versus dividing?
Joe Dermody:I think again it's one bite at a time, right? I mean it's in small steps. I think that it's don't be triggered by anything
Jeffrey Aylor:just and Well, you can't eat an elephant you don't recognize and see. Right? And that's right. In one bite. You gotta eat small bites.
Jeffrey Aylor:That's right.
Joe Dermody:That's right. I mean
Jeffrey Aylor:Even if the chocolate if the elephant is chocolate, you can't eat it That's all in one right.
Sherri Keys:I also think so if we're talking like smaller, like one on one interactions and maybe people have different like myself and someone else has a different viewpoint. For me, I think we talked about them on the last podcast. I one of my mechanisms is I either, depending on the circumstances, either start with a hug or just say, wish I I can give you a hug, or I end with a hug or make that comment because I think it changes the energy in the room and in the conversation. And, it kind of puts everybody, from my perspective, on an even playing field. And I think if you could start from that perspective that people become a little, you know, less aggressive in their thoughts and it just calms you.
Sherri Keys:Right? It calms the situation. And I found, at least for me, that's very helpful. And I'll say it works for everybody. You don't have to go around hugging everyone.
Sherri Keys:Although if I had my ability to do that, would. I'm definitely a hugger, or at least tell a person I wish I could give you a hug. But I think if people really see your heart and feel like you're coming from a good place, that always starts the conversation at the right tone.
Jeffrey Aylor:How should we It's It is communication, isn't it?
Joe Dermody:Showing people you care.
Sherri Keys:I think so.
Jeffrey Aylor:And it's a transfer of energy. So if you're vibrating at a higher energy at that time than someone who's having a struggle or an issue and they're vibrating at a lower energy, it's just natural that your higher energy will pull them up. Now they can drag you down too, right? So there's but that transfer and sharing of energy, I think is a big part of and within my Christian tradition and treat and learning and teaching, there is a is a lesson that says a soft answer will turn away wrath. Well, opposite of that is also true.
Jeffrey Aylor:A harsh answer will increase wrath. It actually escalates and it causes things. So again, between stimulus and response, if you'll stop and say, okay, how can I answer in a soft, compassionate, understanding way, and it may be silence, how that can de escalate and otherwise emotional, very highly emotional, highly triggered, highly? Right? That that is a way for us individually to deescalate and have an influence on a situation of the collective that we're engaged in at that time.
Jeffrey Aylor:And I think that that then, like Joe says and others, it's like a pond where if you drop a rock, that one little rock can send a wave all through the whole pond. And that is a good example, I think, of how an individual thing or person can have an impact on the collective. So, you know, obviously we've talked in the past about healing through just being present. Know, there's we talked last last week in our podcast about some people who just have a calming presence about them, especially in difficult situations. And I know you've experienced times and moments where someone's presence can shift conflict or tension without force.
Jeffrey Aylor:So given that, what gives you hope right now despite the division that we tend to see in the world?
Joe Dermody:This podcast. Being able to come online and talk about this. And not only this podcast, but there's there's other media out there like this. The ability to come on here and talk about this, the
Jeffrey Aylor:the
Joe Dermody:feeling that I get when we talk about this.
Sherri Keys:And
Joe Dermody:I just think it's it it's still possible to go out there and and sit with people. The I I am good at talking with people and facilitating an issue. Now most of the time, it is at work. It is working through issues there, in our work environment. I'm getting good at it with with family.
Joe Dermody:I'm getting good at it with friends. But being able to work through issues, right, that we are having presently. And that's what gives me hope is when we sit down and we start talking about it with people and they stop arguing. They stop being angry with each other, and they say, wait a minute. That was silly.
Joe Dermody:We shouldn't have been arguing about that. So every little time that I can diffuse the situation or people are not angry over something that they were before, that gives me hope.
Sherri Keys:Wow. I mean, think gotta have hope and there's no alternative. There's no alternative that is a good alternative if we don't have hope and our ability to drive change and influence the world. I think I did all like podcasts like this, having organic conversations with people, being surrounded with groups and organizations that care and reach out for others and just every little touch that we make in a very positive way, knowing that it will reach more than just where it is in that moment, think hope.
Jeffrey Aylor:Well, you all give me hope. I can tell you it's such a blessing, a profound blessing to have this conversation that we do, and what's beautiful to me is that the three of us, for instance, probably spend as much or more time together in a work environment as we do in our family, and you are family. We're all one big family and it's I think so much of this starts with our perception. If we see the world as divided, the world will be divided because we will see division. If we see the world as unity, the world will be more unified because we will see the unity under that division.
Jeffrey Aylor:We can see beyond what the eyes show us, and see with our spiritual eye, or that third eye, or our mind's eye, and I believe that that is what ultimately will manifest. And so perception makes a big difference, and when I look at someone, I don't try not to see them as a body. I try not to see them as a nationality, or as a religion, or as a color, or it because underneath, we are all one being, one creation, manifesting in different ways, and in all of its beautiful. In a piece of art, show me one part within that piece of art that is not beautiful if the whole piece is beautiful. Every piece is beautiful because it makes up the whole.
Jeffrey Aylor:So. I believe healing the divide that we see. Often. It doesn't, but it's not somewhere far away. The healing is not far away.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's within us. It's a willingness for us to meet and see one another differently. And as we start to bring this conversation to a close, perhaps unity, as we've said before, is not the absence of difference. But really the willingness to remain connected through difference. To actually value and appreciate in some cases those differences.
Jeffrey Aylor:To listen, to stay present, and to recognize one another's humanity, even when we don't fully agree. So Joe, Sherry, as always, I love my time with you, and I love the conversations we have, and the relationship we get to enjoy. And for those that are listening, perhaps healing the divide begins closer than what we think. It's in how we speak. It's in how we listen.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's in how we show up one moment and one conversation at a time, and with that, the space between continues. As we come to a close, remember that this journey continues in many expressions. This podcast is part of a family of partner podcasts. Awakening heaven on earth. The space between heaven and earth and living heaven on earth are three companion podcasts exploring spiritual awakening from complementary perspectives.
Jeffrey Aylor:Awakening Heaven on Earth offers the core teachings and mystical reflections on unity, love, and conscious living. The space between creates room for dialogue, reflection, and lived conversation around those teachings. Living heaven on earth focuses on basic spiritual practices that help embody these insights in daily life. Together, they form a unified journey of understanding, experience, and integration, inviting listeners to remember their connection with the divine, with one another, and with the living world. You can find all of them available on the same podcast streaming platforms wherever you listen.
Jeffrey Aylor:And if music helps carry these teachings deeper into the heart. The Unity. Awakening Heaven on Earth album is available on all major music streaming services as a musical companion to this journey. Wherever you engage through listening, reflection, conversation, or music. May it gently remind you, you are not separate.
Jeffrey Aylor:You belong to the one life and heaven is already unfolding within you. Until next time. Walk gently, love deeply, and embody heaven on earth.