Unwinding Us vs. Them as the Iron Tree Comes Down
How a small Irish film points to a new way of living together
When I first started working with the Alignment Movie Process, I had no idea how much it would change me. It has changed my thinking, my worldview, and even how my heart works. I only knew it was a frontier I had to explore. More than once I wanted to quit. Something in me kept saying, keep going, see where this leads.
If I had to sum up what AMP has given me in one word, it would be awareness. My son once described what it is like for his generation to watch America change. He said,
“Dad, it is like changing the aperture on a camera, we see more depth than your generation in general.”
That line landed in me.
AMP, for me, has been aperture training. It has widened the opening between my mind and my heart so more light can get in. Movie by movie, it has changed the size of the opening in my lens and how I see conflict, power, faith, and each other. Once that aperture widens, it is hard to go back to black and white. You start seeing in color.
In my last post I wrote about our hope that someone will come along and save us. The right leader, the right election, the right policy. My sense is that even if we get some of what we want on the outside, the Iron Tree will grow back if we do not change on the inside. This post is about that inner wiring. How we begin to unwind the us versus them reflex that keeps rebuilding the same tree in different costumes.
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The Iron Tree and “The Best System on Earth”
I use the word Extractionocracy to describe the system we are all swimming in. It is the rule of extraction. A culture and an economy that treats people and the planet as fuel, and treats profit as something sacred that must never be questioned.
I picture it as an Iron Tree. It looks strong from a distance, but it is rigid, brittle, and hollow. It grows by pulling life out of everything around it.
I have lost count of how many times I have heard some version of this line. Capitalism is the best system ever devised. It is treated as settled fact and the conversation often ends there. I understand why people say it. Markets really have driven astounding breakthroughs in technology, medicine, and everyday life. I am grateful for much of what this experiment has produced.
What we do not talk about is the shadow side of this experiment in its current form. If this is the best system on earth, why do so many of our neighbors work full time and still struggle to make ends meet. Why does one shock to the system leave millions of people lining up at food banks in a country of extreme wealth. Why does our version of success require so much quiet suffering at the edges.
When we say capitalism is the best system, we usually mean it is the best system we have seen so far for creating wealth. We do not mean it is the best system for caring for each other, or for healing trauma, or for making sure no one is thrown away. That gap between what we praise and what we live is the crack where Extractionocracy hides. It is also where something new wants to grow.
Most of us feel this in our bodies long before we dare to say it out loud. We work harder and harder. We come home exhausted. By Sunday night our stomach is already tight about Monday morning. We know something is off, but the pace leaves very little space to think about it. In that exhausted place, it is very tempting to believe the story that our unhappiness is all the fault of them. The immigrant. The coastal elite. The rural voter. The other party. As long as we are fighting each other, we never get around to asking the more dangerous question. Why are so many of us this tired and this worried in a system that is supposed to be the best on the planet.
The deeper truth is that we feel powerless and afraid, but our real power has always lived in us. All of us. Including the people we have been trained to call them. The moment we see how we are being played against each other, the spell begins to break. Us begins to reveal its power, and something very different becomes possible.
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Belfast, and Getting Well Without Getting Even
This is where the film Belfast (2021) comes in for me.
When I sit with Belfast, what hits me is not just the politics of The Troubles, but the emotional cost of living inside an us versus them world that feels never ending. The film shows ordinary people trying to love each other in the middle of street fights, church divides, and impossible choices about whether to stay or leave. It is neighbors and families caught in a fight that is much bigger than they are, trying to keep their humanity when everything around them is pulling them into sides.
During the peace process in Northern Ireland, Bill Clinton said something that goes right to the heart of this work:
“People have to get used to the fact that in order to get well, they may not be able to get even.”
That line sits right at the center of this Belfast AMP session. It is also at the center of anything that hopes to move us from Extractionocracy toward something more sane. There is no future where we finally get even and call that healing. There is only a future where we decide to get well, even if we never balance the emotional books the way our anger would like.
This Belfast AMP session exists for that reason. It was created as a new tool so we can begin to get along and actually enjoy living together again. So we can solve problems in partnership instead of trying to defeat each other. The film gives us a story to feel into. The AMP work around it gives us a safe structure to notice what is still raw in us and what is ready to soften.
That kind of healing cannot be legislated into existence from the top. It has to be grown in real human nervous systems, one body at a time. That is the part AMP keeps showing me. If we do not change our inner wiring, we cannot hold the kind of relationships that any healthier system would require. We will simply rebuild the iron tree again, with new slogans and new strongmen, and call it victory.
In Belfast, we work with very simple statements that invite this inner rewiring. They are not political arguments. They are small heart movements. They help us loosen our grip on old patterns so something more alive can move in.
Here is a taste of that practice.
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Let Go
These Let Go statements are designed to relax the old us versus them reflex that keeps so many of us stuck:
I let go of engaging in us and them hate campaigns and outrage loops.
I let go of the charge I still carry toward my bitter rivals.
I release the protective weight I have been carrying, knowing I no longer need it.
I let go of my addiction to drama and constant conflict.
I stop taking every feeling into my heart as if it is mine to hold.
You can say them quietly or out loud and just notice what happens in your body. There is no need to force anything. Even a small softening is a big shift.
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Allow
These Allow statements invite in the muscles we will need if we want to live in a different kind of future together:
I allow myself to blend with the energy of open heartedness.
I love others enough to let them talk and feel heard.
I allow my heart to soften and my thinking to shift in ways that rekindle the compassion and love that once lived between us.
I allow my inner toolset to expand and I trust that I can work with it.
I allow the old rage in my body to gently melt through movement and breath.
This is not about pretending everything is fine. It is about giving your nervous system a chance to experience a different way of relating, even for a moment. That is how new wiring begins.
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Experience the AMP Session Belfast Yourself
If you would like to experience the healing resonance of this AMP session, begin with this simple Intention Session. It helps align your body, mind, and emotions so you receive the full benefit of the resonance. You only need to do it once, before you watch the film.
Step 1: Speak these aloud
I allow the changes in my timing and only integrate what I am ready to.
I have faith that I will receive the benefits I desire.
I am patient with myself as I make my changes.
I let go of feeling I am too busy to take the time for this.
I let go of needing to understand how AMP works and allow myself to receive the full benefits in my own timing.
Step 2: Engage three modalities
Nod your head “yes.”
Drink water.
Take several slow, rhythmic breaths through your nose.
Then simply watch Belfast all the way through. Do not force insights. Just notice what stirs. Trust that the resonance will do its work gently, in your own timing, with grace and ease.
My intent with this AMP session is not to define the way forward for humanity. My intent is to help loosen the layers of belief and frozen trauma that keep us stuck fighting each other. When more of us do this work in our own lives, the resonance can spread. Then, when the time comes to act together, we will have the inner wiring to actually hold it.
Introducing Recipocracy
This is where I step out onto thinner ice. We are so used to arguing about capitalism versus socialism that as soon as anyone questions the current system, the room fills with ghosts from a hundred old debates. I have no interest in inventing a new ism or declaring a final truth. I am just trying to offer a different lens so we can see what is really happening and what might be needed next.
The more I sit with this work, the more it feels like the real choice is not capitalism versus socialism at all. The real choice sits underneath those labels. It is a choice between extraction and reciprocity. Between a world where we quietly feed on each other and a world where we feed and protect each other. Between a culture that rewards the biggest takers and a culture that honors those who help life grow on both sides of the relationship.
For now I am calling that second choice Recipocracy. Recipocracy is rule by reciprocity. It is my shorthand for a way of living and governing where mutual benefit, responsibility, and shared stewardship move to the center of the game. Not socialism. Not capitalism with a softer marketing campaign. Simply a working title for a future where my wellbeing and your wellbeing are no longer treated as opposing projects.
Extractionocracy keeps us chasing a very narrow picture of success. The dream is to climb into the top one percent, or at least close enough to feel safe. For a few people, that climb works financially. But it often comes at a brutal cost. Families, health, friendships, and inner peace are quietly spent along the way. Many people reach the later chapters of life and realize they never really got to enjoy the security they sacrificed so much to gain.
Recipocracy points to a different kind of wealth. It suggests that a life built on mutual care, shared responsibility, and honest partnership might actually be easier to live, more sustainable, and far less stressful than the constant grind of Extractionocracy. Not easy in the sense of no effort, but easier in the sense that we are no longer fighting each other and ourselves all the time. If we can learn to get along and solve problems in partnership, the system itself can begin to relax. Our bodies can begin to relax. The Sunday night dread does not have to be the price of admission for being an adult.
Recipocracy asks a very different question than Extractionocracy. Extractionocracy asks, how much can I get and how fast can I get it. Recipocracy asks, what choices allow this relationship to keep flourishing. That relationship might be between two people, between a company and its employees, between a town and its river, or between a country and its most vulnerable citizens. The scale changes, but the question stays the same. Does this help life grow on both sides, or does it quietly drain one side for the benefit of the other.
I do not claim that Recipocracy is the final name for where we are heading. I am not trying to brand a new doctrine. I am simply trying to describe what I feel opening in my own heart and what I see happening in the Belfast AMP session and many others. When people begin to let go of the reflex to get even, when they soften around us versus them, when they start to care more about being human together than about winning the argument, something new comes online. Call it Recipocracy. Call it compassionate interdependence. Call it a belonging field. Whatever we name it, we will need that way of being if we hope to live together in the world that is coming.
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Bringing the Aperture Back Home
I want to end by circling back to where I began.
None of what I have written here came to me through academic research or a think tank. It did not arrive through a policy paper, a fellowship, or a conference. It grew out of years of sitting with movies, statements, and real human hearts, including my own. It came from adjusting my inner aperture, over and over again. Letting more light in. Letting old fear and certainty go.
That is how AMP works. It is why I am still passionate about it after all these years. It keeps asking me to notice where I am living in black and white and invites me into color. It keeps showing me that once you are aware, you are already halfway to change.
My hope is that you will give this Belfast AMP session a try and see what it stirs in you. Not because I have the answers, but because I believe your own inner aperture has something important to show you. And if enough of us begin to see a little more clearly, maybe we can finally stop rebuilding the Iron Tree and start growing something that truly belongs to all of us.
Hey, great read as always. I especially liked the part about seeing in color, its such a perfect way to describe moving past rigid thinking. How do you find this new way of seeing impacts your daily interactions?