Recently, in a professional-but-not-work-associated Slack I’m part of, someone paid me what I feel is the highest compliment I have received in recent memory. There was a discussion around a bit of a thorny topic, and I had chosen to engage and try to get a better idea of the views of folks in that discussion. After many rounds, someone had this to say about me:

For what it’s worth, I think Josh has disagreed with a lot of folks in this thread at one point or another and has been unfailingly respectful and open.

Someone shortly thereafter chimed in with this:

I’d add that Josh came into this conversation with curiosity… [and] that helps a lot having it come across as a good-faith discussion.

One of the behaviors I try very hard to model in life—both professionally and personally—is that of open-minded, empathy driven discussion and dialogue. It’s not an easy task, and I fail at it more often than I’d like. So to hear two people who don’t know me well make those remarks… well, it genuinely touched me and meant more to me than I could express.

Rewind the clock around ten years or so. My wife had started attending a local church, and had gotten to the point where she wanted me to come and meet the people there. She was absolutely clear that this was optional, and that I was under no obligation to do so, nor to continue attending if I didn’t want to. I agreed to come and see what my thoughts were afterwards.

Now, it’s important to note at this point in the story that—at the time—my views of organized religion in general, and evangelical Christianity in particular, were profoundly negative. I believed that, as a group, Christians were people who looked down upon (or even outright hated) those who didn’t follow their own beliefs, fostered bigotry and prejudice, and were generally hypocrites who did not practice according to the tenets of their own faith. So, while I was polite and tried to be open-minded, I was certainly coming with a very negative bias.

So, what happened next? Well, nothing at first. The folks I met were kind, generous, and, most surprisingly, they didn’t seek to push their views on me at all. I don’t think the topic of my own beliefs was broached until many months into my attendance (which I voluntarily continued), and even then it was at my own initiation. And when I brought up instances where I disagreed with things in the Bible, or the views someone espoused, it was met with curiosity and a genuine desire to understand me, rather than scorn or disdain. We had discussions over beers and around the fire pit, and unfailingly they were civil and we all laughed together and left on good terms.

Because of this, I found myself beginning to question my own beliefs. Were these people really the kind of critical, close-minded characters I’d imagined? I had to admit, their behavior did not support that hypothesis. And because of that sliver of cognitive dissonance, I began reconsidering other beliefs I held. And it made me more likely to notice when the pastor vehemently told the congregation that Jesus commanded his disciples to love all people: “He commands us to love people of different races, different cultures, different religions, and different sexual orientations.” Or the longstanding member who talked openly about their own struggles with their sexual orientation and how they reconciled that they were both gay and a devout Christian. (Equally important: this person was loved, accepted, and encouraged to be their true self by everyone in the congregation.) The person who had a sibling who was gay, whom they openly told they didn’t want them to change or hide who they were.

Little by little, conversation by conversation, my own biases were broken down, and in the end I admitted, openly, that I had been the one who was prejudiced, and that I was in the wrong for “painting so many of you with so broad a brush.” This experience was extremely humbling; as someone who grew up immersed in liberal, multi-cultural surroundings, I firmly held the belief that I was a tolerant, open-minded person. And I had to admit: I was not.

That transformative moment would have never occurred, had people responded to my open dislike and mistrust of them and what they represented in anything less than a curious, caring way. It was clear from the get-go that their objective wasn’t to convince me of the error of my ways, or of how I should believe what they did. Instead, they wanted to know me, as a person, deeply and fully. They wanted to understand me, not to be understood. And that approach worked: I was disarmed and, of my own accord, opened my mind to things I never would have otherwise considered.

While I already tried to follow the principles of curiosity and empathy prior to this experience, it really served to solidify in my mind how important this approach is. As individuals, one of our deepest needs is to feel understood and seen by our fellow humans. Not to be judged, or lectured, or talked down to, but to be listened to, genuinely, and without reservation. This is how my mind was changed; I hope you will try this approach as well. Who knows, maybe you will find that your own mind is the one that changes.