One of the examining tools that I’ve developed as I have paid attention to the way I interact with the world is a supremacy assessment, because I’ve found that supremacy is a silent and deadly virus that has endemically infected our world. I believe that it is the silent killer of relationships. All of us have been affected and infected by it: a claim that might be seen as generalization but I think that it is instead revelation. I believe that supremacy is the core component of the poison which is carried by the Four Relational Horsemen of the Apocalypse as made popular by John and Julie Gottman:

The Four Relational Horsemen

🫣 Criticism: Attacking your partner’s character or personality rather than focusing on a specific behavior or issue (e.g., saying “You’re so lazy” instead of “I need help with the dishes”).

😢 Contempt: Treating your partner with disrespect, mockery, sarcasm, cynicism, or name-calling from a position of perceived superiority (e.g., eye-rolling, sneering, or belittling).

😢 Defensiveness: Playing the victim, making excuses, or counter-attacking when confronted, rather than taking accountability for a role in the problem (e.g., “It’s not my fault you didn’t tell me”).

😢 Stonewalling: Withdrawing, shutting down, and completely tuning out from the interaction instead of facing the issue (e.g., silent treatment, turning away, or avoiding eye contact).

(Summary and examples taken from the Nimble Counselling website https://www.nimblecounselling.com/blog/why-we-fight-understanding-the-four-horsemen).

And I have seen that supremacy is also silently present in even those relationships that we experience as more positive and as fulfilling. This is so because of the various unconscious lenses through which we have been conditioned to experience each other. And I know this because first I saw it in people whom I loved, honoured, and respected (my parents) and as I saw it in them God guided me to look at myself and I saw it in me too. Now I see it everywhere, and I don’t feel contempt for anyone who reacts from supremacy. I understand it like I understand the little smiling girl standing beside the burnt, lynched Black man, whose Afro-descendant identity had been stolen from him so that he could be renamed Black by a system that intended to dehumanize a whole people to facilitate the creation of wealth and falsely manufactured elevated status for others.

I have learned that it is important for me to slow down and assess my respect as I engage in all and any discussions, because to be able to listen I must engage in all discussions with respect because that respect informs my compassion.

That informed compassion, I assert, is the central nervous system of progress. All things that benefit us mutually are processed and empowered to live by informed compassion—and when that shuts down our relationships die.

How did this become a part of my interpersonal engagement process? Here’s the story.

One of my foundational values is the idea that disagreement is not disrespect, but disdain and dismissiveness towards anyone with whom I am in discussion is definitely disrespectful—even if I am unconsciously dismissive or disdainful.

I’ve held this idea from the time I was child because my parents made a point of reminding us that we were free to express disagreement with any idea. They encouraged critical thinking. They encouraged informed analysis. They encouraged freedom.

And yet, very often when I expressed a point of disagreement my parents would respond with huge disapproval and annoyance. In our lived experience obedience and compliance were more important than discussion.

There was significant incongruence between what my parents wanted to do and what they did. That’s a part of being human. Our inner soul, our spiritual self desires to live in alignment and connection with the eternal source of love, and our human selves defend and fight each other in order to survive. Some seek to rule over others in order to finding meaning, to protect their existence, and defend their perceived purpose; while others resource-guard intimate connections as if they were their very source of life.

God warned Adam and Eve about that. In speaking to Eve, God explained what could happen between them. “…And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16).

I hear a warning in those words. When I hold an intimate connection as though controlling it was my very source of life, I can begin to resource-guard it by trying to control the person to whom I am connected. I try to dictate who has access to that person.

I can also try to destroy other people’s intimate connections to make myself feel more powerful and secure while stripping them of their community foundation. We tend not to recognize that this is weaponized control, often unconsciously used to publicly tear down a person who we believe has harmed us so that we can feel powerful by making them weak and subordinate, without community support. This is what gossip does; it tears down a person’s name and thereby weakens their connections, instead of courageously engaging with respectful openness to resolve conflict.

And when I believe that my position in a relationship must be secured by enforcing my will, I can begin to treat the other person’s disagreement as disobedience—an affront to my superiority—and require their submission in order to feel successful and secure.

These are three ways that supremacy can live quietly inside even the relationships that we treasure. Supremacy creates anxiety which in turn creates disconnection and fractured relationships instead of offering opportunities for discussion and collaboration that maintain the true and open connection that we seek.

This isn’t only experienced in romantic relationships. Its fracturing impact is found in all connections where there is no conscious examination of our expectations of deference, because supremacy is a silent poison that has infected all relationships.

And continuing to witness this fracturing in practice from children who are loved and raised by parents that overtly believe in equality seems to prove my theory. It has been painful to witness children engaging in supremacist behaviour knowing that these unconscious tendencies will become a part of their relationships as they grow into adulthood. It explains the anxiety, the splintering, the blindness and the reactive paralysis that comes from survival mode.

I have had the experience of being conscious of these survival states in the last three years—both in myself and in corporate and personal relationships where I recognized both shame and fear to look at ourselves and assess supremacy. I understand it because as I began to practice judging my thoughts God helped me to shamelessly see it so that I could face it and prune it from my psyche—and so that I could share what I gained.

I’ll repeat this in a different way because this is especially important to me. Over the last three years, I’ve seen how hard it can be to look honestly at ourselves when we’re afraid or ashamed. I’ve seen it in myself, in my personal relationships, and in the organizations I’ve been part of. As I began to practise judging my thoughts, God helped me ask: What do I believe my place in this relationship gives me the right to decide for someone else? How am I unconsciously taking another living thing—any living thing’s—freedom away. I could face the answer that I saw without shame. That gave me room to begin pruning those expectations from my thinking, and I recognized that it was deeply important to me to share what I was learning.

Witnessing supremacist splintering in children always reminds me that it is extremely important to slow down to assess my respect. I desire to model a more powerful, confident, courageous way of being in healthy relationship with each other. I desire to do my part to build a beautiful experience of divine vulnerability on Earth as it is in heaven. I desire the children to have a better experience together than we and our forefathers did. I desire to claim this healing way of love for us in our lifetime and for thousands more generations.

To model divine vulnerability it is important to recognize the difference between jealousy and relational resource-guarding behaviour. Jealousy is the recognition that a relational connection which is important to us is at risk of being ruptured. A resource-guarding reaction to that recognition attempts to destroy the risk of pain associated with rupture instead of risking vulnerability and the possibility of rejection if we attempt repair. This reaction focuses on defensiveness instead of faith that the pain will be a momentary feeling that will be resolved.

God models this level of vulnerability with us. He openly identifies the relational rupture that He observes and informs us that this causes Him pain. He never uses destruction to secure His power. What He does do is create space and step back if we require that, to honour our right to choose to experience the connections that we seek. He warns us about the potential pitfalls of the experience and leaves an open invitation to reconnect with His enduring love.

This experience of courageous openness that I found as I began to unravel supremacy from my head has increasingly closed the gap between my head and heart, and I dearly hope that every single person in this entire world will at some point share this beautiful experience with me.

Our Father desires that we experience the kingdom of God, now, on Earth as it is in heaven. What are we waiting for?

I, Saran Adia Nneka Lewis place our whole world in a full court of atonement, and I ask that our timelines be analyzed, and all conflicts between us be resolved in the astral plane, in the spiritual realm. In the name of Yeshua M’shikha. So be it.

https://www.courtofatonement.com (More information on what a full court of atonement is as taught by Amy Jo Ellis).

Thank you for how you bring light and love to the world. Because of you, I see things so much more clearly, and I can live with the hope that my dream of Withness Repair and Recovery will become reality. We will be restored to oneness.

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. ¹⁷ For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:16-17).

This is freedom. This is peace. This is harmony.