BE the CHANGE

A friend of mine posted this article on Facebook yesterday. Reading it and seeing how upset the writer was as she shared her experience, I couldn't help but be saddened that people are so impacted by cruelty that is clearly rooted in the unhappiness of the other person. I learned many years ago that what he or she is saying is almost never about you.  It's often about self-loathing, feelings of insecurity, a desire for human interaction albeit negative or positive, a plea for attention or a declaration of grievous scarring on a deep level.

And that person WANTS to be made more angry.

I've had horrid things said to me both overtly and under people's breaths, but I think the instinct to lash out subsided when I was about 25. I realized that to do that is not only to become part of the ugliness, which is the attacker's conscious intention, but to fuel the aggressor's fire which is his or her subconscious intention.  Attempted escalation is the point.  Engaging in that way almost always ends with you walking away infested with horrible energy and feel unnerved and unbalanced.  The person is looking for a fight not only as a means of taking out excess hostility, but as a way of confirming that his or her anger at the world is justified because as you've just helped "prove", human beings are bitchy and terrible. I just refuse to be a pawn in their anti-humanity chess game, especially when I know that pain is likely the origin.  So while I understand the writer of the article asking "Why would you say that to me?", it's likely a wasted question.  The person may not even know.  If he or she does know, you're likely to not get an honest answer but instead a reiteration of what was already said. So instead, now I will say something like "I wish you love" or "I hope you find peace". And I mean it. 

I will never forget one instance in which a racist woman wasn't happy that I sat next to her on the streetcar. (She may want to reconsider Toronto as her place of residence.) As I got up to head to the doors, I heard her mutter "Goddamn spades." My first reaction was shock - I had no idea that people still said that.  She must have been playing cards in her mind.  My instinct was to ignore it. Instead, I turned around, looked right at her and said "I'm sorry you've been hurt". She was visibly stunned but said nothing, instead immediately diverting her gaze away from me. I got off the bus feeling nothing but sorrow. What a contaminated, embittered person.  There was zero room in me left for anger because I was so completely filled with sadness for her.

Countering callousness with compassion can be incredibly difficult.  At times I've failed at it miserably, but I try very, very hard as do many of us. And depending on the severity of the instigator's action, it may not always be what seems called for. But we can all try because more often than not, it is the panacea. There are people, however, who honestly don't know what to do with it.  It shakes them to the core. I think that that is because in their own lives, they have so rarely been on its receiving end. In that moment when they've been vicious, we can respond in a way that may soften them, or in a way that is likely to harden them.  We unfortunately can't control the behaviour of others, but we can decide what our responses will be.

Sometimes people need to get something before they can learn how to give it.

Namaste,

TT