Aiming for Redemption
or... How to Write a Better Story
A theme has emerged for me over the past few weeks: identifying beliefs or narratives that I act out fairly unconsciously. While the utility of this process is, in itself, based on a belief, I have found it useful to consider the potential effect of "acting out a belief" on my ability to create positive change. Or, conversely, I have been asking myself: what is keeping me from creating positive change. I will walk through the mechanics of this process, which I hope adds some clarity. To get the gist of this, feel free to only read the bold parts.
Feeling bad about something I have done is a frequent companion in my life. It does not go to an extreme of feeling wholly broken, thank God. But some bits of me always seem to create problems, one way or another. A first impulse is often to infer a problem from this feeling of brokenness. In other words, I have an implicit belief, "there is something wrong with me." How do I act out this particular belief or story? I show a tendency for punishing myself. That in itself already makes it somewhat more difficult to ask... What is it that I actually want? Ultimately, I want to be in good relationship with people and feel that I positively contribute to others. And then the question arises: Does acting out the belief (punishing myself over the mistakes I make) support positive change (making fewer mistakes)?
It takes some stepping back to take a different and potentially more wholesome perspective. From there it seems important to ask myself, what is that bit that causes what I would like to change? And is that bit a part of me, or what is it a part of? How do I need to engage the fact that I create outcomes I do not like in order to change towards fewer of these outcomes? These kinds of questions contribute to loosening up the grip of the potentially self-punishing attitude. Why is this helpful?
I still remember that, as a child, on quite a number of occasions I had to face my parents with a message of, “here is a situation where I screwed up.” And I can count myself lucky that there were very few moments when the message I received in return was something like, “this is so terrible, we no longer want to support you.” Instead, my parents generally approached me with an understanding that no matter how imperfect my past choices had been, and whatever mess I had created, I remained very much their son, and they would not abandon me. This has helped me tremendously. It created a sense of openness around this question: why did I create this outcome in the first place?
That brings me back to narratives. In my curiosity inquiry I can often begin to sense that holding a belief or story more lightly might change my action in the world towards what I consider the Good. If that is the case, I can then experiment with loosening my grip on that particular story or belief. I do so in the hope that this will allow me to shift my action towards the good. It is naturally essential to closely monitor the outcomes of my actions during this time, to actually confirm my hypothesis. Sometimes, it also turns out that a belief I already hold leads me to action which I do consider good. I then have learned that it is important to become aware of this belief, so that I can affirm its value. This is particularly helpful for me when people observe actions that are supported by those beliefs. When they seem to be rubbed the wrong way by my actions, I can then share the beliefs I hold, and explain why I hold them.
Here are some examples of beliefs, which I have come to trust as helpful for me with some brief counterfactual explanations. To the extent you disagree with any of them, I would also appreciate to hear that! I am not claiming that they are objectively true, only that I have found them to support me acting in ways I consider good:
giving people (myself included) the chance to redeem themselves beyond their past choices allows me to treat them with more respect (the opposite belief might be something like "once a bad person always a bad person," cutting off the opportunity of redemption)
and relatedly, some beliefs may run so deep that people will struggle with changing the actions based on those beliefs; to the extent that this creates difficulty, I am treating people better if I see that as a tragic limitation of biology rather than as an intentional failure (the opposite belief might be that consciously held beliefs fall into the same category as biologically mediated temperament)
there must be a limit of my tolerance, however, for people not to abuse this tendency — a point at which I am willing to say, “no more!” (holding the opposite belief of “this person is not or only partially responsible for their actions” would lead me to what I think of as toxic femininity, the attitude of letting every mistake pass, and disrespecting myself and the benefits of accountability)
I have learned that providing people with concrete feedback about how their actions impact me and what I perceive to be their beliefs is particularly helpful if these people trust my intentions as being non-manipulative, and it is for this reason that establishing a trusting relationship is primary to offering critical feedback (the opposite belief might be that offering critical feedback is always helpful, even if the person does not trust me)
if a group of people seems to hold a belief, it is often unhelpful to infer that most members of a group hold the belief individually (if I were to hold the opposite belief, I would often feel much more accusatory with respect to holding a belief when meeting a person from a given group that exhibits actions I take are based on a belief, when instead the person may mostly be feeling a desire to belong)
Taking some of these beliefs seriously can be quite challenging. For one, it requires tolerance for the inevitable disappointment that will come from observing people — myself included — not living up to my expectations. Instead of lowering my expectations, however, I now see it as much more useful to offer a path to redemption. How does that look like?
I primarily see three components: first, an affirmation of the relationship itself. Like my parents signaling to me that despite their disappointment, my being their son would not be affected by what I had done. Next, I need to lay out sufficiently clear what the overall expectations are in the relationship, including a desire for having a good relationship, and for mutuality and trust, and why I see this as primary. And finally, I want to offer concrete support, by bringing attention and awareness to whatever stories and beliefs I consider the underlying cause for the failure to be. The other person can then themselves go through the exercise: does the story or belief cause me to act in ways I do not enjoy myself? It is then the outcome of the process that changes their action, not me giving them any prescriptions. That is, only if the other person agrees with my assessment, will they change their actions, and do so willingly. This includes for people to consider the loyalties to groups which lead them via a desire to belong to actions that go against their own values.