“Be one who nurtures and who builds. Be one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart, who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them. If we could look in to each other’s hearts and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently.” Marvin J. Ashton
I hope you have been finding this series stimulating. I hope it has stretched you a little in how you are thinking about the things happening in social media these days. Change is hard, and any “movement” is asking us to bring about change. We do not know what the outcome of that change will be and this uncertainty is one of the very reasons change is so hard on us. Last week we talked about how when negative emotional content is as pervasive as we are seeing it in all forms of media right now, we are absorbing this negativity. And absorbed negativity will do one of two things, it will eat at us or it will eat at others.
So, Doc, what are we supposed to do about that? Its not like we can stop people from being jerks online. True. We cannot control others’ behaviors, only our own. Yet we hold some of the most powerful tools in our own behavior. Ok Doc…what powerful tools are those? Kindness and compassion. These two tools can help to redirect the energy of negativity into something more constructive. I want to be sure that we are all on the same page about what that means however.
Kindness is a means by which we deliver our communication with one another and compassion is the means by which we receive it. We cannot control the actual content of communications always, but we can always control the way we give and receive it.
Sometimes it is easier to describe what these definitions are not, rather than what they are. Kindness for instance does not mean just being nice. It does not mean that we are looking to say things in a way that others will be pleased by what they hear. Instead it is more about showing one’s intention as a bridge of love, while we may possibly be delivering a very difficult message. I have sat with many people in my office, talking about very difficult things, and have had occasion where the most therapeutic response I can give them is to reflect their own responsibility in their suffering. This is not an easy message to hear. No one wants to know that they had any part in what is hurting them, and most of us want to rise up against this and defend ourselves. There is always a way to deliver this message with kindness. To be on one another’s side in an effort to want to change what is being talked about, while simultaneously communicating a difficult message that would seem opposite to what one another wants to hear.
Compassion is another means for us to meet one another where we are at, when on the surface of the issue there seems to be conflict in our meanings. Compassion is not feeling sorry for someone (sympathy). It is not knowing better than someone else and having the foresight to see their errors. Compassion is feeling with somebody (empathy). In the faith tradition I was raised in, we say, “There if by the grace of God go I.” This is a reminder that I could be in the very position another is in and I should always receive information with this in mind. Showing understanding that we too could feel the way that another is feeling and want to say the things that they are saying, takes pause. It takes patience. It takes courage. And most importantly it makes us vulnerable. Vulnerability of putting ourselves in another’s shoes is difficult, yet it is also truly the only path to understanding and demonstrates great strength.
So, while we are not in control of the content we are seeing in the media and this content is likely to stir a myriad of thoughts and feelings, we are in control of how we give our messages to one another and how we interpret the messages of others. And when we start to listen and speak with this kind and compassionate approach, we will begin to transform the message without ever changing the content. We will start helping ourselves know that this is about all of us. That acting in kind and having compassion for all perspectives will open us up to the knowledge that we help all our cause when we start thinking of it as ours, not theirs versus ours.
My challenge to you my friends…take that pause before you respond. Think from a stance of compassion. Say your words with kindness. Know that the message you are sending is not only in the words but in the manner in which those words are delivered and received.
Be well my friends.