A Change in Viewpoint
“For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh
The truth of this becomes very evident in any relationship issue. For example, if I’m on a committee with a woman, and she has fundamental issues about a direction I’ve proposed, I may have the following viewpoint.
“She’s rigid and unyielding.”
“She has to have her own way.”
“She wants to be the boss of this committee.”
What I say to her will be derived from this viewpoint. Whatever tendency she may have to be as I imagine her will be encouraged by how I talk to her. This could be blatant: “Do you everagree with anyone? (not recommended) or a tone of voice that anticipates resistance.
I can instead ask myself some questions.
Is she really like that?
Could I see her a different way?
Could I imagine that there’s a part of her that wants to be a different way?
Could I find that part and encourage it to speak”
I can succeed with this approach because in a dispute I am always looking for resolution without loss of face for either participant.
In other words, I don’t have that much at stake. I don’t base my self-esteem on winning arguments or being in charge.
My challenge in abandoning my views gets more challenging in situations, whether or not they involve another person, that impinge more closely on my personal safety and security.
I could think of several such situations. One that’s a work in progress is what I write for Medium.
How Honest Should I Be?
I don’t mean to imply that I am dishonest in what I write. However, I find certain levels of openness beyond my reach. One of my commitments when I began writing for Medium was to move beyond my comfort zone.
I noticed when I first started reading articles here that some people achieves very high levels of openness. These are my favorite articles to read. The risks the authors take (from my viewpoint) both alarm and inspire me.
And I want to do that. For the past three years I’ve been recovering from some major changes. I’m clear that I built a handy shell to keep me safe in the virtual storm. I’ve been slowly dismantling it. The process requires time, a lot of self-care, and some fairly stern conversations with the Inner Critic.
I joined Medium at the end of February, 2018 and made a point of responding to articles whose honesty moved me. In my comments, I would share a little about myself. When I started publishing my own articles a month later, I moved to a great risk level.
Then I got an urge to write poetry. I knew that this would be a giant step because I hadn’t written poetry in decades, and I’d always considered both the act and the sharing of poems as something that made me vulnerable.
After my first poem, writing and publishing poems became much less threatening. I realized that my greatest uncertainty was that I didn’t know what I would discover about myself through the act of writing a poem. To a degree, this level of surprise is present in every article I write.
It’s been four months since I began writing for Medium, and that seems like a good place to look at what holds me back.
What Are My Views About Vulnerability?
I was raised to believe that family business should stay in the family. “It’s no one else’s business.”
I was also raised to believe that you should never show people your weaknesses.
I’m looking at that second belief now and seeing that I want to examine the word, “weakness.” Here is a view, or at least an interpretation that may need to be abandoned.”
Do I think that vulnerability equals weakness? What if I had a different viewpoint? What if I saw vulnerability as strength? I see it that way when I read a piece by someone else. Why is it not strength if I do it?
In fact, even considering the possibility that myvulnerability can be mystrength makes me feel strong and eager to explore this further. I see that by focusing on this possibility, I can give it life, I can transform it into a new and more empowering belief.
Returning full-circle to the issue of conflicts in relationships, I recognize that, if I allow myself to be vulnerable, I discover that I may share some of the undesirable traits I see in my adversary.
Maybe I can be rigid and unyielding. Maybe I like to have my own way. If I can see that in myself, even disagreements can provide a source of illumination.
I can hardly wait for my next committee meeting.
