Byron Katie, author of many self-help books, has a saying that goes along the lines of, “Defensiveness if the first act of war”. My current goal in life is to breathe, eat, sleep and be at peace and from that seat of peace, somehow, TRY to be of help to my community. In knowing myself in these 49 years, I have found that I cannot be in peace as long as I am fighting the “perceived” intentions of others. Those two things simply cannot coexist; It’s a lost cause. I say “perceived” because I have zero idea why people do what they do. I, of course, can guess an attempt to know their intentions, but ultimately, I do not know for sure. It’s a lost cause because the energy used to bring about change is of a substance with a forceful energy and as long as one is fighting anything, one is oneself not at peace. Nothing good comes from war.
Learning from my own experience, I do not believe we can change others by force, by lectures, by shame or by finger-wagging. All we do when we behave this way is alienate the very people we aim to change and demonize and marginalize them, further solidifying the very situation you don’t want. Florence Shinn would say, “we magnetize whatever we focus on to ourselves”. I am paraphrasing here. Personally, and I can ONLY speak for myself, I have only ever made drastic changes in my life by merely witnessing these ideals expressed in others before me, nothing more, nothing less. For example, I started running after reading this book called Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. As an adolescent, I started wanting to be a better cook after working for Monique, an elderly widowed French woman who was impeccable in character and a genius homemaker. I was curious about science fiction after reading Elon Musk’s biography of how he use to spend hours at the library daily after school and imagining all the possibilities of the future world. All these changes were made from inspiration. Zero force went into making these monumental changes in me. I personally need to see you engender these qualities in you first, before I ever make a move to follow you.
How DO we change people? I would begin answering that question by even asking why? why do we need to do that? I understand we might want better for our world, and that maybe that might be the driving force, but, I absolutely question the approach. Some might feel it necessary to directly dictate to others how to live, think and see the world and think that in demanding and expecting 100% abeyance to a very specific set of worldview people will joyfully join in. Yet, little do these same people realize that there is this energy of forcefulness behind their approach, a forcefulness that is felt quite viscerally by people, like myself, who have trauma around such approaches. People who have been burned, hurt, abused or tricked by people with positions of authority will not ever JUST take any authority on their word. The approach needs to be much more genuine, much more integrated to the person. You need to live your own truth before you are to be trusted.
Therefore, while I do not particularly believe it will ever be my role to tell others what worldview to adopt no matter what my position in life might be. YET, IF I WERE to try to change others it would be much more successful to attempt to change others by taking ones focus off of the force and focusing ones energy entirely on just living your own truth as genuinely as you can possibly muster, set an example, live by your own words. Then, from that place of radiating peace and love, fully trust that our light, and our wisdom, our example will be brightly visible to all who interact with us. This approach, while it’s the slow-burn, gentle approach of approaches is both trauma-informed and allows for maximum personal freedom.