Whipped Cream on Dog Poop
I have just been out on our lawn pushing our daughter on the swing. Listening to her giggles and shrieks of glee. Higher daddy, higher! All is right here now on our lawn. And all is so not right on lawns beyond our fence.
Today is Sunday in Aotearoa, New Zealand. It has been a hard week. Anti-mandate protesters moved forcibly from Parliament lawn here. Putin laying siege to Parliament in the Ukraine.
Yet there are plenty of conversations going on about what is right. I’m right, you’re wrong. I’m good, you’re bad. I win, you lose.
But the tragic cost is always love and affinity.
So much of reality is what we perceive it to be. I believe a key to regaining love and affinity is the ability to embrace the perspectives of others as being valid, even when different to our own.
How might we encourage being open to accepting that there are other perspectives equally valid as our own, and value others who hold them as equal in our shared humanity?
One of the mental models I find most helpful is that of a cup with a handle. From one side, there is clearly no handle to be seen. From the other side, the handle is obvious. For me to say the cup has no handle and for you to say it does, has both of us right. The same cup, more than one perspective.
Listening to the perspectives of others is not easy though when we are waiting for them to say sorry. When we want them to be held accountable for wrongdoing. When they have disrespected us and what we value. We want them to pay for what they have done to us or those we love.
I do think it is possible to forgive another without them taking responsibility, because forgiveness is a choice. However, I do not think it is possible to reestablish trust until responsibility is taken.
Until we feel heard and another has taken responsibility for the impact of their words and actions, we are closed to anything else they offer, no matter how good. It is just whipped cream on dog poop.
How might we take responsibility for our words and actions that have impacted…