Continuing my previous post on Lesson 170 from A Course in Miracles, which says, "There is no cruelty in God and none in me," let's discuss in more solution-focused context, the topic of cruelty as it pertains to love, our theme for 2022.
Paragraph one says, “No one attacks without intent to hurt. This can have no exception. When you think that you attack in self defense, you mean that to be cruel is protection. You are safe because of cruelty. You mean that you believe to hurt another brings you freedom, and you mean that to attack is to exchange the state in which you are for something better, safer, more secure from dangerous invasion and from fear.”
There are multiple points in this very dense lesson that all. lead to the idea that we are creating within our minds the thing that we're fearful of, that we have to protect ourselves from, and therefore we actually produce the thing that attacks us that we then have to protect ourselves from. It's all in the mind.
Of course, there are always nuances and additional forms of care that need to be taken when we make these sort of claims, such as in the case of victims of murder or rape or deep systemic social injustice. There are nuances that need to be brought into play. However the basic idea remains that as human beings, we create things in our minds to be fearful of that we then have to protect ourselves from and the vicious circle of attack begins in our minds.
In the previous post, we discussed the prospect of whether that means that you shouldn't carry a weapon as an example to protect yourself from assault, or whether you should use sophisticated alarm systems to protect your home and to fortify it against home invasions and things of that nature. The conclusion at the time was that the course isn't really arguing for or against those sorts of defenses. But what it's really trying to get at is that deep inside of us, we want to be sure that we're not fomenting or cultivating attack thoughts that we then have to protect ourselves from and at the deepest level, the final resting point of the whole lesson is that deep down under all of this is our conviction that God is cruel and that we have something to fear from God and God's cruelty which becomes a justification for our own cruelty. This is preceisely what we're trying to undo ultimately.
Next, I want to offer a more conceptual exploration concerning what happens when you're dealing with recurring or repeated cruelty or “stuckness” around cruelty in oneself or in other people, in one's personal circle or in one's professional circle. Today’s topic being, how to deal effectively with people who are stuck in cruelty of some kind. It could be ourselves or it could be other people.
I thought it might be helpful to illustrate, first of all, what some examples of cruelty could be. Some of the things that came to mind are the following:
Let’s start with deeply self punishing behaviors such as addictions. When people have addictions, that's an exercise in cruelty. Quite often there's this vicious circle of chasing after the thing that one's addicted to and then increasingly and in a deepen way having all kinds of dire circumstances attend to us.
On the heels of the addictive behavior, loss of relationships, loss of professional success, all kinds of criminal things can happen. Getting involved with criminal justice system, health issues. There's a lot of cruelty that you could just see that at some point.
Another form would be repeating financial difficulties. Now, I'm saying that sometimes we can go through phases in life where we're just struggling with financial difficulty and it's panic inducing, it's fear inducing, it's so uncomfortable and yet it can feel cruel when one is stuck in this recurring, vicious circle of scarcity is another example of self punishing cruel behavior.
The we've got bad relationships, abusive relationships, dysfunctional relationships, cruel relationships and people sometimes for a certain phase of life we can just keep going back repeatedly to the same thing and then hopefully eventually there's some kind of escape. But quite often you hear of bad dysfunctional relationships that end in murder or murder suicides.
Then the final category that I'm looking at with regards to some examples here talking about emotional and mental suffering, just struggling with existence. “What am I here for? My life doesn't have any meaning. I feel like I want to escape. I can't.” Again, a lot of this can tend towards self harm and suicidal behavior. So that's all sort of self-inflicted kinds of things that most of us will recognize some of either in ourselves or in the people we love.
The second category of examples has to do with the leaders that I work with, the clients that I have - I want to preface what I'm going to say by pointing out that I love my clients and I love working with them. It's an honor and a privilege, and the way I go over these is in such a generic way that it refers to no one in particular or everybody in general - So some of the things that tend towards cruelty, especially when they cycle a lot, are confidence issues. A leader who has an amazing public persona and reputation but who secretly struggles with confidence, or Imposter Syndrome, as some people call it.
Or furthermore, a lack of clear goals. Even though many have achieved amazing outcomes and successes when they're in a trusting, safe environment. There could be a sense of not having clarity about what they want to accomplish. There could be a lot of self-medicating with alcohol or overwork or even the the of sort quest for money itself. Lashing out at others who care for them and are on their teams and get things done for them.
Being accident prone is another example, falling into patterns where having car wrecks often or falling and breaking bones and things like that.
And then finally, for now, looking for external solutions to their leadership and team and enterprise issues. Looking for external solutions that don't work and won't ever work. But being on a treadmill of constantly looking for the next external solution. A better enterprise computer system, a better tech system, a better group of people. It's a vicious circle.
It is important to begin looking for those things while looking inwardly towards where the source of this cruelty is coming from.
To sum up these forms of cruelty, let’s identify a working definition of cruelty for these purposes. It is a kind of stubborn, repetitive attack on oneself or other people. A senseless action where there really isn't any long term benefit, maybe a short term benefit that's not legitimate in doing something harmful to someone else or oneself. Ultimately, non serving behaviors.
Google defines cruelty as, “Callous in difference to our pleasure in causing pain and suffering. Callous indifference to our pleasure in causing pain and suffering. For example, ‘He has treated her with extreme cruelty.’”
Another definition is, “Behavior that causes pain or suffering to a person or animals,” and then a more legal definition, “Behavior which causes physical or mental harm to another, especially a spouse.”
Going back to the fact that people torture themselves by doing things that are so counterproductive over and over and over again is connected to the lesson in the course which is basically saying that if we have this hidden underlying assumption that God is cruel, then it justifies our being cruel. The lesson is trying to help us understand that human cruelty comes from a belief that God is cruel, as some people may glean from The Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament in Christian terms, which has God killing people in war when they're the adversaries or the enemies of the Jewish people, or there are a lot of penalties of death for different crimes and sins and things like that. Even so far as the New Testament in which Jesus is crucified ostensibly by God allowing it so that Jesus can pay for our sins. Many may understandably come to the conclusion that God is really bloodthirsty and if it weren't for the violent death of Jesus, we'd all be toast to burn in eternity. These theological concepts and so on are at the root of a need for cruelty.
So finally, here are some solutions to cruelty and eradicating it from the root. These are purely my own personal solutions based on what ultimately is my limited experience, not the be all and end all. In other words, there's so much more that can be added to these from your experiences and if you're a coach or another type of helper, you might have a whole different process of things you do on your own for this.
The first issue that I usually like to sort out when I'm addressing someone who seems to have some kind of “repeating cruelty” going on either with regards to themselves, doing it to themselves, self inflicted, in other words, or doing it to someone else, is if they are basically coachable or teachable. This is an important thing because I have very specific ideas on how people can be helped to transform, and occasionally I'll encounter somebody who doesn't seem coachable and/or teachable.
In other words, I can see that we're going to spend time debating what I'm sharing rather than implementing. Granted, I am by no means trying to be a dictator and I'm not looking for somebody who just yeses me and says, “Oh, whatever you say, Dave.” But beyond a certain sort of curiosity about where this is coming from and what informs it and how it might work, you can kind of tell if somebody wants to get you off track by challenging you and denigrating what you're trying to share with them and all kinds of other stuff like that. So I think the first step is to decide whether the person is teachable and or coachable enough for you to be able to continue investing energy in this whole area.
If they are great on that front, you can then go on with the work and we'll talk about some of what that is. If, however, they do not seem to be coachable or teachable to me, then I will usually try to indicate pretty quickly that I don't think we're the right fit for each other and then at that point, I try to refer them elsewhere to someone who I think might be able to help them better.
Sometimes, in spite of our best efforts here, we can get stuck with someone who isn't going to be teachable or coachable, and therefore isn't easy to refer out somewhere. So in that case, I, myself stick with them and then I revert to a lot of what I call prayer and cleaning. So I turn to spirit a lot and I ask, “What is it that you want me to do about this situation?” This first bit is very preliminary about getting started with someone.
So now then, the next part of the discussion goes to what if the person is coachable and teachable? What do you do then? We still start with a lot of prayer and cleaning! I find that a bit humorous. That same solution, in order for the work with somebody who is teachable and coachable to go really well, there's a lot of prayer and cleaning that I like to do myself and I like to recommend to guide the work.
So then, here are a few more specific things. I really like to ask a lot of questions about what the person really wants out of the circumstances that they're in. So you're stuck with drinking or drugging or ”meaningless sex” or pursuing money and possessions and fame and notoriety. What is it that you really want? What's the goal? What's the end result in all of these things? What are you looking for?
More broadly than that, what is it you want your life to look like by the time it's all over? This is a good question for doing a reset when you're 90 or 100 years old, what do you want your life to have been about? Asking a lot of detailed questions about what the person is seeking as their goals in life, that's a good way to build rapport and connection and to gain some trust with the person.
I can refer them to all kinds of books and other resources that will give them technical information about how to recover from addiction, or how to get into better relationships, or how to sort their finances out, or how to build more effective business and enterprise teams. That knowledge is there, but it's not the starting point. The starting point is to build a kind of bond of trust and understand the root. The next thing I like to get into with “stuckness” is to really then after we've done the goals, to explore a little bit about what the pain points are that the person is dealing with. What's your actual pain that you drink around? Or what is the pain that makes you lash out at other people who love you? Or what's the pain that makes you threaten your team members even though they work their hearts out for you month after month, year after year? So I do an inventory of the pain. They may say, for example, “I feel as though people don't listen, people don't take me seriously. People don't hear what I have to say unless I really make a big screaming loud noise.” There are all kinds of pain points you may get.
The next part of the trust building connection or dynamic is around surfacing the person's pain. I find that typically, for instance, in the case where I'm helping parents with their kids, teenage kids or whatever, the parents usually want to police the kids. They want a solution for a 17 year old but are constantly berating them with rules and restrictions. How about instead of policing them, let's explore what they want to do. Let's explore what their pain points are. Let's make it a safe space for them to chat with us about what those things are. And it seems very counterintuitive to parents but what I usually do then, at that point is I'm cleaning as I'm watching the dynamic of their frustration play out because the dynamic itself is stuck.
For any new readers, when I say “cleaning” I am referring to the operation of ho’oponopono that we've touched on and talked about elsewhere, which is this ancient Hawaiian healing technique. I've boiled it down to something that works quickly without me having to explain it.
What I say is, “I’ve got this cleaning technique. Are you willing to do it with me?”
They say, “Yes.”
And I say, so I'm going to say the phrase, “Please delete my negative programming and just repeat that after me.”
We'll do that to warm up a couple of times, and then I'll start ad-libbing things into the phrase like, “Please delete my negative programming with regard to why I drink so much,” or, “Please delete my negative programming with regard to why I yell at people so much.”
We are undoing the building blocks of cruelty to love. These are all blocks of cruelty instituted by the malicious ego to block us from the source of true love that solves all of our problems. So trying to solve our problems from stuck places, pain points, and by having different techniques for releasing the blocks to love, we connect with love, and the way forward opens up.
So that's the short and sweet version of a technique for helping people get unstuck immediately, quickly, and also helping me get unstuck in my work with them. It's music to my ears when after a procedure like that, I say, “So how do you feel after all of that you just did.” (Along with disclaiming, I'm not fishing for compliments or anything like that.) To which they'll laugh and say, “Well, I feel better. I feel lighter.”
That's exactly what we want and then the point is to make this an ongoing, day-to-day functional practice, in some variation of it that works for everyone. I encourage you do to an inventory of your cruelty and work through these steps today to move toward a life of more love.
