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Bonds That
Make Us Free, Part 22: Influencing and Being Influenced
by C. Terry Warner
We have learned
that one of the ways we can change in our hearts, in our way of
being, is by opening ourselves to others and allowing the truth
about their feelings and needs to influence us. It means letting
ourselves be taught about them, and letting them be our teachers.
It is this that brings about a change in us. It restores us from
the defensive and hardened posture we have adopted to our more natural,
open, and responsive I-You way of being.
These thoughts
prepare us for two important and somewhat surprising ideas that
cannot be separated from one another. Here is the first of the two
ideas:
Allowing ourselves
to be influenced is not only the way we change; it is equally
the way we can influence and help change others. By allowing ourselves
to be changed by others' influence, we become different: far less
defensive and accusing, and far more caring.
Then, having
changed, we give them a different kind of person to respond to
than before. And we do this without making any effort whatever
to manipulate them into being the way we want them to be.
We influence
them simply by letting them influence us!
It should go
without saying that when I refer to others influencing us, I do
not mean that we allow them to persuade us to compromise what we
feel is right. When that happens, we are using them as much as they
are using us-using their persuasiveness to excuse ourselves in our
own wrongdoing. By speaking of others influencing us, I mean that
we let them, or the truth about them, guide us in treating them
in the right way.
When we let
others influence us in this manner, we give them a different sort
of person to respond to, and this response on our part is what influences
them. It influences them partly by eliminating the reasons and excuses
we have been giving them for seeing us accusingly. When they no
longer have to worry about defending themselves, they have the "space"
to decide how they will respond to our new response to them. And
very often they will respond in kind. There is no better means
of promoting another person's change of heart than allowing our
own heart to be changed.
We discovered
this in analyzing Jenny's story of her relationship with Erin. It
was when Jenny became a truly loving, I-You person, by allowing
herself to be touched by Erin's struggles, that she suddenly gave
Erin a mother to respond to who wasn't self-absorbed and accusing,
a mother who did not judge or seek to manipulate her. Then, at last,
Erin could respond unguardedly to her mother's influence.
Another example
of influencing by being influenced is found in this story of a mother
who had been trying to tell her six-year-old daughter not to try
to clean the bathtub after her bath because of the mess she would
invariably create.
I had told
her many times not to clean the dirty ring as the water was going
out, because she always used too much soap, but that's just what
she tried to do on this occasion. And sure enough, she once again
used a great deal of soap. Suds were everywhere, even flowing
over onto the floor, and she was struggling in vain to control
them.
My usual habit
is to start criticizing immediately: "Look what you've done
now. You've used too much soap! Now I'm going to have to spend
twenty minutes getting this mess cleaned up!" And then she
carries on about how it isn't her fault and cries like I'm being
an ogre, which really makes me mad.
But this time
I didn't follow my habit. I said warmly, "You've tried to
clean the bathtub. I really appreciate that.
"And
you know what she said? She said, "Yeah, Mom, but I used
too much soap."
Our Influence Comes Back to Us
Now we are ready
for the second of the two ideas.
When others
undergo a change of heart (whether or not it happens in response
to a change in us), they can influence us and help us change.
For, as a result of their change, they give us a different sort
of person to respond to.
By allowing
ourselves to be touched or affected by this change in them, we
are influenced to sustain our own change of heart or to allow
it to be deepened.
Thus, by letting
others influence us in the first place, we may influence them
to influence us even more positively than before-and this can
reinforce our change of heart.
You will remember
Claudia from the previous
part-the woman who thought her husband was cocky and contemptuous.
When she stopped taking offense, she suddenly saw him in a new light,
as insecure and afraid. After this event Claudia went to find him-he
was living in a separate apartment at the time-and asked him if
they might go for a drive. He consented. She expressed nothing about
her altered feelings, but he sensed something different. As she
listened he talked openly and freely throughout their entire ride
together. This was unheard of in their previous relationship. In
fact, one of her complaints had been that he was not willing to
talk.
That change
in her husband reopened her eyes to the man she had fallen in love
with almost thirty years before. And predictably, this reawakening
in her touched him further. Within a few days they were back together;
when I heard from them several years later, they were still doing
well.
So the change
in us that comes from opening ourselves to others' influence invites
responses from them that can reinforce our change. Our gift calls
forth gifts from others; we get what we give, measured exactly.
In supplying others an occasion to respond differently, we often
find that in return they make it easier to be even more open and
generous with them.
This self-reinforcing
cycle, as you can see, is the positive counterpart of collusion.
It is the dynamic aspect of what we have called the bonds of
love.
Like many other
crucially significant matters in human experience, this positive
cycle lacks a name. So we must invent one, as we did with collusion.
We will call the cycle a considerate relationship, signifying
a reciprocal willingness on the part of two or more people to be
open to and affected by one another. This will become an important
concept in our further discussions of what we can do to escape troubled
emotions and attitudes. Sometimes I will speak of one person
being considerate of another, meaning that he or she is being
influenced by the truth about this other person. And sometimes I
will speak of a considerate relationship, meaning that all
the parties involved are responding to one another in a considerate
way and are thus being positively influenced by one another.
The discussions
that follow will sometimes seem to focus more on our influence on
others and sometimes on their influence on us. Either way, what
is said will apply to all of us; we should put ourselves in both
positions. The reason for this we have learned already. When
we allow ourselves to be influenced, we influence, and those we
influence-those who allow us to influence them-become an even greater
influence on us. Generally speaking, when we play one of these
roles, we play the other.
Waiving Our Demand for Justice
Think about the enormous contrast between the "before"
picture of our collusive relationships and the "after"
picture, when we have changed and have become considerate. Before
the change, we communicate the message, "You deserve whatever
treatment you are getting from me. Justice is going to be done,
and that means you must suffer." But after we change, we no
longer demand that they pay the last farthing before we will let
them off the hook for what they have done to us. We excuse them
from having to pay because we no longer think they owe us anything.
We drop all our charges against them. For their sakes we happily
sacrifice all bitter satisfaction, all retribution, all demand for
repayment, all vengeance. And we do all this without regret or second
thoughts.
This sacrifice
of retribution is not just an attitude of love, it is an act of
love. We make the sacrifice because it is the right thing to do
for them, not because we want them to do something for us.
A man named
Peter once visited me who had acquired a list of points I had
written about self-betrayal and collusion. He said that the night
before, he and his wife had stayed up late going over the troubles
in their relationship, each acknowledging to the other where he
or she had been in the wrong. "A spirit of love settled upon
us," he said, "that we have not felt for many years."
Then, he said,
something equally memorable happened the next morning, the morning
of his visit to me. Seven-year-old Penny bounded into the kitchen
and said, "Hey, something's different here. What's different?"
Soon after that Billy, age ten, appeared and, as always, started
tormenting his little sister. "On other days I would have become
irritated and impatient and probably thumped him on the head, and
I started to feel that way again. But I looked at Billy and felt
the same love for him as I had for my wife the night before. I just
looked at him and said, 'Billy, we aren't going to do that anymore.'
And he stopped and then he put his arms around me and buried his
head in my chest and wept."
This sacrifice
of retribution I am calling love clears a space in which others
can let down their guard and be emotionally truthful with themselves.
I met a man
once who had taught himself to live by this principle, which he
formulated in a couplet. Adapted to the terminology of this book,
the couplet can be expressed this way:
When we criticize
people, their consciences console them.
When we love
them, their consciences indict them.
"One
Person I Can Never Love"
Bruce is a broker in a Seattle firm. During a class I was teaching,
he seemed a ready student. After the second session, he stopped
me and said: "I believe I know where you are headed in these
classes, and I agree with the direction. But I just want to put
you on notice here and now that there's one person I can never love,
and no one else in my circumstance could love him either."
I listened without trying to persuade him otherwise.
Bruce had
sold his very nice home to the individual he referred to in our
conversation. The sale contract called for him to leave the major
appliances-stove, freezer, refrigerator, and so on. But the buyer's
wife informed Bruce one day that because she and her husband had
their own appliances, he could remove these from the house. So
he did. The buyer was furious. Then the buyer discovered that
the air conditioning didn't work properly, and that there was
a small hole cut in the living room carpet for an electrical socket
that had been covered by a lamp when the buyer had looked at the
home. After he had made an intensive inspection, the buyer found
many other things wrong as well. He drew up a list involving many
thousands of dollars.
Bruce felt
he was being treated as if he were a criminal and was being accused,
in an exceptionally nasty manner, of fraud. The appliance problem
wasn't his fault; the air conditioning had worked the day he left;
he hadn't meant to keep the floor socket a secret, and so forth.
Both parties insisted it wasn't just a question of money; it was
a matter of principle. "All I care about is seeing justice
done," Bruce said. What the other guy was trying to get away
with just wasn't right. Bruce stewed about it when he woke in
the mornings, any minute during the day when his mind wasn't otherwise
occupied, and all through the evenings. He even woke up in the
night to fret and lay his plans.
They arranged
to sue each other. Depositions were to be taken on a designated
day between the second and third sessions of our class. But the
ideas we had been studying in the class began to erode Bruce's
determination to take vengeance. Somewhere during the night before
the scheduled meeting, his heart changed. Suddenly the most important
thing in his life was not to revenge himself upon his adversary
but to do what was right. So he called him on the telephone.
"Whaddya
want?" the buyer asked rudely.
"I was
hoping we could avoid an all-out conflict and be friends."
The buyer was resistant, but reluctantly agreed to a meeting.
When they
got together, the buyer asked again, "Whaddya want?"
just as belligerently as before. Bruce picked up the list of items
in dispute. Starting with the first item, he said what he thought
was right. For example, he said he understood that any buyer would
be upset upon discovering that something he had purchased was
taken away, and he, Bruce, apologized-not only for removing the
appliances but even more for having bad feelings toward the buyer.
For each item he either offered to bear the expense or said he
didn't believe it was his responsibility. His offers to pay for
various things weren't the sort one makes hoping the other person
will object and say, "Oh, it's okay, never mind." He
really did want to do what was right.
When Bruce
finished, the buyer sat silent, his eyes wet. Finally he said,
"All my life people have been trying to take advantage of
me. You are the first friend I ever had." Then for the next
two hours he told Bruce his life story, including things he said
he had never breathed to anyone else. When they were ready to
part, Bruce tallied up what he owed and began writing a check.
The buyer said, "That doesn't matter to me anymore."
"No,"
said Bruce, "I need to make it right."
"Well,
then," the new friend said, "give me a hundred dollars
and forget about it."
When Bruce asked
for the meeting, there was, of course, no guarantee that the buyer
would allow his heart to be softened rather than hardened. Nor were
there any such assurances about the boy who spoke rudely to his
sister, the girl cleaning the bathtub, or Claudia's difficult husband.
But what amazes me is how often people do respond well-how often
reconciliation follows a showing forth of love. Hard indeed are
those who will not be touched by someone else's sacrifice of retribution.
In the next article we will take a closer look at the influence
exerted by those who choose to live truthfully....
This article
is part of a serialization of Bonds That Make Us
Free: Healing Our Relationships, Coming to Ourselves by
C. Terry Warner.
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