RESOURCE CONDEMNATION

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Recently I came across an interesting argument from Norwegian psychologist Arnhild Lauweng about the need to accept others and how it is sometimes treated:

“… we, they say, are proud, unyielding and independent Norwegians who, if necessary, will gladly go alone to the North Pole, in all cases of life we must cope with difficulties on our own, rely only on ourselves, and in no case should we go down to dream of attention and care from others … Man is a social animal, and we need our own social group. So where did this disdain come from? "He wants to get attention to himself", "painful need in society." What do we mean by this? There is nothing painful in a person's striving for contacts with other people "(A. Lauweng" Tomorrow I have always been a lion ")

There is nothing of the disease in this need, but there is so much of vulnerability in it. I will not be rejected, or rejection will lose its meaning if I do not need someone's attention. And the greater the vulnerability, the more wounds of rejection, the less one wants to feel and live this need for acceptance. It's easier to anesthetize it in yourself and start judging it in others. It's so scary to show your sore spot! Better to go alone to the North Pole …

This link, ignorance + condemnation, can manifest itself in different ways. Recently, on the embankment, I met a very elderly couple of foreigners. Both the man and the woman wore very short bicycles and bright, tight-fitting T-shirts. The woman was without a bra and makeup. I felt something strange, quickly brushed aside this feeling and thought about these people, about the world from which they came, and did not think about myself at all. And what I didn’t think about was this: if you face the truth, I condemned these tourists and at the same time I was ashamed of it. Naturally, I didn't want to feel all this….

The fact is that I was scared by the vulnerability of this woman (with a man, everything is somehow easier). In my inner reality it is dangerous to walk like this, this reality can punish me very harshly for it. If my grandmother would go out on the street like that, I would not find a place for myself because of anxiety, suddenly, they will mock, be rude or somehow aggressively show themselves …

And being vulnerable is so scary.

If some children run on the ice of the river, I am anxious and angry with them. How can you so recklessly expose yourself to danger! But these children grew up on this river, they ran here more than once and do not step on dark places. The river is safe for them. Likewise, these elderly foreigners have enough experience of accepting themselves in such clothes, so as not to feel vulnerable in this image. And I have no such experience. There is another, the opposite, obtained long ago, when there were no resources to cope with the threat of someone's rejection.

When I see a person who does not fit into my understanding of the norm and is vulnerable to what scares me, I have a choice:

Ignore your judgment

Feel judged and reject this person

Feel judged and start saving that person

· Or feel vulnerable.

This person by his appearance, behavior, sexual preference, religious views (underline as appropriate) causes my condemnation, because he reminds me of my vulnerability. And it hurts there. And scary. And I don't want to be at all. And you can somehow try to influence him (by persuasion, ridicule, or something else) or still on yourself - try to deal with your vulnerability. By accepting my vulnerability, I can begin to handle it with care, choosing the best tactics for myself, and not hide behind condemnation or false acceptance. With the same foreigners, I could not merge into shame and anxiety, but simply accept it as a fact, as a meeting with another culture, where this clothing is perceived as appropriate and ordinary. I cannot condemn a person for the fact that he speaks another language, for example, or was born in another country. But they reminded me of my vulnerability, of my fear, and I fled into a safer judgment for me. And only after some time she was ready to meet this sore spot in herself.

Condemnation is very resourceful for reflection - it is like a red mark on the treasure map of self-knowledge and acceptance. The problem is that condemnation is very charged and either shame closes all approaches to this label of one's own vulnerability, or focus on another.

Having begun to notice and accept my condemnation, looking through it into my vulnerability, I learn to deal with it consciously, I gain the ability to accept another, including his vulnerability, which manifests itself even in the possibility of condemning me or my loved ones.