Learned Behavior

This blog could be thought of as a continuation to the previous one. If you didn’t read the previous blog on "Gentle Instruction", you may want to read that. It occurred to me following posting the previous blog, that people might wonder, how? How do I keep my words gentle and seasoned with grace when confronting or discussing malicious or volatile topics? So, this is my response.

When I was an intern on my way to become a therapist, I learned a valuable lesson about compassion. I was working with kids who had experienced trauma. One in particular had witnessed some pretty horrific domestic violence. During intern group supervision, one of the other interns shared that she was working with domestic violence offenders. I kind of shuddered and said, "I don’t think I could do that." She looked at me and she said something I will never forget. She said, "But Sarah, they are victims, too."

Now, she didn’t mean that they were victims in the violence which had brought them into court-mandated therapy, and therefore the violence was warranted. She didn't mean that at all. They were clearly the perpetrators, and they were being held accountable for their actions.

What she meant, therefore, was, somewhere along the way, these perpetrators were once victims. People don't become violent in a vacuum. People are not born violent.  Violence is a learned behavior, either through experience or through observation.

In trauma-informed care, a key shift we make is to move from asking, 'What's wrong with you?' to 'What happened to you?' or perhaps, 'What didn't happen for you?' We are the sum of our experiences, good or bad.

Now, not every child who is raised in a domestic violence home goes on to be involved in domestic violence. Not every child who experiences child sexual abuse goes on to sexually abuse others. What makes the difference?

Support is a major factor. Meaning, how much support they had and continue to have. What positive relationships were present in their lives? What interventions did they receive and how early did they receive them? These factors make a huge difference.

Children without supports, without help or intervention, are more likely as adults to repeat cycles of abuse and harm. They are more likely to be perpetrators, as well as - perhaps surprisingly - more likely to again be victims.

If we see those who hurt others through the lens of people who have been hurt themselves, or as people who have merely never been exposed to anything else other than violence, perhaps we can have more compassion. Perhaps we can approach them with a more gentle tongue.

Here's another example. When I was still working as a therapist, there was a woman who brought me her nine-year-old son. She told me he had anger issues, and she wanted me to "fix" him. I started inquiring, as I normally do in a first appointment, about the family and, specifically, I asked what models of anger he had seen at home. It came out that the child’s father also had an anger issue. He would yell and curse and throw things and punch holes in the wall when he was upset - the same behaviors the child was demonstrating. I asked if his father would be willing to join us in therapy and mom laughed and said, no, that’s not his thing.  I pointed out the fact that if dad was modeling an unhealthy expression of anger, it made logical sense his son would be acting similarly. He was learning from dad's behavior. Mom said to me, I'll never forget, "But he should know better." Stunned, I asked, 'how? How should he know better? He's nine.' We aren’t born with the ability to manage anger, or any other emotion for that matter. We learn from our environment and from experience. In my view, the problem wasn’t with the child. It was with the adults in his life.

Truth of it is, we all have our stuff, though some carry more than others. Our pain, our trauma, our hurts, our betrayals, our broken relationships, our bad memories, our daily stress. We've got stuff. And, if we don't deal with our stuff, other people's stuff will trigger us.

Here's the secret: nine times out of ten, the anger and hurt we feel when confronted with disputing ideas is not about the stranger on the Internet who posted something or the political figure whom we have never met who said something inflammatory. Nine times out of ten, the anger or hurt we feel is because of something that happened to us in the past by someone we did know. That doesn’t make it any less valid. It does make it... misdirected.

That said, there are certainly times when anger is a perfectly reasonable reaction. Even God experiences anger. It is not "bad" or "evil" or "wrong" to feel angry. Anger is like any other emotion. There are things that should make us angry. Like child pornography. Human trafficking. Genocide. The killing of innocents. Structural and systemic racism. I suspect God gets angry at these things, too.

However, it is what we do with that anger which matters. Are we acting out, perpetuating violence, spitting hatred? Or are we using that anger to motivate us into action to make a real difference in this world?

And, my position is, which I have repeated over and over again in this blog - that a true difference is only made through love.

Do you remember the flower children of the 60's? Okay, I wasn't around then, but I remember seeing a photo of a woman putting a flower into the barrel of the rifle aimed at her. Love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s entire movement was about peaceful resistance and... love. And it was powerful.

Love accomplishes so much more than hate and violence.

We cannot say we believe the victims of violence are worthy of human dignity, love and compassion, unless we are also willing to believe the perpetrators of violence are worthy of human dignity, love and compassion. Victims aren't worthy simply because they are victims. They are worthy because they are human beings created in the image of God. All people. All people. Are worthy of dignity, love and compassion, because of who God created them to be. This doesn't mean not holding people accountable. This certainly doesn't mean not holding safe boundaries when we need them. It means... not spreading the hate. It means turning the other cheek, even as we advocate for change.

It used to be, whenever I heard a pastor talk about how we are to be examples of joy and love in the world, I thought, well, should I just fake it then because I don't always feel like joy and love. More recently, it occurred to me that on my own, in my own flesh, I may not be those things, but, God who lives in me... is.

There is a deposit of God's Spirit within me, and within every believer. And the more we see Him and spend time with Him and fall in love with Him, the more He will shine out of us. And He is joy and love, as well as peace and light and patience and everything the world needs. He is the salt of the earth and the lamp on a hill. 

Scripture says, "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." - 2 Corinthians 4:6-7

We are all cracked pots! Jars of clay with cracks and breaks, imperfections and flaws. God's light within us shines through those cracks and breaks... if we let Him.

God wants to do that. But, sometimes, oftentimes maybe even, we get in His way. We get in His way because we think we've got this without Him. Or perhaps, what gets in the way of letting God shine through us... is our own stuff. It may be time to work on that stuff you've got. I know I've been working on mine! I've been in therapy. I've asked God to help me heal. I've asked God to help me forgive those who have hurt me. I've asked God to help me grow in compassion.

Because I want to be a change-maker in this world. And I won't get there unless I get out of my own way, and let God do His thing.