I am noticing a change in me, in the way that I evaluate situations between other people.
Historically, whenever I've see someone being violent toward someone else (usually an adult being violent to a child) I've responded by feeling angry and/or violent toward the adult. I definitely judge(d) the adult's actions as "wrong" and had strong urges to "even the score," so to speak. Because I have a history of physical violence, the possibility of me actually carrying out this impulse is/was quite high. (I've done it before.) Thus, this is an area I've been examining.
I had the opportunity to compare two very similar situations this past weekend, both involving me witnessing violence toward children. I found my reactions interesting and noted how I felt after each one.
The first situation occurred in a parking lot of a restaurant we had just eaten dinner at on Friday evening. We were walking to our van (after taking a walk around the building twice) when I heard a woman yelling "Stop!" I saw a girl, probably about four years old, running across the parking lot. There was a car coming, and it stopped quickly. The mother (ostensibly) dove toward the child and missed her, then fell and rolled, spilling her drink on the ground.
When she got up, she started yelling at the girl and hitting her -- I think she hit her three or four times. The father (ostensibly) scooped the child up and said something to the mother I couldn't hear. Then the mother started yelling at the man, indicating by her words that he disagreed with her choice to hit their daughter.
Seeing this triggered a strong chemical response in me, first from the potential of seeing a child run over by a car, then by seeing a woman fall and be potentially injured, then from seeing a child hit repeatedly. I felt a huge chemical / emotional surge that I would have a difficult time labeling -- I felt a sense of heightened alertness and was ready to "spring" to whatever action might have been necessary or appropriate. When the chemical intensity had died down enough to register any particular emotion, I felt sad and upset -- my needs for safety had not been met.
My "action urge" was to approach the woman, ascertain if she was okay physically, and then hit her as hard as I could in the face with my shoe. (This was very specific -- I didn't want to bruise my knuckles and knew that if I hit her with my hand as hard as I wanted, I would injure myself.) My thinking was as follows: Her daughter did something that did not meet her needs for safety and she became upset. Her reaction was to hit her daughter. Seeing that did not meet my needs for safety and I became upset, thus my reaction was to hit her. If these things are not different, then how could she be upset with my assault? How as it different from her own?
Luckily, I only had a strong urge to do this, and instead of acting on that urge, I herded my kids into the van and tried to reassure them -- hearing another child crying was not meeting their needs for safety.
Afterward, I felt on the brink of losing my temper for about ten minutes. I felt…edgy, anxious, sad, disappointed. My needs for safety were not met. My brain had produced the chemicals to support a state of rapid action, thus I felt strong urges to DO some sort of action, but nothing I could think of was appropriate / in line with my values. After a while, the feeling passed -- I consciously became involved in other activities and went on about my night.
The next day I was shopping and heard an exchange between a woman and (ostensibly) her daughter, who was about eight years old. I couldn't hear what the girl said, but could hear the mother's side of the conversation clearly. The mother said that she had told the girl to go to the bathroom before they left the house, so she was just going to have to hold it. The girl said something else, then the mother told her she would "tear her up" with a belt if she wet her pants and reiterated that she would have to hold it until they got home.
My first response was anger, but since I am working with that, I immediately examined what was underneath the anger. I felt…. sad, anguish -- my needs for safety, respect, wellness and equality were not being met. I had a palpable chemical reaction and started crying. I considered offering to walk the girl to the bathroom, but hesitated long enough that they moved on and I didn't see them anymore.
I wrestled with anger for a few moments, feeling the familiar sensation of judgment and should thinking about the mother. I felt so sad, sick to my stomach. I also wrestled with my own guilt at not doing something to help the situation, of my conditioning that tells me I "shouldn't" do anything. I also felt confusion and uncertainty and wanted clarity about how I would have liked to have acted in that situation.
I felt empathy for the girl -- did she feel afraid? Embarrassed? Did she need safety and acknowledgement? Autonomy? Respect?
Then I was able to empathize with the mother -- did she feel overwhelmed? Irritated? Was she needing support, rest, ease? (Then, had I been able to get to this place quicker…) Would she be willing to allow me to take her daughter to the restroom while she took a short break?
This situation lingered in my consciousness longer than the one the night before, and when I examined why, I realized that it was because the father intervening and comforting his daughter did partially meet my needs for safety. The story I projected onto that family is that this was an extreme situation, that hitting their child was not what they did as a matter of course, and thus my safety needs were partially met.
The interaction in the store lingered more, in that none of my needs for safety were met. The story I projected onto that family was one where this was how they usually spoke to one another, that this child was probably subjected to this sort of violent language and actions on a regular basis.
On the other hand, I felt less anger in the second case, meaning that because I was able to feel empathy for the mother as well as the daughter, I also felt compassion for her as well. I saw her overwhelmed, angry outburst as the manifestation of all mothers who don't get the support and help they need, who don't know any other way to release their hurt and frustrated emotions, who were probably also spoken to and treated the same way as children. I saw here as part of the larger society, as another example of the violence that is inherent in a disconnected, closed-hearted society.
Half an hour later, I found myself still feeling down, heavy, bummed out -- my needs for resolution and empathy had not been met. Thus I sat down and processed, sorted through all of my feelings and needs, empathized with all parties involved. I also realized / wrote, "My suffering will never minimize the suffering of another," and knew that it was true. Compassion is not suffering, though if the heart-space emotions aren't fully acknowledged and felt fully (i.e. resisted and thus grasped) then suffering occurs.
And wrote some more about it here……
http://www.chaos_monkey.blogspot.com/
