First off, my analysis of negative comments from others conversationally
or in daily discourse is one of the “cup is half-empty” personality. I shared, in the beautiful early morning light, for example,
a few weeks ago with one of my carpool charges, the news that we would be getting an English Setter puppy. The 17 year old
went on for quite a few minutes explaining to me why that was a very bad choice, indeed. This individual often responds only
in the negative, and usually at length. Rather than defend, argue, apologize, or in any way add to the negative energy field
that so frantically sought to re-produce (I see this almost as a virus in some cases) I said nothing. Brad Rourke suggests
on his site the wise responses of: “You may be right.” or “I am sorry you feel
that way.” These could also be used. Another clinically-modeled response that most people learn in pastoral care training
is the mirroring model (which I think has now broken into pop culture and become a non-listeners way to not listen but appear
attentive.) This is the “So, if I hear you correctly, what you are saying is x, y, and z.” These are all essentially responses
of neutrality.
I have explored in my parenting life and discipline the effectiveness
(on a 14-15 year old boy-child doing 14-year old boy things like disappearing and coming home at 2 in the morning…etc) of
the non-response response to bad behavior. Even the therapist concurred (in retrospect) that this was a stroke of genius!
Knowing that exploding or even lecturing would allow the behavior and the individual an opportunity to further misbehave and
continue a conflict once I accepted the (truly exhausting) role of explicator and dictator, etc., I decided to try an inflection
of non-violence theory-informed parenting. That is, I said nothing upon his return home, but instead allowed him to simply
face his own behavior in silence...carrying the weight of it himself…as I refused to buy into its attempt to corrupt the peace
and calm of my home environment. Amazingly, this worked. He ultimately came to me, almost crushed under his own inner critic,
and apologized for his behavior. This is yet another form of refusing to allow the negativity to re-produce (because it will,
continually). **(Come to think of it, just a few days ago he reminded me how much he appreciated the fact that I allowed him
to make his own mistakes — and how much he learned).
Just a couple more observations:
Example three: Obama’s campaign circa Feb-Mar 2008. He demonstrated
for the first time, I believe on a major national stage of political discourse, the power of non-violence. He refused to bend
to the ever-insistent trash-talking campaigning directed at him by the Clinton machine. I remember watching, in astonishment, as he appeared
to actually understand that non-violence could be employed in this Gandhian manner. That, in the end non-violence is a very
powerful theory precisely because it is not in any way passive. It is an active theory that understands the only way to create
a better path is to ignore the negativity when it seeks to re-produce itself. Once one has bent over and taken the bait…the
games is up and the negativity has won.
I do believe that in the moment of truly egregious and predictable
sources of negativity that such sources begin to slowly lose the right to even warrant the picnic chat comment of “I see your point.” In
some instances simple silence is fine. Going back to that ministerial pastoral care approach, the listening ear serves a wonderful
purpose. It supports the other individual. But, and this speaks more directly to the dilemma under consideration here: saves
the enormous amount of energy it can take to respond and protect oneself from the bait of negativity.
I
think the best way, ultimately to help people out of these habitual negative modes of behavior, and of nurturing fields of
negativity…is to simply stop feeding the beast. If folks find they lack conversation partners they may finally (even in spite
of themselves) learn that positive comments will engage and nurture conversations…just as a smile encourages social interaction.
Socially accepted negativity seems to be on the rise even beyond the Gen X and Y
proclivity for sardonic and perhaps sarcastic remarks. Next time someone
tosses the negative bait your way, think about your options. We do have some
useful tools. Best of luck.
This post first appeared as a comment on Brad Rourke's blog. www.bradrourke.com.
