I’m currently looking at ways that I tend to inflict verbal violence/shaming, often without even realizing it. Or perhaps with only peripheral knowledge. Certainly, it’s true that we should all be capable of withstanding a certain amount. However, it’s also something that none of us should have to experience. As much as it is a part of our lives, it is not one to embrace.
This doesn’t mean that everybody should agree with us (the most common objection I hear). Being non-violent doesn’t mean agreement, or that you refrain from disagreement. Apples and oranges. What it does mean is that in your agreement, you stop short of attacking the other person’s value or validity or right to hold a perspective that differs from your own.
Look. You have your perspective for a very complex set of emotional and cognitive reasons. You didn’t get there by spinning a wheel to see where it landed. Even if you took your view wholesale from a certain source, there were reasons why you chose to trust and accept that source. The reasons might be poorly or well-advised, sound or unsound, etc., but for whatever reason, they are yours.
And I have mine. We each have our own. Our own cognitive/emotional context.
When I condemn, I’m judging another based on MY context. Does that even sound rational? To expect another person living in their context to act according to mine? Is it any more reasonable than expecting myself to act according to theirs? When I shame you, I seek to violently crush and displace your context with my own. I’m not violating your body, but your personhood, your individuality, and your self-determination. Does it matter that your skin isn’t bleeding and bruised and your bones aren’t broken? Those are just your body. What I’ve violated is much closer to the core of who you are.
People have often reacted with the assumption that this view of things would result in being thin-skinned and hurt by every careless word or thoughtless deed. My experience is quite the opposite. The more I give up and let go of violence, the more easily I can stand back when others inflict it upon me and see it for what it is – a displaced expression of their own suffering, violated expectations, and inflexibility when dealing with those violations. It still hurts, but not in the same way. In a sense, I hurt for them more than myself because I can see that the harm they intend to inflict upon me has already been inflicted upon themselves, and is not being relived with me as an attempted unwilling surrogate for themselves.
At the same time, I become less reactive and more able to consider whether I’ve done wrong and what apologies/amends are needed. I can spend my energy on addressing the suffering (if it’s appropriate) instead of defending and putting up walls. I develop skin that is neither thick nor thin, but authentic and true. Over time, I come to allow what is true to penetrate and teach, while letting those things that are false and dysfunctional pass through.
But don’t be lulled into thinking that this will make anything easier or make people like you more or whatever. In some cases it will. In other cases the reaction against authenticity and violence will be quite strong – and violent. You will no longer be speaking the same language. You will have set aside a language of self-centeredness and bigotry and violence for one that expresses love and acceptance, not only of them but of yourself as you are, which at some point will not be what they want from you. You’ll stop understanding things like jealousy and possessiveness and eventually defensiveness and anger and depression and rejection and a lot of things. You’ll be surprised how much you relied upon them. And some may take years or a lifetime to fall away completely. But as you grow stronger, they will grow more and more distant and foreign. But it will take time, which in itself will be an exercise in self-acceptance and non-violence.