The world of social commentary is unwilling to step into a deeper truth and remains a place that is happy to pretend that all we have to do is be good and nice.
But that pretence is one of the key ingredients required for violent eruption
7 minute read
The current talk is about Will Smith hitting Chris Rock at the Oscars. Popular social commentators know how to get Likes and write obvious stuff like “To hit is bad.” They are not out for truths nor are they willing to risk being on the edge. They tell us what we already know. They reassure us that what we know is true.
We all learnt not to hit in pre-school and we all know “to hit is bad” is an important axiom for us as individuals and as a society.
I was wondering… other than reassuring us of a socially agreed standard, does reinforcing this simple level of knowledge somehow reinforce the good behaviour?
From what I see, repeating a half truth won’t create the open and truthful culture we all want. One that includes personal growth and a safe, civil society.
I’m going to have a look and seek out the other half of this story’s truth. You are welcome to come.
Before I begin though, I want my reader to know that if they are triggered by violence due to past or recent experiences, this may not be an appropriate read. Importantly, my readership is mostly people from relatively well-off, civil, democratic societies with high-school level education. My reader is often someone with an interest in yoga and svadyaya (self study) in their life and those who gain freedom from thinking more deeply about what it is to be human.
I also want to be clear that this post is focused on the inner life of a person experiencing the violent outburst, the inner fragmentation, the call to erupt.
This post might not be appropriate in the context of traumatised communities. This message is for a certain person and a certain place in their life: a place where one can afford to question, look deeper, and feel ready for new openings.
And the outcome: forgiveness.
Forgiveness of self and (in a responsible way) forgiveness of others.
Some Not so pretty Facts: We are fractured
People hit other people even when they know it is wrong, even when they love the person, even when there are dire consequences for themselves, emotionally, socially, financially, politically.
In high school we read Medea. This Greek tragedy’s pungent truths touched and opened a part of us to see the deeper forces that lurk in the shadows. Stories like it awaken us to our inner life. Some of us choses to shut out feelings or shut them in tight, sealing all cracks, like an obedient and moral citizen should. Others of us stay open and exposed to the full hazard that human existence can be.
We hazard ourselves out of love and mostly, out of justice. Driven by a single minded desire for rebalancing the scales. And it is bigger than us: the drive is ancient, it is innate, it is biological and even pre planet earth: it is a law of physics.
Like the concepts of heaven and hell, there are polar opposites that move toward balance.
So we know one thing. Those who speak outrage at the shocking act of Will Smith’s blow to Chris Rock’s face have not themselves been a conduit for that force to move through.
Beautiful in its truth and terrifying in its destruction.
If you have never been pushed to an edge well beyond your capacity to manage or control, then why do you have any authority or say in this area? Your words are empty.
Those of us who have lashed out uncontrollably have not just had our entire sense of self, ego and personality shattered in that instant. We have also had to sit in the mud and grit and cold of social isolation, judgement, rejection and mistrust. With that comes deep self doubt, floating without an anchor.
Some people have mental health conditions like narcissism and personality disorders. They may not exhibit behaviours that demonstrate an awareness of culpability of responsibility. They may as a rule blame others for their violent acts. But if we agree that most people feel incredible shock at an unplanned explosion of violence and therefore go through some self evaluation, then we can move forward in this exploration.
If you have never violently erupted, I can tell you, that in the aftermath it feels like the pores of ones skin become so exposed with shame that they can’t protect the ‘you’ that is inside anymore. Without a shell, without a voice, without the skill to understand or explain what just happened, you just have to sit and wait and eat the dirt until insight comes.
For many of my readers they will know that the urge to uncontrollably slap, push or hit someone is real. They may have seen their child do it, their siblings, their parents, their friends, their enemies, someone at work, a client, their partner, themselves. Some may have put the memory far away and forgotten about it.
From this level we can see that labeling it as good or bad won’t make the behaviour less real.
It is not only real, it is most likely here to stay.
An individual may have the means to see red flags and avoid inciting environments and people, but the animal urge is always going to be there, deep in the unconscious.
We are fractured. Our socially presented self, the one we cultivate and show to the world is but a fraction of all that we are. Acknowledging this is an important and significant step and I'll show you why.
Looking deeper
Do we need the social commentary that says violence is wrong? Well why not eh? We do well to draw a clear line and pronounce repeatedly the socially accepted standard.
But it is a societal bandaid. When I look with a bit more depth I see that there are conditions from which the violent rupture arises. And, like all things, when those causes and conditions are met, the behaviour will occur.
I remember talking with a client a decade ago. She was outraged that her partner had lost controlled and pushed her shoulder. She judged that level of violence as wrong and unacceptable and her words were “I would never, ever do that. No matter what”.
With the knowledge of the shadows that stir beneath us all, I brought her attention to or humanness. The yogic way knows that we are all connected and come from the same source and all have the potential for harm and for good. She disagreed and reiterated that she could never exhibit violent behaviour, ever.
Post divorce she was back seeing me for Yoga Therapy and wanted to make peace with her behaviour and the fact that a situation arose where she did strike out physically.
She could come to me and talk about it fully because she knew Yoga Therapy offered a context in which such action could bring light to life in ways that are useful and healing. A door opened and what became possible for her was to grow into a fuller sense of her human-ness. She felt she did not have to try to shrink or stuff herself into a socially acceptable version of what life is. She saw that the technique of “making someone feel bad so that they do good” is unhelpful when the true goal is wisdom and enlightenment.
So the urge to judge Will Smith may come from a pretence that we have no interest in the forces that drove him. No awareness that being uncontolled is a real and totally out of control experience. The world of social commentary is unwilling to step into a deeper truth and remains a place that is happy to pretend that all we have to do is be good and nice.
But that pretence is one of the key ingredients required for violent eruptions.
The conditions
For those fortunate or wise enough to have never lashed out physically I invite you to imagine you are in a situation where life just keeps pushing you, wearing you down so hard, then totally without warning, just as you feel you can’t hold on anymore, you are hit with a shocking and unfair mistruth, and you find your are face to face with evil, it is bearing down on you, it’s in your space and ears and view and it’s trapping you and taking your air, it’s thrashing at and destroying the one thing inside of you that you know to be good and true
….perhaps then we will meet on the other side of ‘right’.
In that moment you will think you are a force of good. That the energy running through you aims to protect you and is one that must occur. The energy of an eruption will rebalance the scales of justice as it stands for what your whole being - from bones to guts - feels is right and true in that moment.
And when polite society tells you that you were not fighting evil, you were the evil, you will be stupefied.
The Yogic Tradiations deal with this energy very well. Wise as they are.
To help us humans understand these greater forces, the Hindu approach is to manifest the energy into anthropomorphic Gods and Goddesses. We have Shiva, Kali, Durga, we have the demons with all their greed, pride, envy, sloth and lust. Best of all, these are depicted as energies that move through us. They are characterised in story and with circumstances we can relate to and learn from. We learn the laws of the universe - cause and effect - the law of karma.
We also have the Yogic tenant:
HeyumDukhamAnagatam
“The suffering to come can and should be avoided”
Know Thy Self
So when you see a trite phrase like the quote from Jim Carey “But you do not have the right to smack someone in the face because they said words” he totally misses the difference between our rights and our very real moments of shadowy, uncivilised truths.
I don’t call it true because it is right, I call it true because it is real. It happened. It happens. It will happen because the seed is innate in us human - animal - creatures that we are.
What to do?
Know the conditions that create the outburst. Both in ourselves and for others.
From the yogic perspective we study the Kleisha, the five obstacles to enlightenment: ego asmita, ignorance avidya, attachment raga, aversion dvesha and clinging to life abhinivesha. If we are not meeting these in a daily way with consciousness then under the surface something may be brewing without our knowledge.
From your experience, do you think these might be relevant conditions for a violent eruption?…
If someone is feeling:
unseen
unheard
that there is an injustice forced upon them
made to feel bad or wrong, shamed, judged
under resourced, unfair demands
cruelty toward them
or is suffering ill health
no other options, no viable way out, trapped
then they might need a wider berth to just stay on even keel.
Added to that, if this person puts a lot of pressure on themselves, has guilt or other complexes including past truamas, then a difficult situation may suddenly be too much to manage with civility. If this is a close friend or family member with whom you’ve had robust interactions and crossed and rebuilt many boundaries, you may have familiarity to know when its time to take the pressure off, to step back or step away.
But if not, if it is someone whose patterns you are not familiar with, you can check in with your own nervous system: if it is activating or arcing up, then you know that probably it is in response to theirs. To me this is the golden rule that trumps all others. So get to know your nervous system and learn to interpret its messages so you can act skilfully. So much of yoga and meditation is about exactly this. Know your physical body’s messages before that message becomes a gross and out-of-control act.
In-the-moment options: discharge some of the energy in safe ways: You can remove yourself, go for a walk, call a wise friend, regulate your own emotions, get clear about your own boundaries and needs.
Longer term options: get expert advice, make decisions from a wider perspective, reassess some of the non-negotiable (like, ‘we have to live together, it’s’ our home’, or ‘we have to do Christmas together because we always do’, ‘I can’t get up a leave in the middle of a work meeting’) be creative. And again, regulate your own energies through yoga, meditation, pranayama and other awareness practices.
Marshall Rosenberg’s Non Violent Communication is an amazing technology. Or if you want to understand the tension between our animal self and civility, listen to Joseph Campbell’s incredible interviews on the topic. Or read interpretations of the Mahabharata where our moral compass gets a revamp by shifting the perspective (if we can withhold judgement for long enough that is).
Finally, just because a behaviour is unwanted, the desire for it to disappear does not create the reality.
Labeling Will Smith’s out of character action as ‘wrong’, ‘bad’, ‘unacceptable’ etc. serves to blind us to its essential nature and truth.
We cannot see into something with insight and clarity when we are so keenly rejecting it.
Get interested and get curious and get truthful. That’s how forgiveness is earned.
We can then move forward together with a deeper sense of safety.
