Dear friends,
Hope you had a good Deepavali holiday and may the festival of lights bring you many blessings, healing, and love.
I started writing this weekly message in 2005 as a way for my team and I to reflect on our work, and where possible, celebrate a small success that energises us for the week ahead. This routine has taught us to view situations through different lenses and a key perspective would be that of the people who are the primary reason for our existence.
I learnt very early in my training that empathy is walking a mile in someone else’s shoes and the reason we find this hard to do, even metaphorically, is because we do not remove our own shoes. We love our shoes because we take much pride in how far we have walked in them. We are attached to our shoes because they have helped us overcome the many rough terrains we have treaded on. These shoes have given us a sense of competency, an identity of success and a place of comfort. Removing them feels counter-intuitive and requires much effort, practice, skill, and gratitude for our own lived experiences.
A family was telling us that of late, they are getting along with their 19-year-old son because he has not been abusive after having alcoholic drinks. He is just chatty, and they actually appreciate the conversations and light banter when he is home after drinks. From our standpoint, the daily consumption looks rather excessive, but the family finds it acceptable. For them, the absence of abusive behaviour demonstrates that it is a volume that their son can manage responsibly.
This family had asked us to guide their son to stay on the right side of the law and to stop his abusive behaviour. Without doing much, the family does not seem too perturbed now but how do we shed light on a drinking behaviour that has proven to be problematic not too long ago? I suppose we could simply point it out bluntly, but I suspect it would not go down well and we will no longer be welcomed by the family. So, much effort in understanding and appreciating the family’s perspective on their son’s drinking is needed and our assessment of it being problematic is the shoe we need to remove if we are to walk a mile in theirs. Perhaps, then we may be able to appreciate that as different as they may be from our own, their worldview provides some comfort, success, beauty and maybe even a glimmer of light.
Sometimes, the “problem” isn’t the only problem. Our expectation of what a good solution to the problem would look like, can cast a shadow over these little victories that give people a little strength and hope that things will get better.
As we try and walk in the shoes of those less fortunate, we must be conscious not to extinguish these points of light. Because they matter.
Wishing you good health and peace of mind.
Sincerely,
Gerard
