Using New Ideas and Behaviors in Relationships

Speak Peace in a World of Conflict outlines a whole new way of being in relationships.  Since relationship is at the heart of a wonderful life, maybe exploring new ideas and behaviors is of #1 importance.  So, I'm going to do a series of posts about these new ideas summarized from the book. 

One of the first radical ideas Dr. Rosenberg puts forth is that we are naturally compassionate and naturally are made happy by contributing to other people.  Of course, most of us would say, "What?!! Are you crazy?!! Look around - that's not how people are acting."  We would be right about that.  So he follows up with the idea that for thousands of years we have been educated to enjoy hurting each other.  We are taught to believe that human beings are basically evil, that people are divided into good and bad, and that bad people must be punished.  We are taught that a good life is one where we are the good guys who heroically fight evil people.  So in order to feel good about ourselves, we have to identify the bad guys and punish them. 

We are certainly going to need to feel better about ourselves because we also have been taught to violently criticize and judge ourselves.  Unless we attack other people that we judge as worse than ourselves, we will sink into depression and guilt.  This explains why we have learned to enjoy hurting other people (whom we have judged as the bad guys).  It's the only antidote we have to self-hate!  Naturally, then, the world is going to be divided into warring factions as each person tries to align him/herself with the good guys and fight the bad guys. 

Dr. Rosenberg suggests we think back into our memories of the times we were the most pleased with ourselves and with life in the last week.  He says that most people will think of times when they've done something for someone else and the memory will make them smile.  When I make my gratitude list each day, there's usually something on there that I had the privilege of doing for someone else.  I'm tremendously grateful for learning this truth.  Just to keep things clear, neither I nor Dr. Rosenberg are suggesting huge Mother Theresa self-sacrifice to our own detriment.  Nothing that extreme is necessary for happiness.  Even little things like holding the door open for someone with their hands full, smiling at a child, complimenting a sales person's shirt will add up to a happy day.

All this is quite simple, but there's no denying that it is incredibly difficult.  The mindset of judgment, criticism, hate and blame is deeply ingrained and not easy to root out.  But the payoff is way, way bigger than we can imagine.  Every step in the direction of service to others brings us closer to the life of our dreams.