2
Transformation:
Creating Context, Part 1
When we reinvent ourselves, we take our life experiences and transmute these base metals into gold -- the truth about who and what we are and what we are capable of doing.
Mind and emotions hold the key to personal transformations. When we have achieved a significant degree of MA/C, we have been transformed. Transformation is evident in the rather dramatic changes in the way we think, what we think about, the way we feel about what we think, the way we behave and the way we think and feel about our behavior.
These changes usually manifest in certain personal/social skills or abilities, capacities and behaviors. These may include but are not limited to:
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Reinventing ourselves begins with transforming our self-concepts and raising our self-esteem. William W. Purkey (1988) in his paper “An Overview of Self-Concept Theory for Counselors” defines self -concept as:
"The totality of a complex, organized, and dynamic system of learned beliefs, attitudes and opinions that each person holds to be true about his or her personal existence" (Purkey, 1988).
Raymond M. Bergner and James R. Holmes (2003) characterize traditional definitions of self concept ( like Purkey’s) as
“…an organized informational summary of perceived facts about oneself, including such things as one's traits, values, social roles, interests, physical characteristics, and personal history.” Bergner. R and Holmes, J., 2003, Self-concepts and Self-concept Change: A Status Dynamic Approach [online][URL]http://www.sdp.org/sdp/papers/selfconcept.html).
They offer a different definition of self-concept, what they describe as a summary formulation of one’s status, and “…how changes in it will result in profound and pervasive changes in the quality of … [life].” Bergner. R and Holmes, J., 2003, Self-concepts and Self-concept Change: A Status Dynamic Approach [online][URL]
http://www.sdp.org/sdp/papers/selfconcept.html).
Self-concept is thus defined as:
one's overall conception of one's place or position in relation to all of the elements in one's world, including oneself. (ibid, Bergner and Holmes)
They provide a wonderful example of this conception using Charles Shultz’s popular cartoon character, Charlie Brown.
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In a simple and humorous, yet illuminating, illustration of this notion, cartoon character Charlie Brown once lamented that he was unable to initiate a relationship with a little girl on the playground because "I'm a nothing and she's a something." He then went on to relate that, if he were a "something," or she a "nothing," he could pursue her, but that, since "nothings" cannot hope to succeed with "somethings," he could not act. In this example, Charlie provides us with a simplified illustration of the self-concept as a summary formulation of one's status ("nothing" existing in a world comprised of "somethings" and "nothings"); and illustrates how what is fundamental about self-concepts is not that they are informational summaries of myriad facts about oneself, but that they place one somewhere in the scheme of things Bergner. R and Holmes, J., 2003, Self-concepts and Self-concept Change: A Status Dynamic Approach [online][URL]http://www.sdp.org/sdp/papers/selfconcept.html). .
If Charlie Brown could change his thinking, if he could see himself as a “something” rather than a “nothing”, he would be transformed. His feelings about himself, his abilities and his relationships with others would be radically different. His behavior would change. He would be re-invented. This usually does not happen in a “twinkling of an eye”, but is a process in a larger process.
Self-concept, whether defined as an organized informational summary or a summary formulation of our status, is derived from our interaction, from infancy onward, with the physical and social environment. According to Gundelina A. Velazco (2003):
It is a social product and the self of experience made up of what really happened. It is a developmental formation which is not present at birth and once formed is not immutable throughout life; it can be changed by the situation and significant others (Mead, 1934; Rogers, 1951; Bourisseau, 1972; Felsenthal, 1972; Hattie, 1992). For example, a child may say, “I am a drug addict”, or “I am poor”, or “I am physically abused”, or “I am lazy” and these descriptions are based on what happened in the child’s life or what he was told in interactions with others. Such self-descriptions may change, given new inputs or experiences.
Velazco, G., 2003, “Picture Me” Conceptual Framework [online][URL] http://www.viva.org/tellme/events/cuttingedge/2001/gundelina.html
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Self-esteem is more than the self-concept. It is how we value and regard our self concepts. Velasco continues:
it is the basic respect or regard for the self-concept (Hayakawa, 1963). One can be asked, “How do you regard your being a poor person?” or “How do you regard or value yourself as a drug addict?” These are abstract questions pertaining to the self-concept of being a poor person or the self-concept of being a drug addict…If self-worth pertains to values attributed to the self-concept, then indirectly, it is values attributed to the origin of the self-concept, which is what happened. “What happened” is a concrete experience that children can think of more easily. Hence, children can be asked, “How do you regard your having had to go hungry for several days?” Or “How do you regard your having been physically abused by your mother?” But still, “How do you regard” is too abstract and conceptual for children. It has to be translated into something more understandable and easier to respond to. It has to be inferred from a more specific behaviour. For example, the child can be asked, “To what object or thing do you liken yourself? Why? What happened that makes you feel that you are like that object or thing?” When, as a result of having been physically abused, the child considers herself to be like a torn rag doll, the association with the torn rag doll is apparently indicative of a low level of self-worth. Associations, if adequately explored, can be used as a gauge of the level of self-worth. Velazco, G., 2003, “Picture Me” Conceptual Framework [online][URL] http://www.viva.org/tellme/events/cuttingedge/2001/gundelina.html
The stories of abuse victims dramatically illustrate how far an individual must come to rehabilitate and then transform self-concept and self-esteem. The story Cathy tells is a fairly typical example of domestic violence:
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Gary and I were together for eleven years. He started calling me names, putting me down and hitting me not long after we were married. I was taught that you stay in a relationship no matter what, so I was determined to make it work.
I left him after the first year because I couldn't stand the violence and his constant monitoring of everything I did. I went to live with my family in Wellington. After a short time he came down there and we started to work on the problems. Things seemed better and I moved in with him again. He didn't hit me at all during that year but when we'd argue he'd throw stuff close to me. He'd throw an ashtray a few centimeters from my head, and then he'd say, "Don't make a big deal out of it; I didn't hit you". At the time I thought, well that's true, he didn't hit me.
We moved back to Auckland and the hitting started again. After he hit me, he would say that if I just hadn't done this or said that, he wouldn't have hit me. So I stopped doing the things that apparently were setting him off. He told me not to yell, so I stopped yelling. He told me he wouldn't hit me if I got a job, so I got a job. He told me he wouldn't hit me if I didn't drink, so I stopped drinking. But the violence didn't stop. He always had a reason. I kept trying to change my life so I wouldn't get hit.
I got a protection order - Gary was really pissed off and moved to Tauranga where his brother was living. He quickly moved in with a much younger woman. I was so glad to have some distance between us again. I have almost no contact with him today except the few times when he visits the children. I think he could have changed if he had done a program or been confronted with his behavior early on by someone he'd listen to. We didn't really know what to do or where to go. We went to counseling once but the counselor couldn't or didn't want to deal with the abuse that was going on. I know that Gary knew what he was doing wasn't right. Once he introduced me to Cheryl, a woman friend of his who was being hit by her boyfriend. He was outraged and wanted to find ways of helping her. But he couldn't make the connection between what he was doing to me and what was happening to Cheryl. That's why I think if someone had got to him he might have been forced to look at his own behavior...
Healing for me is a long process. I thought when I left Gary everything would be OK, but it wasn't. It wasn't until I started going to women's groups and sorting through everything that had happened that I started to heal. I never saw myself as a battered woman. But I am gaining self-confidence. It's strange that after all that happened, I still have feelings for Gary. I mean we spent eleven years together, and had children together. Yet I don't think I could ever marry again. My trust level with men is pretty low and I'm not sure I would want to take the chance of another relationship. Anonymous, 2003,Cathy’s Story,[online][URL] http://www.dvc.org.nz/cathy.htm
Self-confidence in Cathy’s case is one indicator that healing has taken place. It is an indication of transformation as well. Abraham Twerski (2002-2003) sheds some light on what self-confidence should look like in an individual who has experienced personal transformation:
You have a positive outlook on life and look at each new day as an opportunity to learn, to experience the world and to adventure life. You are not overly aggressive and pushy, but you look forward to new challenges and learning from your mistakes. You speak up for yourself, but without arrogance. You feel like you have a mission in life and are able to evaluate options and make decisions. Even if you make a mistake, you do not see yourself as a failure. You may have had a failing, but your "self" has not been attacked. You are still whole. As my father always says: Life is like driving a car on the highway: As long as you're holding onto the steering wheel you can steer around the potholes and ride over the bumps. But always keep going.
You do not allow others to control you, but you do not feel the need to control others. You do not hide when confronted, but you do not look for fights. You can cope effectively with the realities of life and have a healthy self-assertiveness. The feeling of self-confidence comes from an inner feeling that you are a capable person and that you are able to deal with the curve balls and difficulties that life throws your way. You don't look at them as problems, crises or difficulties, rather as challenges and opportunities for personal growth. Twerski, A.. 2003, Confidence [online][URL] http://www.12steps2selfesteem.com/inside/html/hse-confidence.html
Self-Confidence
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When we reinvent ourselves, we take our life experiences and transmute these base metals into gold -- the truth about who and what we are and what we are capable of doing. The misfortune in our lives and/or what we have been told about ourselves in our interactions with others are no longer the most significant shapers of our self-concepts. When we purposefully work to overcome the guilt, worry, stress, loneliness and fear of rejection that are residue of negative self-concepts and low self-esteem, we can change our self-descriptions and revise our summary formulations of our status. Given new inputs or experiences, we can reinvent ourselves over and over again.
The capacity to accept and embrace human difference begins and expands with the cultivation of tolerance, acceptance and compassion. A few words about each of these concepts are necessary if we are to make plain what we mean by accepting and embracing human difference.
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Old Pawnee proverb...
"Grant that I may not criticize my neighbor, until I
have walked a mile in his moccasins"
This often-used adage has been attributed to the Native American. Its message is simple. To walk in another’s moccasins is to place ourselves in another’s reality, to see the world through another’s eyes. This cannot happen unless and until we first learn to tolerate the personal presence of others and allow them to communicate the way they think, feel, and look at the world. An individual’s thoughts, feelings and point of view shapes and propels his or her behavior.
Being tolerant of another’s personal presence often means reducing and overcoming the compulsion to judge and act in a self-serving manner. This is not easy. Some people can easily provoke fear, anger, hate, envy, jealousy, greed, lust or any number of other negative emotions. This happens when their acts and utterances challenge what we believe to be real and true, and threatens the sense of who we believe we are. We feel compelled to defend our point of view. This most often happens when we condemn what other people say and do, unconsciously believing ourselves capable of thinking, feeling, speaking and acting just like them – or, when we know this for certain. Asserting through our judgments that these people are at best, strange, or at worse, evil, bolsters our need to separate ourselves from them -- to be “right” or “correct” -- and almost certainly at their expense.
So many of us have been guilty at one time or another of thinking, feeling and behaving as if the only purpose for another’s existence is to meet our needs. The meaning of “self-serving” in this sense is to place our needs and interests first, without regard for the needs and interests of others. When we are in this frame of mind, we “tolerate” people in our lives, in our intimate spaces, in exchange for what they can give us, what they can do for us. And we judge them accordingly.
Gary Zukav (2000), appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show provided some interesting insights about judging others [adapted from website, parts of these quotations are paraphrased – author]:
Gary Zukav
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…when we judge others, it is because we are seeing the world the way we want to see it — not the way it is ... In a moment of judgment, you are experiencing the feeling of powerlessness. …[M]ost people don't take the time to become aware of that feeling of powerlessness, instead we lash out to keep from feeling the pain… [W]hen you judge, you're trying to change another person, and in turn, trying to make yourself feel more powerful.
To get past the judging… you must make the effort to see what you're actually feeling, instead of acting out. To get to the heart of your judging, …you must do some inner work, and have the determination to look at yourself with clarity…Another effective way to challenge your urge to judge… is to put yourself in the other person's shoes. Once you begin to see through their eyes, your perception of them will change. Zukav, G. 2003, Judgment, [online][URL] http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/tows_past 20010226_b.jhtml;jsessionid=MSIKF0JPQNVKHLARAYGCFEQ-)
Being tolerant of another’s personal presence means having the capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs, values attitudes and behaviors of others.
“Tolerance”
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Mukund Padmanabhan, writing in “ The Hindu” online edition of India's National Newspaper Saturday, Aug 17, 2002 has this to say about tolerance:
…. tolerance … signifies respect for beliefs and practices, which differ from one's own. Respect for the beliefs and practices of others is not the same as agreement or moral endorsement. Rather, it means a willingness to try and understand why people think and feel differently from you. It means the capacity to treat such people with dignity. It means the ability to hold on to your convictions while accepting the right of others to hold on to their own. Tolerance is not acquiescence, but a recognition of difference. (Padmanabhan, 2002, http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/yw/2002/08/17/stories/2002081700630100.htm)
It goes without saying that we are not born with this capacity. Nor are we born with the requisite knowledge and understanding that enables us to recognize and respect the beliefs, etc., of others. The capacity is developed; the recognition and respect come with education.
Tolerance, though a necessary first step in the process of accepting and embracing human difference is just that, a first step. The next step is acceptance. Acceptance in this context is much more than the mental attitude that something is believable and should be accepted as true.
The abbreviated version of the Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) puts acceptance into perspective:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
http://www.geocities.com/everwild7/serenity.html
For some of us, refraining from judging others and practicing tolerance and acceptance came only after we hit our proverbial “bottom” and understood experientially what it meant to be judged, and to be victims of intolerance, to be unaccepted. We were motivated from those experiences to change our lives. We were determined not do to others what was done to us. This is when we became “teachable” and learned some hard lessons about acceptance. Buddy T., a sober alcoholic, relates some of these lessons:
Image taken from
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For me, serenity began when I learned to distinguish between those things that I could change and those I could not… The key to my serenity is acceptance. But "acceptance" does not mean that I have to like it, condone it, or even ignore it. What it does mean is I am powerless to do anything about it... and I have to accept that fact. Nor does it mean that I have to accept "unacceptable behavior." Today I have choices. I no longer have to accept abuse in any form. I can choose to walk away, even if it means stepping out into the unknown. I no longer have to fear "change" or the unknown. I can merely accept it as part of the journey.http://alcoholism.about.com/library/weekly/aa102297.htm-
In moments of tragedy, admonitions for acceptance can often be the last thing we want to hear. It is important to remember that we do have choices -- to accept what life brings to us or not. The following story brings this point into sharp relief:
The Creightons were very proud of their son Frank. When he went to college, naturally they missed him, but he wrote and they looked forward to his letters and saw him on weekends. Then Frank was drafted into the army.
After he had been in the army about five months, he received his call to go to Vietnam. Of course, the parents' anxiety for his first letter was greater than ever before. And every week they heard from him and were thankful for his well-being. Then one week went by without a letter ~ two weeks ~ and finally three. At the end of the third week a telegram came, saying, "We regret to inform you that you son has been missing for three weeks and is presumed to have been killed in action while fighting for his country.
The parents were shocked and grieved. They tried to accept the situation and go on living, but it was tragically lonesome without Frank.
About three weeks later, however, the phone rang. When Mrs. Creighton answered it, a voice on the other end said, "Mother, it's Frank. They found me, and I'm going to be all right. I'm in the United States and I'm coming home soon.
Mrs. Creighton was overjoyed, with tears running down her cheeks she sobbed, "Oh, that's wonderful! That's just wonderful, Frank.
There was silence for a moment, and then Frank said, "Mother I want to ask you something that is important to me. While I've been here, I've met a lot of wonderful people and I've really become close friends with some. There is one fellow I would like to bring home with me to meet you and Dad. And I would like to know if it would be all right if he could stay and live with us, because he has no place to go.
His mother assured him it would be all right.
Then Frank said, "You see, he wasn't' as lucky as some; he was injured in battle. He was hit by a blast and his face is all disfigured. He lost his leg, and his right hand is missing. So you see, he feels uneasy about how others will accept him.
Frank's mother stopped to think a minute. She began to wonder how things would work out, and what people in town would think of someone like that. She said, "Sure Frank, you bring him home -- for a visit, that is. We would love to meet him and have him stay for a while; but about him staying with us permanently, well, we'll have to think about that.
There was silence for a minute, and then Frank said, "Okay, Mother," and hung up.
A week went by without any word from Frank, and then a telegram arrived- "We regret to inform you that your son has taken his life. We would like you to come and identify the body.
Their wonderful son was gone. The horror stricken parents could only ask themselves, "Why had he done this?" When they walked into the room to identify the body of their son, they found a young man with a disfigured face, one leg missing, and his right hand gone. Unknown The Army Son, 2003,[online][URL] http://inspirationalmail.com/acceptance/son.htm
image created by author, Disabled Vet.jpg
Acceptance means knowing the limits of our power. It means knowing what we can change in our reality and what should be left alone. In our relations with others, we learn sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, that it is easier to change ourselves than to change others, that in fact a change in others can be effected when we change what we think, say and do in our relationships with them.
For some, acceptance may seem to connote resignation, impotence, compromise and other less than positive meanings. This is a matter of personal point of view, and personal points of view can change. For many of us, especially those of us who are accustomed to throwing ourselves at the world, it represents a new wisdom – the ability to back off, to live and let live.
Accepting that others may think, act and believe differently from us and still be good people -- not a threat to us -- is perhaps the most difficult challenge in accepting and embracing human difference. This kind of acceptance comes with knowledge, a knowledge of how people think, feel and act. This knowledge is derived from the ability to observe others without judgment.
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To be a nonjudgmental observer is an acquired skill. It means looking at people without referencing our personal needs and interests. It means looking at people without our notions of bad and good, wrong and right, worthless and worthwhile, etc. It means overriding our cultural filters.
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Free of these influences, we can examine the utterances and behaviors of individuals for cause and effect relationships – that is, the connection between thinking, feeling, personal point of view and behavior. These relationships and their consequences can be assessed, but only in terms of what is advantageous or disadvantageous to the person or persons observed.
Like any other skill, this requires practice. It requires
Practicing this skill over time can result in many benefits, not the least being:
“Compassion”
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Compassion, the third step in the process of accepting and embracing human difference, is defined in the final essay in this series of essays as:
“a sympathetic consciousness of another’s distress together with a desire to alleviate it. “
(We will go through a rather elaborate deconstruction of this definition, breaking it down, examining each part e.g. word or phrase, and putting it back together again in a later essay. This will not be done here.) Suffice it to say, compassion means being aware of another’s suffering as if it were our own and then being compelled to do something about it.
This quality of making another’s suffering our own is a key element in understanding compassion. It suggests that we can so identify with another that to assist in easing that person’s suffering is like easing our own suffering. Put more simply, when we “do unto others,” we are actually doing for ourselves. The following anecdote aptly illustrates this point:
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One day President [Abraham] Lincoln was returning to the White House riding in his carriage and dressed in his best, when he noticed a small pig by the side of the road, mired in mud. It was squealing and squirming wildly, but all its efforts merely drove it deeper into the mud. Lincoln ordered the coach to stop, got out, and waded into the mire. He tugged and pulled until he managed to free the pig. Upon his arrival home, his family and friends noticed the mud all over his clothes and while he went to change them, the coachman explained what had happened. When the President reappeared, everyone flocked around him, praising him for his kindness. He told them, "Please save your praises. When I saw this little creature in such distress, it was as if there was a thorn driven into my own heart. And so I plucked it out. Therefore, it was really my own pain that I eased by helping that pig." Chitrabhanu, S. 2003. Compassion, [online][URL] http://www.jainmeditation.org/pages/anecdote16.html
Think of the changes each of us could effect in the world if we could feel for our fellow man the way Abraham Lincoln felt for that pig.
The capacity to accept and embrace human difference is built on
The ability to reinvent ourselves and the capacity to accept and embrace human difference form the basis for the acquisition of a higher order set of MA/C personal/social skills that can enable us to live and function in cultures and subcultures other than our own as if we were natives. These skills are known generally as intercultural competence and will be the subject of the next essay, Essay #3:Transformation: Creating Context, Part 2
REFERENCES
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Ferguson, Marilyn, The Aquarian Conspiracy. Jeremy P Tarcher/Putnam: a member of Penguin/Putnam Inc. New York, 1980-87.
Furnham, A./ Bochner, S.: Culture shock. London 1986
Gudykunst , William B. and Kim, Y. Y. Communicating with strangers: An approach to intercultural communication (3rd ed.) , New York, 1992
Gudykunst, William B , Ting-Toomey, and Nishida, S (Eds.) Communication in personal relationships across cultures, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1996
Hall, E.T./ Hall M.R.: Understanding cultural differences: Germans, French, and Americans. Yarmouth 1990
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The Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous
WEBSITES
Bergner, R.M. and Holmes. J.R., 2003 “Self-concepts and Self-concept Change:
A Status Dynamic Approach”,[online][URL] http://www.sdp.org/sdp/papers/selfconcept.html.
Chitrabhanu, S. 2003. Compassion, [online][URL] http://www.jainmeditation.org/pages/anecdote16.html
Domestic Violence Center, 2003, “Cathy’s Story”, http://www.dvc.org.nz/cathy.htm
Neibuhr, Reinhold, 1892-1971, “The Serenity Prayer”, [online][URL] http://www.geocities.com/everwild7/serenity.html
Purkey, William W., 1988, An Overview of Self-Concept Theory, University of North Carolina, [online][URL] http://www.invitationaleducation.net/ie/self_theory.pdf.
T, Buddy,”Acceptance”, 2002, http://alcoholism.about.com/library/weekly/aa102297.htm-
The Army Son, 2003, The Army Son, 2003,[online][URL] http://inspirationalmail.com/acceptance/son.htm
Twerski, Abraham, 2002-2003, “Confidence”, [online][URL] http://www.12steps2selfesteem.com/inside/html/hse-confidence.html
Velezco, Gundelina, “Picture Me” Conceptual Framework” , 2003,[online][URL] http://www.viva.org/tellme/events/cuttingedge/2001/gundelina.html
Zukov, Gary, on the Oprah Winfrey Show, 2003 http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/tows_past 20010226_b.jhtml; jsessionid= MSIKF0JPQNVKHLARAYGCFEQ-)
