You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver, Wild Geese.
Have you been wanting to change your challenging behaviours or actions?
Oliver's poem is referring to living and embracing our messy, nuanced humanity. However, as a society, there is the view that if somebody has done something 'wrong' or even 'bad' that there is no redemption. In fact, sometimes people refer to others as a 'monster' if they do something wrong, which leads to the idea that the people that engage in challenging behaviours are evil or some sort of innate and binary concept. However, we are human. We all have the capacity for an assortment of behaviours.
Oftentimes society privileges those with less challenging behaviours as being worthy of empathy and worthy of support, but frown upon those with more difficult behaviours or actions. However, as therapists we see the spectrum of human emotion and experience, we look at how life-events may have led to a person behaving in such-and-such a way and we offer a space of non-judgement and empathy when the person asks for our help.
I love this excerpt from I, Tonya, featuring the incomparable Margot Robbie. I saw a 'meme' which captioned this clip 'when someone makes me feel bad for not being able to improve my mental health' and it is what motivated me to create this blog post around difficult and challenging behaviours and how I welcome them in my work with clients. One of my favourite parts of being a therapist is being able to soothe people in this ('Tonya's') state and remind them I won't abandon them whilst they confront and gently heal their challenging behaviours - providing the human relationship (the reparative relationship) they needed when they were most likely left alone with their experiences. I'm so lucky to get to be that for my clients.
People may question giving space and empathy to people who share behaviours that are deemed bad or even damaging, sometimes saying that it encourages the behaviour! As a therapist I'm not here to judge (and I've seen so much of humanity - in myself too - that I don't see things so much in a binary way). People don't learn from shame. Shame warps experiences and leads to people hiding from their behaviours and potentially worsening such behaviours. By being empathetic we can encourage the hurt part of a person (which could have influences these behaviours) to show up and help us create a repair: a life worth living and the confidence and courage to change for the better. In whatever way that may mean.
People, humans, are not born to do 'bad things', we do what we know to do, with what we have at the time (to paraphrase Robbie's portrayal). And to come to therapy to try and change things, which I've seen countless clients of my own do so powerfully, shows the willingness to change and be and do better for themselves and for those around them.
If you are trying to repair your own challenging behaviours and to take accountability, here is a song that may help soothe your mind.
My favourite lyrics from the song:
"It's alright, it's okay, it's alright, it's okay
You're not a monster, just a human
And you made a few mistakes
It's alright, it's okay, it's alright, it's okay
You're not gruesome, just human
And you made a few mistakes
It's alright".
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