My elder daughter and I are standing at traffic lights, waiting to cross the road. I look down at her – small for a six-year-old – and a huge wave of joy and gratitude for her existence washes over me.
She looks up, smiles and says, “I know.”
“What do you know?” I ask. (Though really, I know what she’s thinking.)
“That you love me.”
I pick her up and hug her.
Throughout this, I have been vaguely aware of a man standing nearby. As I hug my daughter, I notice he is looking at us and that his face has broken out into a huge smile.
I feel astonished, awed and so grateful for how a spontaneous moment of deep love welling up in me can affect a total stranger.
The lights change and we cross the street.
I am walking alone along a neighbourhood street. A young woman is coming towards me. As she draws close our eyes meet and she gives a beautiful, beaming smile. I smile back. I have no idea who she is, but for a second we share a connection. As I walk on, I feel light and happy.
Both those encounters happened a decade or so ago. I have never seen either of those people again, yet I have never forgotten their smiles.
Sometimes we think we have to do something big to make a difference. It’s just not true. All my daughter and I did to make a difference to a moment in one man’s life was feel and express love for each other. All he did, was to show how much he enjoyed seeing that. All one young woman did to make a difference to smile. One moment is enough. Life is composed of moments.
The belief in our powerlessness is perhaps one of the most pervasive and destructive beliefs in human existence. It’s partly what stops people from getting out of terrible situations – I’m thinking of the woman who stays with an abusive partner because she feels powerless to stop him or to leave. I’m also thinking of the people who don’t vote because they believe it makes no difference. The child who doesn’t try at school; the person who stays in a job they hate. The person who walks past a beggar because one dime or pound or rupee is all they can spare and it isn’t enough. Or the person who thinks there’s no point in speaking out because one voice won’t make a difference.
I’m thinking, too, of myself. As I look back, I can see that time and again, this belief in powerlessness stopped me taking action. Whenever I believed it, I didn’t try because I expected not to succeed, or else I took action half-heartedly, without trusting I had what it took.
Even in the worst of situations we aren’t powerless. In my teens, I was held hostage at knifepoint. (Click that link for the full story.) It would have been futile to try to fight the attacker: he was stronger than I was.
Yet that didn’t leave me powerless. Somehow, some way, I found the words to persuade him to leave the room, and the strength to then escape. I was terrified. I wasn’t powerless.
That situation is one of the worst I’ve experienced, but it pales compared to what some people have gone through. In his book, The Gentle Art of Blessing
If that story seems a little hard to believe, remember that what all of us want is love. Deep down, nobody wants to murder, any more than, deep down, any parent want to yell at their kids.
In the face of true unconditional love, our outer shell of defensive rage dissolves.Tweet
I’ve experienced this myself. In a scenario many parents will recognise, on a day years ago, I felt annoyed with my younger daughter. She had not been interested in doing what I asked and in my frustration I had yelled at her several times. It was time to brush her teeth and, after what felt like an endless battle, she seemed willing to cooperate, but I still felt tense.
She stood looking at me and said, “I love you.” Then she hugged me.
All I could say was, “Even after I’ve been angry with you, you still love me.” My anger evaporated and I murmured, “I love you too.”
If she had felt powerless, she would have said nothing, would have cowered away from my anger, and my heart would not have melted as it did.
Knowing how I was back then, later on I would most likely have tried to make it up to her, feeling shame, thinking I was a terrible mother. That’s the flip-side of feeling powerless – for some reason it almost always comes with taking on blame and verbally punishing ourselves.
In other words, we believe we are powerful, even in our powerlessness. The woman who feels powerless to stop her partner beating her also believes she somehow caused him to do it – and so she punishes herself as often as the abusive partner punishes her. Those would-be murderers in Rwanda tried to feel powerful by attacking others, no doubt feeling powerless to create the change they wanted through peaceful means.
Of course, we might not be able to respond like that Rwandan man, but we actually have no idea how we would be in that circumstance. It’s easy to think I couldn’t bear it, but when we are in a situation, we just do what we can.
A man I hugely admire is Viktor Frankl. He had already died before I read his book, Man’s Search for Meaning
Frankl was an Austrian Jew, who worked as a psychiatrist. When World War II broke out, he chose to stay with his parents rather than escape the Nazis. During the war, his wife and his mother were all interned in concentration camps. In Man’s Search For Meaning, Frankl describes this experience. Here are a few snippets:
We were anxious to know what would happen next; and what would be the consequence, for example, of our standing in the open air, in the chill of late autumn, stark naked, and still wet from the showers. In the next few days our curiosity evolved into surprise; surprise that we did not catch cold.…
The medical men among us learned first of all: “Textbooks tell lies!” Somewhere it is said that man cannot exist without sleep for more than a stated number of hours. Quite wrong!…
A few similar surprises on how much we could endure: we were unable to clean our teeth, and yet, in spite of that and a severe vitamin deficiency, we had healthier gums than ever before… A light sleeper, who used to be disturbed by the slightest noise in the next room, now found himself lying pressed against a comrade who snored loudly a few inches from his ear and yet slept quite soundly through the noise.…
The prisoner of Auschwitz, in the first phase of shock, did not fear death. Even the gas chambers lost their horrors for him after the first few days — after all, they spared him the act of committing suicide.
And this:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
So, no matter the circumstances, we are never completely powerless. It’s not always easy to remember that, but it is worth it. I can’t tell you how to remember you aren’t powerless, except perhaps to think of Viktor Frankl’s words. I also have a feeling it all starts with self-compassion.
21 Comments on “Believe in Love, Not in Powerlessness”
Viktor Frankl is always an inspiration, isn’t he? My sister once had the honor of meeting his widow; can you imagine?
Sarah, he really is an inspiration, yes! And that would have been amazing for your sister. I bet she cherishes that memory. I didn’t actually know much about his second wife, so just looked her up after reading your comment. It turns out she was Catholic and they celebrated both Christmas and Hanukah! Yet another way in which he was an inspiration.
Thanks for your comment.
What a wonderful post! I, too, have experienced those spontaneous responses to a smile or a display of affection, but I don’t often think about them. Thanks for the reminder.
I learned from my grandmother — not by anything she said, but by what she did, that you can help people be better than even they knew they could be, by believing in them and caring about them.
I just tweeted your link to my twitter fans. I really LOVE this post.
Faith, thanks so much for both your comments, and for sharing the post. Your grandmother sounds wonderful.
OH Yvonne, how I love this post so much. It speaks to our human condition, it swells in all those hard places and soft moments that lift us and bless us. It mostly speaks to our own power, much of what we don’t even realize, as evidenced by that incredible man and those quotes that literally had me gasp in both horror and truth.
Wow. We have power over much… we have power over the most important things in this world. NO one can take away our hearts.
It’s amazing the JOY that comes from those encounters of strangers… so deeply felt, through those smile and connections. I have experienced them countless times. It’s one of my favorite things about living in this world. <3
Chris, yes, that we have more power than we realise is exactly what I was getting at! And yes, joy what comes with these encounters. Thanks for your comment!
Viktor Frankle so wise. Amazing man.
I often think and retell the story of my boy ( to my boy now that he is 25) of a day when we were in the pharmacy. He was almost three and another little boy and his father ( whom we didnt know) were walking toward us up the aisle. The boys embraced as we passed and smiled at each other and then just kept going on their ways. It was wonderful! The father and I just smiled.
Ivy, yes he was amazing.
That time with your boy in the pharmacy sounds so similar to the ones I’ve described. There is something beautiful about those fleeting moments of connection.
Thanks for your comment.
Wonderful post, Yvonne. When I’m out somewhere, especially if I’m walking, whether in a mall or on a street, I vacillate between being lost in my thoughts and sharing my resting bitch face with the world OR walking around with a smile on my face, probably looking a little daffy, but it’s amazing how many other people light up just by seeing someone smile at them for no reason.
Thanks Dyanne. Oh, I love your description of the “resting bitch face.” I’ve caught a glance of that one in shop windows too! I do often try to look at least a little smiley when around people because it is so much nicer.
Thank you for organizing this event. I look forward to particpating.
Thanks for joining in Mary!
I really enjoyed reading this. I have similar memories of chance encounters with strangers that brightened my day. Viktor Frankl was a very wise man.
Beautiful…..
So true…
Thank you for sharing 🙂
Thanks Ilirianwanderer!
I love this, Yvonne. Thank you for these words. I’ve had much on my mind lately on the topic of compassion. I’ve been struggling a bit, actually, which is why I haven’t done much #1000Speak posting and why I don’t yet have a topic reveal post (well, that and my stomach bug – ick). It is so easy to believe that one small thing doesn’t matter, to see ourselves as not compassionate for whatever reason – because we haven’t been kind to someone, because we aren’t involved in “big” things, or whatever. There are many ways to be kind, to show compassion and not all look the same for everyone. I think that’s important to remember. We have to be kind and gentle with ourselves, too.
Lisa, totally agree with you – there are so many ways to show compassion. I’ll tell you a secret – I haven’t done my topic reveal, but that’s pretty much it!
Hi Yvonne,
Just wanted to let you know that I’ve nominated you for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award here: https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/accepting-the-very-inspiring-bloggers-award/
I have been very touched and inspired by 1000 Voices for Compassion. I think you’d also find the otheer blogs nominated quite life changing. I can’t wait until 20th February and given the time zones and being in Australia, am thinking I might even get two cracks at the whip. xx Rowena
Thank you roweeee!
And thank you for joining in and wow that would be great if you do two posts!
Viktor Frankl’s book is very close to my heart. A few months after the death of my daughter I dragged myself out of a very dark place with the help of this book and another called Healing without Freud or Prozac. It is filled with wisdom.