Forgiving Mr. Lewis.
If you read my post from 2 days ago, you’ll remember that I mentioned the time when a bailiff came to our door, and in a manner that seemed cruel and heartless, left my Mom in tears as he told her that we had 2 weeks to get the rent current, or we were going to be evicted.
In my memory, he treated her with scorn, disrespect and a complete and utter lack of kindness and decency.
And to be honest, I have hated him for that.
But hatred is as effective as love in emotionally tying us to something, so that we have a hard time letting it go. Since that day, I’ve had this invisible scar in my emotional memory that made me feel like any time I asked someone for money (money that I had earned through my work), I was essentially becoming Mr. Lewis, the cruel and heartless bailiff.
I wasn’t consciously aware that I was feeling this, I just knew I had a really hard time with asking for and accepting money from a person face to face.
Given that I’m self employed, you can probably imagine just how hard it has made things in business, in negotiations, and in life.
So when I messaged my coach on Monday afternoon telling her that I realized that I needed a new emotional paradigm for when I ask someone for money, I thought that was a really good breakthrough, and that I was on my way to being done with this particular part of my evolution.
It’s been painful for me to re-live this experience from my past, and I wanted to get it done and over with as soon as possible.
And then I got her message back, and my heart kind of sank a little.
Because while she agreed with me that I should work on a new emotional concept for asking for money, she also suggested that I try to find some way to forgive him, and maybe explain his attitudes and behavior that day.
I knew the second I heard her say it that she was right, but for a moment I fought against it, because who honestly likes to recognize the humanity of our enemies.
Enemies are easier when we see them as one dimensional, without nuance and respect.
However, I also knew that she was correct in that offering him forgiveness would allow me to complete the emotional reconfiguration that would allow me to let go of this painful chapter, and begin the process of changing the effects that it had had on my life and my business.
My coach called the right play, the play that I needed, and now it was time for me to execute it.
So I found a place of peace in my soul, and tried to see him as a person, rather than the outcome of his behaviors.
And immediately I was struck with a profound sadness for him, not because of him. I could see him in a job that was probably pretty thankless, and one that made him despised and disliked. I realized that his life probably didn’t have many ‘upsides’.
He was physically unremarkable man, slightly overweight and balding. He probably didn’t want to be there any more than I did, or my Mom did.
I’m guessing there weren’t many ‘great days’ in his professional history, where he got to make a difference, and be thanked, and feel uplifted. I wondered how he felt going home, if he was happy, if he was close to his family, or if he was alone, isolated and unloved.
And although none of these things would have given him license to act the way he did, I was able to accept that maybe his actions that day were not of his best intention, and that given a chance to go back and do it over again, he might have chosen a kinder manner, a more compassionate communication, a better way of being human.
And in that moment, I felt a break in the links of the chain to my past.
Although this breakthrough didn’t change the events of the past, letting go of my anger for him allowed me to re-contextualize the memories I had held for far too long, and begin a new chapter of my story.
I still have to figure out a new emotional construct around money, but I’m doing it at last without a terrible painful memory holding me back.
And for today, for this moment, that is going to be enough.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings