Love As A Practical Technology For Transformation
An Unsentimental Look At How Choosing Non-Judgemental Curiosity Over Antagonism Creates Better Outcomes Than Pushing, Fighting or Winning
A client I’ll call John leads a climate policy think tank outside the United States. He came into his coaching session with me this week wanting to know how he could “fight” his country’s new environment minister. A recent election in John’s country had seen a huge shift to the right in the country’s government.
When the Villain Doesn’t Know He’s Cast
“This new environment minister doesn’t even believe in climate change,” my client said. “How do I fight him?”
“Fight him for what?”
“To stop him from destroying the environment ministry!”
“How do you know for sure he wants to destroy the environment ministry?” I asked.
“Well, that’s obviously why a right-wing guy like him would want the job,” John said.
“How do you even know he wanted the job?” I asked.
That’s not necessarily how politics work. You don’t necessarily get the jobs you want. A lot of the time, you take the scraps you are offered.
My client looked at me like I was an idiot. He didn’t understand what I was trying to say.
I said, “You’re making a lot of assumptions. Have you talked to this guy?”
“No.”
“Do you know for sure what his motivations are?”
“No.”
“Then, how do you know ‘fighting him’ is your best path forward?”
How to Derail a Revolution
Unfortunately, when things are changing fast and we are disoriented, our brains, thinking they are in mortal danger, can move too fast. To a frightened brain that thinks it’s in danger, turning everything into us and them seems efficient.
To frightened brains, it seems natural to assume that someone on the “other side” will frustrate our wish for ourselves and the world. We may think that makes such a person our enemy. Then our frightened brains decide, “Our enemies are in power. We have to fight our enemies.”
Suddenly, we turn all our energy to this fight and completely forget about the beautiful world we were trying to create—we forget the love that got us into the field of work we are in.
In my own country, so much of progressive communication is about how we have to stop the conservatives rather than about the world of justice and dignity we hope to build. There is so much against that we sometimes don’t talk about what we are for.
Why Love Is A Better Strategy
I am not saying that there aren’t things happening in the world that I consider to be awful. I am simply saying that being against something awful is not necessarily as powerful or inspiring as being for something wonderful.
If there is such a thing as evil, I think I know how it wins. It wins by getting us to fight it. And in fighting it, we fall into the danger of ourselves becoming an instrument of evil.
Leo Tolstoy, the author and anarchist Christian, who many believe to be the grandfather—before Gandhi—of nonviolent resistance, said that all of Jesus’s teaching could be summed up in the three-word phrase from The Sermon On the Mount: “Resist not evil.”
Also, in Judaism, it is said Sur meira v’aseh tov—Turn from evil and do good. You do not fight evil head-on. You do not fixate on it. You do not wrestle with it. You simply withdraw your attention and energy from it. Instead you turn your attention and energy to your vision–the good you want to build.
This, by the way, is love. To cultivate the good so strongly that the evil becomes irrelevant and loses force. I’m told Hasidic teachers say “You don’t chase away the darkness; You turn on a light.”
This all sounds pious and idealistic, I know, but let’s turn back to my client, “John.”
Deep Curiosity: Where Real Power Is Found
John felt he had to fight this new environment minister and didn’t know how. Partly, this is because the minister has way more resources than my client. But the thing is, fighting the minister isn’t even my client’s mission.
“Why do you do your work?” I asked my client.
We have used this question to focus my client many times before so he had an answer to hand.
“I am building a world teeming with nature and culture and leisure so our children can live in joy.”
Centering yourself in a mission like that and using it as a filter to focus your activities is part of what I would call practical love.
“That sounds like it might appeal pretty universally. Can you know for sure that this new environment minister wouldn’t agree with this goal?”
“Maybe, but he probably has other priorities.”
“Do you know for sure that his priorities and your mission have to be at odds?”
“No.”
“Then, how can you know whether or how you should fight him? Isn’t it worth at least trying to find commonalities first?”
“I guess I need to get curious,” my client said. “I need to meet this guy and see what makes him tick.”
“Yes, and do it not because you are against him but because you are for children and the beautiful world you want to leave to them.”
The thing is, this wasn’t a long-term strategy for my client. But it was a first step he could take. Knowing one first step was more than he knew before. The curiosity that comes with love was more practical than fear.
More to the point, when my client returned to his love, instead of residing in his fear and anger, he relaxed. He began to feel creative. He started to have ideas.
Coming from love, moving towards what we want to create instead of fighting what we hate, is not just a sentimental idea. It moves us into a mind-state where we can shift out of our lizard brains and into our prefrontal cortex, the seat of our intelligence and creativity.
Don’t Punch the Darkness. Turn On The Light.
Perhaps it is better to take our focus away from that which we find ourselves reacting to and give it to that which we hope to create. Again, it isn’t about feeling sentimental, it is about moving into the place where our power lies.
The light in the dark.
The love.
And perhaps from there, instead of appealing to anger or fear, we can offer inspiration.
PS Sooner or later there will be another shift in regime in the US. When that happens, I don’t want us to fight evil but to build good.
If you are a philanthropist or a policy-maker or foundation or nonprofit leader or an impact-driven executive who wants to be part of shifting the world back towards love, I’d love you to see if you are fit for my client community.
Please reply to this email and get in touch.
Let’s Talk.
When have you caught yourself focusing on what you're against rather than what you're for? What happened when you made the shift?
I’d love to hear what this stirred up in you. Leave a comment below, or just tap “like” to let me know you’re out there.
With love,
Colin
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Reading this, I found myself asking: what if the effort we spend resisting, criticizing, and objecting were redirected into building something new? Even a little of that shift feels like it could change everything.
Great wisdom...so hard to put into practice in this onslaught of authoritarianism. I'm going to a nonprofit event today that is about the wildlife of the night, the darkness itself. Light pollution is causing great harm to all kinds of beings, but the fantastic book Night Magic celebrates the darkness and its beings. So it's the love I'll be thinking about today, not light.