What You Allow Is What Will Continue - Is It Time to Take a New Approach?

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay 

“Just because it’s common doesn’t make it right” I said. I was talking to a lawyer about a response she was composing for a client. Her client had been acting in accordance with initial good faith agreements between the parties involved while, instead of just saying they had changed their mind, the other party had been denying there had ever been any agreements.

Not only that, but rather than addressing anything directly, the other party had started accusing her client of excessive expenditures never made, threatening to cut off finances and being verbally abusive on a number of occasions, with many examples of petty, spiteful and dishonest behaviours.

Her client had wanted to address these directly along with the evidence that had been carefully documented through emails, texts, social media trails, recorded conversations and others who could confirm what had actually taken place.

The lawyer seemed reluctant, she said “We are trying to reach agreement; I like to keep emotions out of it, stick to the facts and just focus on the deal. Going down that road will just piss off the other party”.

While I could see the sense in that, I said “But isn’t that precisely what the other party is doing? Meanwhile they are not being confronted with the evidence of their lies and are actually dictating the narrative while not even coming close to a fair deal”. She responded “It’s just tactics, I see it all the time, and it washes over me mostly”.

“Yes,” I said “But just because it happens all the time does not make it right”.

This reminded me of an interview I heard last year with a national politician I used to work with. In retaliation for whistle blowing he found himself personally attacked through revelations of his private life. He commented on how affairs were rife in Parliament and said “While I’m not saying it was right, it was all part of the game, it was the accepted norm”.

I used to see this often in corporate cultures too where behaviours that would not be misplaced in a school playground would often come to the fore wrapped in a professional gloss.

It puts me in mind of a talk I once attended with author John Parsons, whose most popular book is about keeping children safe online. He points to this tendency for us to look at online games as being a separate reality that exists outside of ours where it’s okay to kill people because “it’s not real”. Yet the themes and narratives of the games are played by real people, through real interactions.  

Just as they are in the legal system, or the political system, or any other system I could care to mention.

It’s as if we live in a society where the fundamental traits that create cooperation, cohesion, compassion and a more joyful and peaceful existence, are just swept aside in a bid for power and control. What happens in the legal arena, the political arena, the corporate arena and the online world, are just examples of sub sections of our culture that are somehow seen as less real and just a game making quite deplorable behaviours somehow okay.

As I had been contemplating all this I opened up my Insight Timer app to listen to a Sarah Blondin meditation and the quote “What you allow is what will continue” popped up on my screen.

There are many people who help those at the receiving end of toxic behaviours, but who is holding those responsible for them accountable? Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “There comes a point when we need to stop just pulling people out the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in”.

When author, philanthropist and activist Glennon Doyle started looking upstream, she learned that where there is great suffering, there is often great profit. Now when she encounters someone struggling to stay afloat she knows not only to ask “How can I help you right now” but, once they are safe, to also ask “What institution or person is benefitting from your suffering?” which is how she became an activist.

At what point do we stand up and say, actually, our legal system isn’t working, our political system isn’t working, our corporate cultures don’t work, these online gaming systems don’t work, nothing big and institutional works, it’s simply breeding grounds for the power hungry and the worst of human behaviours get perpetuated.

Another interesting point Glennon  makes, when asked about why she refers to god as a she, and whether she believes god is female, she says “I don’t. I think it’s ridiculous to think of god as anything that could be gendered, but as long as women continue to be undervalued and abused and controlled here on Earth I’ll keep using it.”

She makes a point worthy of exploration. It does seem that these covert power plays, that are rife in our society, do play nicely into suppressing females in many ways – though not exclusively by any means.

I can certainly attest that, as someone who was very independent (financially and otherwise), it was extremely hard for me to forego that in order to look after my children. When I met their father he had talked about being a stay-at-home dad initially, but isn’t something that appealed so much when up close and personal with the tasks of daily child rearing and domesticity.

I too had wanted to give our children that gift of my attention they needed but, as the main breadwinner at the time, it wasn’t feasible. Nonetheless with a baby and toddler at home wanting my attention all night long after being farmed out all day – albeit to a beautiful and loving soul who looked after them well – I was soon in the burn out zone and knew something had to give.

Moving to another part of the country where house prices were more affordable meant being able to be with the kids in the ways that they needed.  However it also meant moving away from the opportunity for me to earn income in the way I had previously.

The last 15 years of my paid career were spent in senior management roles working for large organisations advising on and leading strategic people changes to enable transformation to their customer experience. These roles are few and far between in New Zealand as a whole, but generally not available where I now live.

In the meantime I helped the children’s father establish and run his business, which is now thriving. My personal intention in returning to work, when the children were old enough, was to use some of my previous skills and experience to work more directly with individuals.  

With a special interest in the field of trauma and how it impacts on human potential, I have been on a very personal journey of study and self growth and have amassed a large body of published work in the years since I left my corporate career. Training in clinical hypnotherapy was how I had planned to re-enter the workforce and make a living.

But with the urgency of a separation, and the introduction of restrictions in the educational sector as well as mandates in the healthcare sector, I instead decided to combine all my previous experience to provide business coaching, contracting and consulting to businesses.

What that means though, is that - in addition to the initial period of financial uncertainly while establishing a business and hours obviously restricted within school hours and term time - being full-time carer of our children put me at a financial disadvantage both during the relationship and post separation.

Given that it will likely take at least 12-18 months to establish a stable income history to enable a home loan to be secured, house price rises and loan restrictions could make this an impossible goal. In the meantime, my share of the equity from the sale of our family home will diminish as it will be needed in order to pay for living costs. This is a common scenario facing women everywhere.

Then when you add to that some of these common underhand tactics being played out between parties in the legal system, it’s not hard to see where Glennon Doyle’s conclusions have come from.

I for one intend to ensure that I fully express what life is like from within these sorts of unjust scenarios, and what I have and can learn from them, in the hope that by sharing it brings into the light what lives in our shadows and plays over time and time again. Only through examining the toxicity that we allow and learning new ways of approaching things, will we start to foster the kind of cooperation, cohesion, compassion and a more joyful and peaceful existence that we all deserve.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How to Find the Courage to Let Us Hear Your Heart’s Voice, Kneel at the Doorway of Your Heart to Usher the Dawn of a New Era, You See What Happens When You Learn to Speak Your Truth, Let Us Hear Your Unique Perspective – But Be Kind and Be Wise, How to Stand in Your Truth and Be Heard Without a Fight and Be an Evolutionary (Rather Than a Revolutionary). To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.