Leaders, Mistakes, and Discharging Oppressor Patterns
In RC, we decide to be guided by principles because they are more trustworthy than our feelings. Our principles tell us that all leaders make mistakes, and we should respond first by discharging, then think, as if we were their counselor, about how to help them. Pretending that leaders are perfect and denouncing them as wrong are both examples of feeling like victims and acting like oppressors.
BEING GUIDED BY PRINCIPLES
The reason we create principles is that we can use them to guide us when our feelings become stronger than our thinking. We RCers have spent a lot of time discharging and thinking together to create our principles, and we know we can trust them. We have agreed they will guide us. The whole purpose of RC is to help large numbers of us act on our principles and keep thinking, even when the immense amount of hurt we humans carry makes it hard.
I often use the metaphor of navigating by stars, not by weather. The positions of stars stay the same, whether it’s stormy or clear on earth. Restimulation is like stormy weather inside us. We can’t see the stars, but we know they are there and can still point ourselves in their direction until the sky clears.
In RC, we have made a shared decision not to let old hurts guide what we do and say. We practice separating our distresses from the decisions and actions we want to take. We practice seeing the full humanity of other people, discharging how their distresses make us feel, and thinking about how to help them get free.
WHEN LEADERS MAKE MISTAKES
When leaders make mistakes, part of the hurt we feel is that we unrealistically expect them never to fail us, never to make mistakes, as if they were the parents we never had, but longed for. As if they were the governments we have never yet had, but dream of.
On the one hand, we need to notice and think about the mistakes leaders make, not to criticize them, but so we can help them do better. Some of us need to discharge patterns of staying silent and passive when we see something wrong, because we were not able to stop harm when we were young. Some of us need to discharge a pattern of ignoring mistakes because we want to believe our leaders and our movement are perfect, and we get scared when we find out they aren’t. Some of us need to discharge wanting to silence anyone who is upset with a leader.
On the other hand, as RCers we have made a decision to support our leaders to do the very best they can, using the tools of RC when they make mistakes. Our policy is to have enough sessions so we can stay in the role of counselor with them, think about how they were hurt, and help them discharge. Some of us need to discharge a lot of rage and grief about how oppression has hurt us and our people, to be able to think well about leaders who make mistakes in our direction and to thoughtfully interrupt their oppressor patterns [distress]. Some of us need to discharge powerlessness that leaves us feeling that the only thing we can do is publicly denounce how wrong someone is. When we haven’t fully healed from the injustice we experienced and saw as young people, it can feel important to expose or punish people.
PRETENDING LEADERS ARE PERFECT
Pretending leaders are perfect and denouncing them as terrible are both examples of how we can feel like victims but act like oppressors. Neither pattern allows leaders to be fully human. Neither pattern helps leaders become better at their jobs. The weather is [the current conditions are] bad and getting worse, and we don’t have time to discharge every hurt before taking action. We need to keep acting on our principles even though we are hurt and restimulated.
THE POWER OF DISCHARGING OPPRESSOR PATTERNS
One of the most powerful ways to do the above is to spend more time in sessions discharging the oppressor patterns that we all carry. Even though we don’t have time to get rid of all the pain from the ways we were victimized, we can stop ourselves from directing that pain toward other people who are just as hurt as we are. Learning and teaching this is one of the fastest ways to create the change our societies need.
Maricao, Puerto Rico
Reprinted from the e-mail discussion list for RC Community members
(Present Time 214, January 2024)