When the Community Changes
One of the aspects of life that people often bring up in their work with me is how to handle, how to defend yourself from other people with the assumption that other people aren't going to or can't change.
It might be a spouse, a boss, a student in their class, an extended family member. The conversation is often about how the other person is always negative, maybe unfeeling, perhaps overly emotional and how they can't change or are unwilling to change. And yes, the other person's behaviour or willingness to change very much looks like "don't wait around holding your breath for that to change"!
One of the first people to teach what is now called the Three Principles, based on the work of Sydney Banks was Dr. Roger Mills, a clinical psychologist from the US. He'd been using this approach in his practice and getting excellent transformational change with his clients.
In the 1980's, he heard about a housing project in Florida called Modello. It was the worst of the worst. Drugs, violent crime, poverty, abuse, addicts and dealers, prostitution, children neglected, you name it. The police wouldn't go into the project area because it wasn't safe. Everyone who lived there was seen as someone who would never change; who was simply incapable of change.
"Don't waste your time" he was told. "It's too dangerous". He knew differently. He knew he could bring about transformation from within the community at Modello. He knew that at our core no human being is broken, everyone wants to feel love and connection. We just create realities for ourselves that are built on false assumptions and we build up and up on those false foundations until negative behaviours, bitterness, anger, and apathy look like the only way forward.
Over a ten year period, Dr. Mills proved this to be true in Modello. Person by person, slowly and then more quickly, people began to change. They found out that self-esteem is a natural quality and not based on situations or performance. They found out that feeling happy and good doesn't have anything to do with the life circumstances you find yourself in.
The whole community changed.
There's a really moving story in the book "Modello" written by Dr. Jack Pransky about a woman who was a crack whore and had nine children. She was one of the residents at Modello and she was not interested in changing. At all. She badly neglected her children to the point of having them taken away from her forcibly. She wasn't feeding them and she was high all the time or working to get enough money from the Johns to get high again.
The people in the community at Modello had always looked down on her, in particular, because if they were bad, at least they weren't as bad as her. They saw her as broken and beyond help. And she won't accept help anyways as she's not interested in a different life. Incapable. A waste of space. She avoided the other residents and lived up to their view of her.
Then something interesting began to happen. The people, especially the women of the community, who were involved in Dr. Mills’ program began to see themselves differently. Then they began to see others differently. They themselves were no different than other people, even her, the worst of them all. If they were able to change, anyone could.
After her children were taken away, she hit a low point. She started to try to get her life together. Unsuccessfully at first. However, the more the people around her viewed her as being whole and inherently good, the more she began to live up to that view of herself.
Over time and without this lady learning any of the lessons the other residents were learning, she got off drugs, got a job, got married and got all her children back. She ended up moving out of Modello to a better more affluent area with her new husband and children.
Excerpt from "Modello: A Story of Hope for the Inner City and Beyond: An Inside-Out Model of Prevention and Resiliency in Action":
"Pam: Before this incident happened, I can only remember hearing judgments cast by the other residents. 'She's really bad!', they would say, but they didn't offer to help even the kids. Later, slowly, people would come into the office and say, 'I'm really kind of concerned. Is there something we could do for one of her daughters?' or, 'Her kid keeps coming to me every day asking for bread'. And the residents started slowly to feed the kids, asking them over to dinner. People began to speak to the lady. It then turned into, 'There's got to be something that can be done!'. There were a lot of crack kids in Modello, but everybody separated themselves from her. "Well, I will never be like that. She's too far gone. She's like dirt. I don't want anything to do with her!'. And slowly, 'Maybe she's not so different. She used to be a nice person. Isn't there something that could happen?'. And there was! That woman was not touched by these principles; she was touched by people who were touched themselves. People had a change of heart toward her, and you felt it. It touched her. And suddenly, you heard, 'Maybe I can do something.' "
Magic happens in first becoming grounded in yourself and your wholeness. When you view yourself as whole and with kindness, others around also have the opportunity to shift in themselves. I don't have all the reasons why this might be so. It happens time and time again.
You start to view yourself, others and the world around you differently, softer, with love. You become an overflowing wellspring of love and good feeling.
You look around and colours are brighter, tastes are tastier, sunsets more beautiful. And sure enough, other people are nicer.
Who changed? You? Them? Maybe it was there all along.
When the Community Changes