Good Intentions?

I often hear people suggesting that we assume good intentions.  No matter what.  As a way of communicating. 

Just holding the assumption as true can be pretty challenging.  Especially when someone is saying things that obviously suggest that they do not have good intentions.  The instruction can be a little confusing and requires a great deal of inner strength to master.  Even in the event that I am able to assume good intentions, then how does the conversation go?  What are my options when I hold that as true and am in a difficult conversation?  Am I supposed to say, “I’m sure you only have good intentions, and it is your anger and distress that has you saying that?”  When I think about situations I have been in in the past, I have little confidence saying that will bring us closer together.

It can remain uncomfortable at best and combative if the other person isn’t aware that underneath their anger, rage, frustration, is something very tender.  How do we get to that place?  Can I convince someone they have good intentions when even they don’t think they do?

Don’t lose hope.  I think there is a way to navigate this.    

Rather than convince another of their own good intentions, I could possibly surface them.  How?  Take the assumption one step further.  Consider what needs are driving their (possibly stated) intention ‘to make me feel bad’.  That is how we can remain in communication and even possibly find connection.

In Miki Kashtan’s book entitled Spinning Threads of Radical Aliveness she presents the 17 Core Commitments.  These are values that I hold dear, and try my very best to implement in everyday life.  Truthfully, I consider them a significant part of my spiritual practice.  At the same time, I find them practical tools.  In this case I am referring specifically to Core Commitment #8.

Commitment #8 reads:  Assumption of Innocence: Even when others’ actions or words make no sense to me or frighten me, I want to assume a need-based human intention behind them. If I find myself attributing ulterior motives or analyzing others’ actions, I want to seek support to ground myself in the clarity that every human action is an attempt to meet needs no different from my own.

It is much easier for me to assume innocence in the way it is described here than to assume good intentions.  Here’s why.  It has to do with where I am focusing my attention.  Good intentions places my awareness on the other person and their thoughts and/or intentions—outside of me.  For all kinds of reasons, it might be difficult for me to believe their intentions are ‘good’—especially when they are actually saying that they don’t have good intentions.  Which leaves me powerless.  The other –assuming innocence and connecting to their needs has me focused on my own thoughts, my own intentions and offers me something I can do about what is happening between me and the other person in the moment.  It is a very powerful place to be.

When I offer guidance to people who are in conflict, I try to offer them more ways to be successful in shifting to understanding and connection.  What’s easiest thing you can do?  How do you increase the likelihood that something could happen that would help everyone connect to the needs alive in the moment. 

If you read my blogs regularly, or have taken a class, or studied Nonviolent Communication even a little bit, you likely will have heard “everything anyone says or does is an attempt to meet needs, no matter how tragic the attempt might be” –meaning the cost is very high.  If you can focus your attention on what needs are possibly trying to be met when someone is saying they want you to suffer, at very least, we can more easily assume innocence.  Even more important is that you can likely think of something to say that meets the need, rather than ask the upset person to find enough calm to connect to their needs, when likely it isn’t so easy for them to consider their needs, let alone name them.

However, once you know your own needs and guess the other person’s needs, then it can be fairly easy to come up with strategies to meet those needs.  You are at choice.  You have power to ask for something or offer something that will meet those needs.

The first thing is to support ourselves to that consideration.  That no matter what the other person is saying and doing, and how much difficulty I have in believing they don’t actually intend harm (yes even the most challenging of people and situations), I can find support for understanding that they just don’t have the capacity to share anything that looks like care or good intentions.  My commitment is that will be the first thing I do, if I am judging them as bad or wrong in some way.

I still may choose to opt out of relating to a particular person or group, even if I think I understand that they don’t intend harm (actually).  I am taking care of my end.  It brings me out of the moralistic/judgement, good/bad, right/wrong finding fault ways of relating and offers me more connection to what’s alive and the freedom to enjoy my days.  I am in no way obligated to continue any conversation or relationship I prefer not to have, even if I believe another person really is suffering and has tragic ways to meet their needs.

I think it is an empowered way to take on relationships.