Especially Challenging Behaviors

Post Number Five of The Movement We Need

(This series of writings is an experiment—I’m writing a book and releasing it a chapter at a time on Substack, accompanied with podcasts available on Substack, Apple, Spotify, etc. Here is post number 5.)

Safety Part 3

I would be remiss in talking about group safety if I didn't address the thing that has probably broken apart more groups than the secret police: the challenging behaviors of certain individuals. Of course, there are blatant forms of misconduct that should never be tolerated: physical or sexual assault, stealing from the group, illegal behaviors that are not civil disobedience but crimes, as a few examples. But the behaviors I’m talking about are more subtle, linked to character and communication styles rather than blatant lawbreaking.  Psychologists and psychiatrists diagnose these patterns, labeling them as narcissism or personality disorders, but I prefer the framing used by Diana Leafe Christian, author of many books and articles about intentional communities including her own, Earthhaven near Asheville, North Carolina.  She prefers to talk about especially challenging behaviors, rather than difficult people, to avoid demonizing, othering, or pathologizing others.  Most of us are not qualified to diagnose a mental illness, but we are all capable of identifying words and actions we find harmful.

We may develop great communication skills, and be well-versed in conflict transformation tools, but certain people behave in ways that make all our efforts at constructive critique and clear communication seem futile. When such a person is entrenched in a group, they may either blow the group apart, or cause other, more functional people to leave, which means that only the most dysfunctional people remain, and the group falters or dies.  

Recognizing these patterns can help us resist being manipulated, and provide some protection for our groups and communities.  And because these same patterns are now rampant in our politics, it’s even more vital that we learn to be aware of them.  For that reason, and because he is such a perfect embodiment of so many of these flaws, Donald Trump will often serve me as an example.

What are some of these behaviors, and how can we recognize them and counter them?

Inability to Accept Feedback:

One question to ask when interviewing a new perspective group member or team member in an organization is “How does this person respond to feedback and constructive critique?”  Is this person able to hear criticism and evaluate it without getting angry, hostile or defensive? Or at least, to get over the anger and listen?  Probably few of us enjoy criticism, and I know my own reaction, as an author, to my editors’ comments often involves storming around the room and swearing—but not in front of them!  Later, I calm down and evaluate what they have to say, however painful it might be to hear.  No artist or creative professional can grow and develop without feedback, and a true professional recognizes that a constructive critique is a mark of respect. 

We all make mistakes, and to work together we must be able to hold one another accountable when something goes wrong. To grow and learn, we must be able to acknowledge our mistakes and move on from them. If someone consistently responds to feedback with anger, defensiveness or denial, and can’t change, that’s a behavior that will undermine a group’s ability to function.

Admitting Mistakes:

Along with being open to feedback, can this person admit when they have made a mistake? Can they take responsibility for an error or a misjudgment, make amends and work to repair the harm or to fix the problem? Again, we all make mistakes. If we're not making mistakes, we're probably not learning anything new. But being able to admit to them, learn from them, and change is a mark of mental and emotional health. Someone who can never admit they're wrong reveals a tremendous level of insecurity that will hamper their own and the group’s development.

Respecting Boundaries:

Does this person disrespect other people's boundaries?  Around little things: the housemate who borrows your clothes without asking?  Or around more serious issues, like sexual harassment or touching someone's body without consent?

Of course, boundaries must be clear if we expect people to respect them.  We come into groups or communities with different sets of boundaries. Mary might believe that food is meant to be shared, and her carton of half-and-half in the office fridge is for everyone.  June might believe that her special oat milk is hers and hers alone, and resent those who help themselves.  Clear communication can help define the group’s expectations and avoid conflict. But if someone continually violates others’ boundaries, and particularly if someone responds to a boundary with rage, anger, defensiveness or a spiral of victimization, that's a pattern that can easily disrupt a group.

Boundary setting might also mean acknowledging our own and others’ limitations of time or energy. Someone who continually pushes others past their boundaries can be a challenge to a group. The enthusiastic team member who can't take no for an answer around a new project or a plan and drives other members beyond their level of comfort or safety, can burn people out.  Such people may not be irredeemable. It took me many years to realize that my own leadership style was often that of a pacesetter, somebody who enthusiastically sees what needs to be done, has a great capacity for bursts of work, and often expects that others go beyond their limits. I've had to gradually learn to be more respectful of others’ boundaries, even as age has increased my own limitations.

Relationships are a constant process of educating ourselves and others on our various needs and constraints. But somebody who consistently responds to boundaries with temper tantrums or downward cycles of self-pity, and who cannot seem to change that behavior, will have a destructive impact on a group.

Lack of Reciprocity:

In healthy relationships, there's a process of giving and taking. Sometimes I'm the one in need, and you listen to my tales of woe or help me process a painful situation. At other times, I may be the one to listen and help you understand a challenging relationship or work situation. But if one person is doing all the emotional labor, constantly tending the needs and feelings of the other, that's a warning sign. If someone in a relationship, group or an organization is so volatile that others tiptoe around them to avoid triggering their rage, depression or blame, that is a warning sign of codependency and dysfunction. And if someone doesn't contribute to the to the physical work of the group, doesn't clean up after themselves, do their dishes, join group work days, or otherwise take on responsibility for contributing to the group’s practical needs, that too is unbalanced.

Of course, we all have different abilities and capacities, but communities and organizations also have many different types of work that can be done. Someone who might not be physically capable of chopping wood or hauling logs might be willing to do the accounts, or manage the website. Most people want to contribute, in whatever way they can.  But when someone is always taking and rarely giving, that behavior generates conflict and mistrust.

Projecting:

“Every accusation is a confession” is a description of the psychological defense mechanism known as projection—seeing in others the flaws you cannot or do not want to acknowledge in yourself.  “I’m not lying, you’re lying!”  “I’m not angry—you’re the one who is yelling!”  A man is attracted to a married coworker who shows no interest in him, yet in his mind, it is she who is coming on to him.  The Witch persecutions of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries were examples of repressed priests and ministers projecting their sexual fears and fantasies onto women, then torturing them until they confessed.  Today we see the same mechanism turned on immigrants, with the alt-right projecting every hateful, violent impulse onto whole communities and vilifying them. 

Splitting:

 Therapists learn to beware of the client who arrives, singing your praises, while disparaging the awful therapist they just left.  ‘Splitting’ is a psychological pattern in which someone over-idealizes another person, situation or organization—only to inevitably be disappointed when they discover cracks in the pedestal and proceed to vilify them.  Wise counselors have learned that the client who sees you as their savior today may be running you down to their next therapist tomorrow.  For some people, the world is all good or all evil, devoid of nuances, complexities, or tolerance for ordinary human flaws.  So, inevitably, the all-good flips into the all-evil.  And our current political polarization and social media environment reinforce this pattern.

It’s quite natural when someone joins a new community or organization to be filled, at first, with enthusiasm, like the honeymoon period in any relationship, or the way small children idealize their parents.  But when a newcomer is constantly comparing how great you are to how awful someone else is—that’s a red flag.  Someone who shows up in your community complaining of how horribly they've been treated by some other group may, next year, be off to some other community complaining about how badly you have treated them. Be careful!

The Vortex of Victimhood:

The world is full of oppressive systems. Accidents, tragedies and acts of malevolence do create real victims. But some people seem to have a talent for casting themselves as victims, instead of taking responsibility for their own actions. In this, Donald Trump is probably the most extreme example: a man who was gifted by birth and position with wealth, power and access to every opportunity, who rose to the position of most powerful man in the world, and yet constantly portrays himself as a victim.

In our own activist groups. we will rarely run across quite such an extreme case of what has been termed power-under: using the role of victim to manipulate others.  But when someone tells story after story of how awful others have been to them and how unfairly they've been treated, they may be seeing the world through a distorted lens. And maybe not—sometimes persecution is real!  Nonetheless, it's worth checking out those stories, and remembering that every conflict has at least two sides, rather than taking them all at face value.  In my experience, which includes time spent in the war zones of Palestine and Gaza, work with refugees, counseling survivors of abuse, and more, those who are truly victims of poverty, racism, violence, abuse and war most commonly strive to be seen as strong and competent, not as a victim.

Because our activist groups are composed of people who are often highly compassionate and hold a strong sense of social justice, it's often for easy someone caught in the vortex of victimhood to pull in a lot of enablers and supporters. When this dynamic takes hold of your group, it can be especially destructive, because anyone attempting to hold the victim to account, or to hold their own boundaries, is then perceived as the persecutor. It’s the classic psychological triangle of victim/persecutor/rescuer, and many social justice groups are inherently composed of rescuers. After all, we’re trying to rescue the whole damn world!  

When some of the group gets sucked into the vortex, and others resist, the group divides into factions.  Everyone gets pressured to take sides, trust and good feelings dissolve, and often the group ceases to function.

Rescuing a victim is not actually helping them. What is helpful is seeing and supporting their strengths, expecting good behavior, and holding them accountable when their behavior is destructive or harmful. A person who cannot tolerate being treated as a responsible, functioning adult may need more help than your group can provide.  A person struggling with mental illness, alcoholism or addiction may need professional help.  Activist and spiritual groups often mistrust the mainstream medical system, for many good reasons, but for some conditions, medication and experienced help may be the best or only effective options.  Trying to DIY support for someone in a true psychotic crisis may only prevent them from getting the real help they need, and is no more effective than trying to treat Type 1 Diabetes with your home remedies or set a broken leg with prayer.

Blaming and Othering:

Along with the vortex of victimhood goes the tendency to blame others for everything that goes wrong, and to characterize those others in disparaging and dehumanizing terms. Trump cannot admit responsibility for his own crimes, so he must blame the Justice Department and the Democrats who are supposedly weaponizing the criminal justice system against him.  Anyone who refuses to be a rescuer, or who demands accountability, is cast as a persecutor, often in terms that are extreme and dehumanizing.

Grandiosity:

Someone who is always the best and the greatest, who is constantly telling stories about how much better they are than others, how others messed up but they saved the day, inflating their achievements and denying any failures, is actually displaying their deep insecurity. Donald Trump again provides us with the perfect example. When he badly loses the debate with Kamala Harris, he responds not by saying, “Well, I had a bad night.”  Instead, he simply lies and declares, not only that he won the debate, but that was the best debate he ever had, maybe the best debate anyone ever had!  At his impeachment hearings, he describes his phone call to pressure the Ukrainian president to provide dirt on his opponent as “a perfect phone call”.  He insists his inauguration crowd, demonstrably far smaller than Obama's, was the biggest crowd ever, and completely loses his composure when Harris needles him about people walking out of his rallies.

Many five year-olds go through a phase of bragging and telling heroic stories about themselves. That's normal for their developmental level, but if that behavior persists into adulthood, if it obfuscates reality and prevents a person from actually seeing themselves realistically, it’s a sign again of deep insecurity and can be extremely problematic.

Entitlement:

Some people believe that the rules should not apply to them, that they are the center of every story and should be the recipient of care, consideration and privileges that do not apply to others.  Systemic oppressions such as white supremacy, male supremacy and class stratification reinforce this dynamic.  In later posts, when I dive more deeply into questions of power and privilege, I’ll come back to this.  But for the purposes of this discussion, we should challenge privilege and entitlement and strive for equity.

Dishonesty and Lying:

When I was writing The Empowerment Manual, I interviewed members of the Rainbow Community Grocery Store in San Francisco, a worker owned Co-op that is the sole survivor of a whole group of co-operatives formed in the ‘80s to be an alternative food distribution network. Many of the other co-ops were undone by their own worker-owners embezzling money. Rainbow itself suffered a similar problem, but was fortunately saved by a volunteer who had a professional accounting background.

We don't like to think that people in our movement might be lying to us or stealing from us, yet people do.  Who among us hasn’t fudged the truth, at moments?  Claimed to have faithfully watered the garden every day, when at most, we maybe got out there two or three times a week?  Or convinced ourselves that we only eat healthy food, forgetting those packages of potato chips?  Or insisted that we were not the one who lost our temper during the argument?  We might simply be presenting our heavily subjective view of an interaction or a relationship. But when somebody is actually lying, when they cannot be trusted to convey basic facts or discernible reality, the repercussions can be enormously destructive.

Gaslighting:

Gaslighting is a particularly pernicious form of dishonesty, because it means telling other people that what they have actually seen, experienced and felt is not true, when it is. The term comes from a movie in which the malevolent husband drives his wife mad by continually turning down the gas lights. When she complains that they are dim, he tells her they are not.

We've become so accustomed to this in the political realm that it may make it harder to address in our personal and community realms. Donald Trump and the Republicans claim that January 6th was simply a peaceful protest, when we have all seen the video with our own eyes and know that hundreds of people were injured and five people died. That’s an extreme example of gaslighting.  In a group or community, it’s often on a much lower level.  “Can we turn down the volume? The music in this party is so loud, I can’t be in the room without suffering hearing damage.”  “It’s not loud.”  Any time someone tells you that you are not seeing what you’re seeing or feeling what you’re feeling, you are being gaslit.

Recruitment and Faction-Building:

Those caught in the Vortex of Victimhood will often try to drag others down with them.  If some in the group hold their boundaries and refuse to play, Splitters will often try to split the group or the movement, recruiting Rescuers and casting the others as Persecutors.  Compassionate and empathetic people can often get pulled into the net, while those who try to protect the group’s integrity find themselves cast as the Bad Guys, a very painful position.  Leaders, teachers, anyone who exercises authority or holds the boundaries of the group can be especially vulnerable.  I’ve actually had one former friend admit that she’d been trying to push me out of a group I had founded “to see if I can!”  I’ve known others to leave a group in a huff, but then continue their faction-building by texting their recruits repeatedly.  Someone who truly wants to resolve a conflict or change a policy will advocate openly, not build a coterie of minions behind the backs of others.

Rigidity:

Activists and people who form intentional communities are most often idealistic. We have strong values, we hold to them, and we believe that sticking to our principles is a positive trait that shows high integrity. And so it is.

However, when someone makes every issue a test of moral purity, when their ideals and values are so rigid that they can never bend or allow some pragmatism to influence a decision, they can derail a group. La Zad, near Notre Dame des Landes in Brittany, is an area where activists allied with local farmers to resist the construction of an airport in a struggle that went on for decades.  At one point, a group of vegans squatted an abandoned farmhouse next to land belonging to a local dairy farmer who was one of the strongest supporters of the resistance.  Angered that he kept livestock and sold animal products, they harassed him by opening fences, releasing animals and other acts of low-level sabotage, endangering the coalition.

Diana Leafe Christian has many examples in her series of articles in Communities Magazine of people whose rigid ideals had destructive impacts on others. For example, the man who refused to allow a household in his community to install a new heater for vague environmental reasons, when the people in the house were suffering and the children were getting sick. She notes that certain forms of organizational decision- making, for example, classic consensus process in which any one person can block the group from going forward, can allow a group to be held hostage to one person's rigid ideals. Communities and activist groups work best with people who can combine a strong sense of value with a certain pragmatism, and the ability to bend and be flexible.

These are some of the most problematic forms of behavior. Unfortunately, today’s dominant culture normalizes and supports many of these behaviors.  Social media rewards bragging and self-aggrandization.  Its algorithms stoke conflict and encourage blaming, othering, and projecting.  No longer do we have commonly respected arbiters of truth and objectivity, so disinformation, lying and gaslighting run rampant.  Complex issues are reduced to sound bites that encourage splitting, and cancel culture, on the left and the right, demands that people be seen as all-good or all-evil, with all the nuances of our multifaceted selves erased.  How do we counter them?

Empathy Versus Enabling

Empathy is important and feelings are real. When we attempt to create a safe environment, we want to value and validate people's emotions. Such empathy is the basis of any mediation or hope of conflict transformation.  Yet those people who are caught in challenging behavioral patterns are often also very good at using our emotions to manipulate us and/or control the group. 

Steven Wineman, in his book Power-Under: Trauma and Nonviolent Social Change,  identifies that some people assume the role of victim in order to control others.  Challenging behavior patterns originate in unhealed trauma and unmet needs.  The behaviors are defense mechanisms that shield a person from feeling their own pain. It’s as if the original wound is an abscess covered over with so much tough tissue that no medication can reach it. Certainly, no amount of empathy or emotional healing can get through, especially when the challenging person is devoted to their defenses, unwilling to shift and change them.  After all, they are not feeling pain!  Instead, their behavior generates pain and distress in everyone around them.

When we're trying to create a world of greater social justice, we tend to be especially careful to respect the feelings and emotions of those from groups that have historically been oppressed or marginalized. However, there are also always those who use emotion to control and manipulate a group, and they come in all sizes, shapes and colors.  It's generally relatively easy for us to see when someone who is actually in a position of power tries to claim victimhood, as plays out on the larger political stage, when Trump and his MAGA allies, most of whom stem from highly privileged backgrounds, nonetheless constantly portray themselves as victims.

But it can be much more confusing when the alleged victim is a person from a targeted group.  How do you tell the difference between validating someone's true emotions, and enabling someone's drama?  What if you come from a more privileged background? Are you being unsympathetic, unconsciously racist or sexist, or are you being played?

The answer is not always clear.  The most woke among us may still harbor unconscious prejudices or fall victim to cultural stereotypes, and we should always be willing to engage in self-examination. Yet that process of discernment should include the possibility that, when we condone unacceptable behavior, we are not undoing discrimination, we are enabling, not empowering.  Enabling means engaging in behaviors which support someone's perception of themselves as victim and stoke their sense of grievance. In addiction or alcoholism, enabling can mean offering misplaced help that allows the substance-user to continue harmful behavior without having to face real consequences.  How do we tell the difference between offering empathy and support, and enabling destructive behaviors?  Here are some questions I ask myself:

·       Am I asking the same standard of behavior from this person as I would from a person in a more privileged group? Am I holding them to a higher standard of perfection than I would ask for somebody else? Or, conversely, am I overlooking, excusing, or indulging behavior that I would not condone from a person from a more privileged group?

·       Am I supporting this person's strengths? Or am I explaining, concealing, or condoning their weaknesses?

·       Am I bolstering my own self esteem by being their rescuer or champion? Am I favorably comparing my responses to somebody else's?

And here are some of the tell-tale signs of codependency and enabling:

·      You find yourself excusing behavior that you actually find disturbing or destructive.

·      You find yourself explaining the person’s behavior to others.

·      You find yourself constantly in the role of counselor or therapist, always the shoulder to cry on, never the one who receives comfort.

·      You attempt to control someone else’s behavior.

·      You find yourself lying or concealing aspects of your relationship or their behavior.

·      You see the person as vulnerable, weak, and in need of protection.

·      Ask yourself: What emotional benefit do I get out of seeing myself as the protector?  Am I trying to show the world what a good, kind, caring, compassionate, woke person I am?  How would my actions change if I see this person as strong and resilient.

·       

Principles for Group Health and Safety

How, then, do we create a different environment in our groups and movements?  How do we discourage these problematic behaviors and favor more constructive, collaborative and beneficial ways of relating?

Here are a few principles derived from social permaculture, the emerging art of applying regenerative design to human systems.

Begin With Observation

Before we can decide how to intervene in a situation, we need to know what we’re dealing with.  We are staying away from labelling or diagnosis, but when someone exhibits challenging behaviors, we want to know if they are simply having a bad day, or if this is a deeply engrained pattern unlikely to change.  Here are some of the questions I ask:

·      What is this person really asking for from me? Attention? To be seen and heard? To have their assessment of the situation validated?  And is this something I actually want to give or can give with integrity?  If so, are there limits on how much I'm willing to give? Can this person respect and understand those boundaries?

·      Is this person making a request or making a demand? That is, can I freely say no? Is there an implied or real threat of negative consequences if I do?

·      If this person receives the time, attention, or comfort they are asking for, does it make a difference? Does the energy and the interaction change? Or does it seem to automatically reset back to victimhood and grievance and endless demands for more and more?

·      Does this person reciprocate? Are they capable of supporting me or others, of recognizing others’ real needs and extending themselves to meet them?

·      What responsibility is this person taking for their part in this interaction?

·      Is this person making power moves under the guise of distress? For example, storming out of the meeting?

Knowledge is Powe

Learn about these patterns.  There are many good resources, books, videos and courses, on narcissism, borderline personality disorder, codependence, and surviving abusive relationships, I’ll list a few below, but there are hundreds!  And while I’m staying away from the diagnostic framework, the insights and suggestions in the resources can be invaluable.

Learn about real trauma support and healing. One aspect of trauma support is making space for grief, rage, and previously unfelt emotions.  But that’s not the major emphasis of those who work with deeply traumatized people. Experienced trauma counselors recognize that catharsis can sometimes be healing, but can also be retraumatizing when survivors relive abuse. Instead, we encourage some distance between the person and the memory: seeing the scene as a movie on a screen rather than feeling it in the body.  Survivors are encouraged to desensitize themselves to triggers, rather than limiting their life space or attempting to control others.   Catharsis is balanced by work that focuses on building strengths, restoring the survivor’s ability to function, their confidence and emotional integrity.

Feed What You Want to Grow: 

In the garden, we seek for practices that will favor the crops we want and discourage the weeds.  In our groups and communities, we can look for structures that encourage the behaviors we want.

Learn and practice the skills of constructive critique, and establish a group culture where feedback is understood to be a gift, not an attack.  Expect that people will be accountable for their actions and responsibilities, and regularly give and receive feedback.  Expect that people will make mistakes, and support them in learning, growing, and repairing any harm done instead of shaming or shunning them.

Encourage a group culture where people deal with conflicts directly.  Discourage gossip and back-biting. Instead, establish a norm where, rather than agreeing with Mary’s latest tale of woe, we say, “How can I support you in dealing with Joe directly about this?”

When you read or hear someone's grievance narrative on the Internet or in person, remember that there are two sides to every story, and you may not be getting the full picture. If you have no direct involvement in the situation, if it's truly not your business, take it with a grain of salt and reserve judgment. If it is your business, offer to help the person involved get mediation or convene a restorative justice circle.  If they are unwilling to engage in any effort to resolve the issue, that may indicate some other agenda, conscious or unconscious.

Clearly set boundaries, discuss and agree on any that are confusing, and make plain that people are expected to respect one another’s boundaries.

Hold your boundaries. Know what you can give and what you can't, and remember that you have a right to set those boundaries. Even when differences of power and privilege exist, no one has the right to demand from you more than you have the capacity to freely give. You cannot personally undo all the harm of sexism, racism, heterosexism, or any of the other injustices that define our world, and allowing yourself to be manipulated will drain your energy and make you less effective at doing what you can.

Establish clear systems of accounting with oversight for money or other transactions.

Make it a norm to support people’s strengths rather than reinforcing their victimization. 

Take time to articulate the group’s core values, those things which are truly non-negotiables.  Then allow people flexibility around other issues.  Everyone has the right to decide their own moral values—but not to impose them on others unless the group has agreed to them.

Use decision-making processes that do not allow one person or a few to hold the group hostage.  Switching from classic consensus to some modified form, or a consent-based process such as is used in Sociocracy can sometimes save a group. 

Reciprocity

In nature, energy moves in circles and cycles.  A growing plant uses water and minerals from the soil—then dies and returns those nutrients to the earth.  Water flows in streams and rivers down to the ocean, then evaporates and returns to the land as rain.  Groups, relationships and movements flourish when energy cycles and giving and taking are balanced.

·Emotional support should flow both ways.  Women of my generation were raised and conditioned to believe that it was our job to take care of men's feelings, to be their cheering squad and human emotional support animals. Hopefully, that expectation has changed or at least lessened. When all the nurturing, comforting and bolstering primarily flow one way, it’s a sign of codependency. It’s not empowering to enable someone to suck your emotional energy, to feed their sense of entitlement or to stoke their grievances.  Instead, it’s a subtle form of othering, that keeps you seeing the person as less than a fully capable human being, strong and resilient enough to weather life's inevitable blows and still fulfill their responsibilities and contribute to the world around them.

·You have the right to ask for what you need.  It’s a mark of respect for another person to expect reciprocity, responsibility, and respectful behavior, to presume that they will give and receive feedback constructively, and take responsibility for their own behavior.

Diversity Generates Resilience:

A natural prairie, where one acre may hold hundreds of different species of grasses, forbs and flowers, can resist disease and pests and recover from a fire or a flood.  If one species is badly affected, others can fill the gap.  But a monoculture field of genetically engineered corn is terribly vulnerable to any disease or munching bug that comes along,

Our groups and movements often strive for diversity, not just to be ‘woke’ but because the more diverse we are, the more lenses we have through which to view the world, the broader our perspective and the more rounded our intelligence.  Diversity is also extremely valuable when we are trying to cope with challenging behaviors.  People of diverse cultural backgrounds will have a diverse array of responses when a conflict arises.

An example: at a large, public ritual our group Reclaiming created, one of the many invocations to spirits and ancestors was to the Mysterious Ones, the non-binary powers of connection to the sacred.  The invoker wore a home-made Raven mask, painted black with a prominent beak.  Later, we received an irate letter from a woman who had apparently rushed out of the ritual in fury, under the mistaken impression that the mask was meant to be black-face.  Given that we had a multi-racial team organizing the ritual, and many people of color doing invocations, singing in the chorus and leading the trance, we were a bit mystified as to how she drew that conclusion or why she would think the many Black ritual-makers would have put up with it.  But because our group was diverse, we were able to discuss the letter, check our own perceptions, and craft a firm but empathetic response.

Groups that have an awareness of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of oppression may be especially vulnerable to someone from a targeted group who controls via power-under and/or recruits enablers.  Structural oppression is real, and it can be very difficult for someone from a background of privilege to confront a person from a targeted group without the weight of historical oppressions coming into play.  Groups and organizations that represent broad diversity are less susceptible.  When a problematic person is confronted on their behavior by someone of similar background, the focus can stay clearly on the behavior. And since many of these behaviors arise from deep trauma, often related to structural oppression, someone from the same or a similar targeted group can also offer empathy and support that is most meaningful when it comes from someone with a common ground of experience.

But what if no one is available who fits this role?  We still need to find ways to lovingly confront one another, I once consulted my close friend Isis about a problem I was having with a garden supervisor in the community program I worked with.  Miss Adele was harsh on the kids, often yelling at them and telling them they were stupid or careless when they made a mistake.  She was an elderly Black woman from the neighborhood, and all the kids in the program were also Black, as was Isis.  I confessed that as a white outsider, I didn’t feel comfortable giving Miss Adele feedback.  Isis fixed me with a quizzical look.  “That’s the most racist thing I ever heard you say!” she said.  “What part of Miss Adele can you not be honest with?”  She then proceeded to giggle gleefully in a most annoying way, “Starhawk’s a racist!  Starhawk’s a racist!”  But I took her point.

When we don’t hold people accountable because of some perceived or real power imbalance, when we withhold our honest feelings and reactions from someone, we are perpetuating a soft form of dehumanization.  We are seeing the person as less than fully capable and responsible.  We should always be aware of systems of oppression, how they operate and how we might internalize them.  But we should not condone behavior from someone from a targeted group that we would not accept from anybody else.

Know Your End Game:

Have a clear process for asking someone to leave a group.  A group that cannot eject a problematic person cannot protect itself, and tends to ossify, becoming afraid to let in someone new lest they turn out to be destructive.  However, a group that regularly ejects those that disagree creates unsafety for all of its members.  So, develop a clear, fair and structured process that clearly asks for a change in behavior and has a graduated set of consequences for failure to change, with expulsion being the last resort.

Harm Reduction:

What happens when someone’s behavior is not egregious enough to warrant expulsion, but is still disruptive and damaging?  And when non-violent communication, mediation, and all well-meaning interventions do not change it?

In a personal relationship, I and every advice columnist from the local paper would advise you to walk away.  But that is not always possible, in families, in communities, or in work or volunteer groups.  What else can you do?

Diana Leafe Christian advises a strategy of first, limiting your expectations.  If repeated attempts at heartfelt understanding don’t work, let go of your attempts at processing or mediation.  Instead, set clear boundaries and hold to them.  Limit your interactions as much as possible.

Use energetic and emotional shields to avoid being drawn into someone else’s drama.  That might mean visualizing an energetic boundary around yourself, a circle of light or a mirror to reflect away negativity.  Christian recommends the ‘forehead gaze”, fixing your eyes on your antagonist’s third eye, which will make you appear to be looking at them, but in reality protects you from their gaze. 

Many Raindrops Make A Flood:

Another technique Christian recommends is “Many raindrops make a flood.”  If one person objects to a behavior, it’s easy to dismiss that feedback as a personal attack.  But if person after person refuses to engage, that creates a more powerful impetus to stop.  I’ve had success with this when someone was misusing an email list serve for personal attacks.  When I said, “this is not an appropriate place for resolving this issue,” It had little effect.  But when many others joined me, the offending person stopped.

When groups use this technique, when they present a united front to stop disruptive behavior, the offending person often decides on their own to leave the group.  Whatever you do, do not go after them and beg them to come back!  Bless them and let them go on their way—even if they then say disparaging things about the group in other forums or blast it on social media.  They probably will.  But you can’t control that, and you will no longer need to deal with their behavior in your group.

And sometimes you will be pleasantly surprised.  One person whom I had to ask to leave my land because she was not doing her work exchange moved to a neighbor’s land where she spread negative gossip about me—until a month later, they kicked her out because of her drinking.  A year later, she contacted me out of the blue, apologized, and repaid me money she owed that I had long ago written off.  I suspect she had gotten sober, was working a twelve-step program, and was making amends.  I was able to thank her and let her know that I wish her well and appreciated her reaching out.

Challenging behaviors can undermine a group and interfere with its effectiveness. But we can meet the challenge, the effort may catalyze new, more empowering norms and patterns that can benefit everyone.

Resources:

Diana Leafe Christian. Creating A Life Together:

 https://www.ic.org/community-bookstore/product/creating-a-life-together/

Here’s a series of articles Diana Leafe Christian has written on challenging behaviors: https://www.gen-us.net/DLC/.  She also offers classes online and in person.

Diana Morningstar. The Narcissist’s Playbook: How to Identify, Disarm and Protect Yourself from Narcissists, Sociopaths, Psychopaths, and Other Types of Manipulative and Abusive People

Steven Wineman. Power Under. Trauma and Nonviolent Social Change

http://www.traumaandnonviolence.com/

And many, many more!  Feel free to list your own favorites in the Comments.