Are You Really Coming From a Place of Love?
Is it an authentic love?
The creator of the Disaffected Podcast, Josh Slocum, created a discord server for his paid subscribers. That was an excellent idea because it’s a really nice place to chat freely with like-minded people. Though I haven’t been posting articles or social media posts as much this past week, I have been in there chatting a little bit.
I saw that Josh said he was discussing a controversial issue and someone wanted him to say things differently so that people knew he was “coming in love.” But Josh didn’t really want to give that impression because he was trying to enforce his boundaries and he believed that if he was seen to be “coming in love” the seriousness of his reaction would be missed. There was a vocal discussion later on about that with a point that I also would have made and I want to write about that point here.
If you are strictly enforcing a boundary, then you are coming out of love, for yourself, and for everyone else who should be able to have their boundaries enforced. But, why is it that we and others do not always see that reaction as actually coming out of love?
Coming Out of Love Through COVID
In 2020 some people believed that COVID was extremely dangerous and that the best way to be protected was for everyone to either be locked down at home and/or wear masks everywhere. On the flip side, some people believed that, no matter how dangerous COVID could be, people should be free to go to work if they desired to and not wear masks if they desired to.
The government, healthcare industry, and mainstream and social media promoted the idea that if you were truly coming out of love then you would stay home and wear a mask. So, were the people who wanted to not wear a mask not coming out of love? Were the people who didn’t want to be “locked down” not coming out of love?
The people who wanted others to be free to choose were definitely coming out of love for themselves and others. There are many reasons why someone would be against the lockdowns and masks out of love.
For one thing, masks can cause more falls and for a variety of reasons, masks make it more difficult to hear others.
Masks also made it so that deaf people were even more at a disadvantage as they couldn’t read lips any longer. And the lockdowns hurt businesses, causing excessive unemployment and the loss of many people’s hard work. They led to an increase in drug abuse and suicides. They caused more children to fall behind in school. There are most likely lots of negative effects that we don’t even know right now.
It’s clear that many people loved those who were hurt by the lockdowns and wanted them to not suffer. So why is it that so many people are oblivious to the anti-lockdowners and anti-maskers coming out of love for the people hurt by the lockdowns and hurt by masks?
Why Are People So Oblivious?
I’d be interested in hearing people’s thoughts about this. But my theory is that the media promotes specific drama triangle dynamics on various issues. In this case, they will label anti-maskers and anti-lockdowners as the “persecutor” hurting the potential “victims” who might catch COVID. Then, of course, they promote anyone who wears a mask and goes along with the lockdown as the “saviors.”
The Reverse Drama Triangle
But, none of the big media companies promote the reverse drama triangle dynamic. I don’t want people to regularly think in terms of the drama triangle, but for every triangle, there is a reverse version. That is, if someone is a “persecutor,” then they’re the “savior” in the reverse version and vice versa.
The reverse version of this drama triangle is that people whose businesses got destroyed and the people who either intentionally or unintentionally ended their life because they couldn’t get mental health help while locked down are the “victims” of these lockdowns. The “persecutors” are the people who implemented the lockdowns. Remember that those implementors thought they were “saving” people. The actual “saviors” or “rescuers” in this reverse drama triangle are the people who were out protesting the lockdowns.
Not All Protestors Are In The Drama Triangle
I don’t want to suggest that every single person protesting the lockdowns viewed the hurt people as victims who couldn’t take care of themselves. I don’t actually believe that. Some people may have fallen into that viewpoint. But I think most people protesting the lockdowns and masks were actually simply taking personal responsibility and doing what they could to implement the changes they personally desired. You cannot look at someone protesting something and know immediately if they are acting in the drama triangle or simply taking personal responsibility and trying to enact change for themselves.
Protecting the Unwillingly-Masked People
So I mentioned the lockdown reverse drama triangle. People can also be against forced masking because it causes people to faint, not hear well, and fall more often. Deaths from falling increased most likely because of the mandated mask wearing. Those people who fell or couldn’t hear could be viewed as “victims” who were being “persecuted” by the mask-mandating politicians.
People against mandated mask use could be seen as coming out of love for those people. I think the only reason we don’t notice that they’re coming out of love is that this particular drama triangle dynamic is not spoken of in the media. And, that is likely because it’s more about taking personal responsibility which the general public does not want to do.
The general public wants other people to take responsibility for their health. The general public does not want to have to take personal responsibility for their own health. They want to paint anyone who would endanger that responsibility-less lifestyle as the “persecutor.” And, they will never listen to the “persecutors” mindset or viewpoint. Because to listen to that viewpoint would be to humanize rather than dehumanize them. Because of this, they close their ears to hearing that their “persecutors” could possibly be coming out of a place of love for others.
Enforcing Boundaries
So, back to the original point, enforcing boundaries is about protecting oneself from abusers. An abuser will use the DARVO tactic to avoid being seen as an abuser. They don’t want to have to take personal responsibility for their abuse of others. DARVO means they will deny, attack, and reverse the victim and offender. We’re living in a world where the abusers’ viewpoints are rampant. So the “victims” are now seen as “persecutors.”
Enforcing your boundaries and the boundaries of other people, such as wanting to protect other people's rights to freedom, is about love. But it’s viewed as hate today by the abusers. Never forget that you are coming in love even if you are strictly enforcing your boundaries or someone else’s boundaries. And, no, the other side will never see you as coming in love and will accuse you of coming in hate instead. To do anything else would be to humanize you, and that would destroy the drama games they’re trying to play.
Are They Lying?
For those who said that the lockdowns and masks were coming from a place of love, were they lying? I am sure some people just took what they heard from the media and didn’t question it and probably did think they were participating out of love.
But is it ever truly loving to force someone to do something against their will? For those who actually implemented mandates and reported or jailed those who wouldn’t go along with them, were they truly loving people? I suppose there are times when it is loving to stop someone from doing something that might harm them, such as stopping a child from touching a hot stove no matter how much they desire to. But the parent or guardian has a responsibility to do that. The government has no responsibility to protect people from disease.
Personally, I don’t think the enforcers thought much about how what they were doing was abusive rather than loving. Whether or not they were lying to us or lying to themselves would be very specific to each individual and we may never know.
Josh’s discussion had nothing to do with COVID, so if you’re interested in that context donate to him and get into the discord to read about it. But this theme of Democrats claiming to be doing abusive things out of love can be seen on many topics. Apply this thought process to all of those topics, and you’ll usually see the other side (the side of freedom) may be doing their thing more authentically out of love than the authoritarians are.