Motives
“The
moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell
the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when
we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow
into our souls.”
Elizabeth
Cady Stanton (American Activist, 1815-1902)
If you're doing a little
soul-searching during this Lenten season, there is no better place to
begin than with motives. What are my motives for doing what I do? You
will find it to be a Tar Baby, I'm afraid. We begin with our
superficial motives, and work our way down, and the deeper we go, the
stickier it gets. We always know that our motives are suspect when we
lie about something—even little white lies. For instance, when we
say, “You look really nice today,” to someone we don't think
looks particularly great, and/or we don't like very much, we're
sitting at the top of a slippery slope. On the surface, it's
innocuous, it's innocent enough, but underneath, it's a clue that
we're trying to curry favor. And we're likely trying to curry favor
because we want something from them, or we want something they have.
We tell ourselves we're just trying to “be nice,” but the
underlying motive is manipulation. See what I mean—Tar Baby.
Still, it's important to
investigate our motives for the simple reason that it gives us a
clearer view of our Shadow. We catch a glimpse of that part of us
that hides in the shade of our sparkling persona. Some people say
the brighter the light, the darker the shadow. It's only human to
want to present ourselves in our best light—we certainly don't want
to unleash the dark parts of us on an unsuspecting world, but it's
important to know what they look like. That way, when they show up,
we recognize them for who they are. Crimes of passion are often
committed by people who say, “I don't know what came over me. I
would NEVER hurt anyone. I just lost it.” That's what can happen
when we don't know our Shadow. We unwittingly cause harm.
Motives are sometimes
positive, don't get me wrong. Not everything is dark. And even when
we do something to advance ourselves, we may still be serving a good
purpose. If I give large amounts of money to a charity so that I will
be invited to their gala where I will rub elbows with people who may
be influential in advancing my career—well, the charity still
benefits, right? If I push my son to pledge a fraternity because I
was never invited to and I want to live vicariously through him; I
want to brag to my friends that my son is a Pi-Kappa-whatever—my
son will still enjoy the Greek life (and hopefully survive it). That
may sound extreme to you, but it happens all the time. We have a
stated motive that camouflages a mini-cesspool of underlying motives,
but somewhere, somehow, something good comes of it. It's a wonderful
serendipity when that happens, but it's still good to know exactly
what the real intentions were.
As we begin this march
toward Easter, or toward Spring, let's do a little soul-cleansing.
You don't have to punish yourself—just claim all your parts. When
we recognize our Shadow just as it is, we can make friends with it.
It has it's purposes, it is worthy of respect. It does what the
“goody-two-shoes” part of us cannot, and we need that. Our Shadow
is every bit as much a soul-part as old goody, so don't banish, just
keep a close watch.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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