Good heart exploded? Kidnapped by your virtues

One day I saw a man coming towards me down the street followed by his dog. The dog was behaving very eccentrically zigzagging right behind him as he walked. As they passed me and I looked back, I saw the dog, which was a herding breed, systematically lunge at either leg of the man momentarily in the rear. Clearly accused of his dog’s attempts to herd him, the man walked calmly forward.

• In a natural situation where the dog would have been trying to lead a sheep in a particular direction, the sheep would have reflexively run in the opposite direction from the dog. By always approaching from the opposite angle, the dog was able to lead the sheep in the direction the shepherd wanted it to go.

Driving others causing fear

Variations of this orientation and direction behavior are very common in human interactions. In its most negative form we generate a fear or a threat in some domain, so a person will physically or behaviorally flee in the other direction.

• If I scare my kids with stranger kidnapping stories, my kids will be extremely careful… even phobic… around strangers and stay close to home. I can control their behavior by triggering their fears.

A more benign example…

Pride can lead a person to face a fear running towards him. We call this “counterphobic behavior.”

• When this is done in the name of mastery and fear is reduced through exposure and familiarity, this can be very healthy.

• But when someone insists on doing something, continue being afraid… but cannot stop due to internal or external shame, this can create enormous psychic tension and is not really healthy or helpful at all.

Interestingly, we can be driven in the same thoughtful way by our virtues as we are by our fears.

What is a virtue?

A virtue is an internal decision to prioritize acting in a particular value-driven way.

• Deciding in advance on a behavioral principle is psychologically useful because it gives us a prepared position in situations where we might otherwise spend a lot of time debating individual cases.

• Often virtues such as modesty, studiousness, or hard work help us stay in line with the values ​​of our group or culture.

Internal guidance system.

We carry within us the values ​​and principles that we have lived or have been taught by important people and institutions.

At its best, values ​​are freely endorsed, self-sustaining and self-regulating. A psychologically healthy individual knows:

• when to stop being generous and appropriately keep something for themselves.

• when to draw the line between volunteering your time to help someone and being exploited…

• how to navigate between being patient with a friend and talking about boundaries being crossed inappropriately.

A person who is psychologically self-regulating can tell the difference between helping someone out and doing it for them.

• If you always “virtuously” tie your child’s shoes, he’ll never learn to do it himself…and endless variations on that theme.

Virtue or identity?

Because we come to identify with our virtues and principles, it can be very destabilizing to have these parts of our identity questioned or attacked.

For example, for a person who believes in generosity and selflessness, the accusation of acting “selfishly” may be absolutely intolerable.

• This is often a problem for women who have normally been raised to care. Many women, when it is suggested that they are being selfish, will redouble their efforts of accommodation and generosity to show others (and reassure themselves) that their virtue-identity is still strong. When this exceeds the limits of reasonable effort or generosity, we can say, “Her good heart was taken advantage of.”

• Men who reflexively value courage may be prompted to take unreasonable risks.

• People who overestimate stoicism can be led to tolerate what they should never tolerate.

Danger! Driven by your virtues instead of exercising them freely…

When a person reflexively reacts to any doubt about his virtue by jumping to test it, he is acting like the sheep led by the sheepdog. It becomes very easy for others to consciously or unconsciously begin to selectively direct your behavior by expressing doubt or making accusations.

• If a child accidentally discovers that saying “You don’t love me” to their parents, their parents will most often offer extra solicitous care, giving in to a demand or giving an extra special gift as a reflex. proof “of her love, only the unusual child will not learn to” lead “her parents with that accusation.

• The situation works just as well in reverse…and there are many adult children who are forced to go out of their way to please their parents in order to counter or avoid an accusation of being “ungrateful.”

Unconscious compensation?

Why is this reflex so easily activated and therefore exploited?

Usually, because we all secretly know how tempting it is to do the opposite… to be lazy instead of industrious, selfish instead of generous, careless instead of orderly. Most of us are aware that we are in an almost constant battle to live up to our highest values, and each of us knows all the times (even when others don’t see) where we have failed in big and small ways. .

• So we all know that, to some degree, the accusation of our lack of virtue has some truth… and in the face of the accusation we redouble our efforts to show our virtue.

Appropriately resentful!

Unfortunately, since the virtues are meant to make you self-driven, self-reliant, and self-limiting, challenging them and reflexively reacting in response can quickly lead to inappropriate or excessive behavior.

• The result is a buildup of resentment and a feeling of having been manipulated or exploited.

True to your own way?

So what is the best way to handle attempts by others to mislead you by attacking your virtues?

• Acknowledging the inner solidity of virtue, assessing your own course, and listening to your own inner guidance system.

• Believing that while you may occasionally err, your value system will actually guide you without outside supervision and adjustment from others.

Like the man whose dog chased one leg first, it is possible to keep your own course despite the attempts of those around you to sway you into jumping in one direction or another..