Relationship Between Being and Doing is Profound - by Steven Kalas
"...The relationship between being and doing is profound. Each can change the other. When an evolution (or devolution) occurs in our being, then we do differently. When we practice some doing long enough (for good or ill), then our being moves to conform to the doing. Doing issues forth from being. Being is shaped by doing..."
The parenting experts tell us to separate our children's behavior from their identity. "I love you," we are supposed to say, "but I don't like what you are doing." In this way -- so the theory goes -- we can correct what a child is doing without shaming his being.
I am mostly a supporter of this strategy for discipline and change, whether it is used by parents or by individuals striving to confront their own mistaken behavior. Separating ourselves from our behavior is an effective way to break through the paralyzing shame many of us feel about both who we are and what we have done. Once we have regained power over shame, we are set free to celebrate our lives and take responsibility for our actions.
Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, uses this model to frequent success. In the AA model, alcoholism is not the name of an action (something we do) nor a reference to moral identity (someone we are); alcoholism is the name of a disease. Over and over I have seen this separation of being and doing give problem drinkers a way to climb out from under their shame and despair long enough to make the necessary changes for health and wholeness.
I say "mostly a supporter" because lately I've been thinking about the limits of this model. While it may be occasionally helpful to think in terms of separating identity and behavior, finally, no such separation really exists. We fool ourselves if we say that our behavior has no relationship to our person. If a man lies to me 20 times, and on the 21st occasion of our meeting tells me he is not, in fact, a liar, I will pause. I will doubt the man. If the man has 15 convictions for theft, and tells me of many other thieveries for which he was never discovered, I will not find much comfort in being told that, while his behavior is wicked, he is really a nice guy.
My car is rear-ended at a busy intersection. The guilty driver pleads with me not to call the police because he has no insurance and he wishes to avoid the additional citation. He assures me he has a friend in an auto body shop who will fix my car, and asks how he might gain my trust. I survey my damaged car. I see a man who has willfully rejected his legal and moral responsibility to carry insurance. Can he be trusted? He cannot. My answer is informed by his decision to drive without insurance. What he has done has told me something of who he is. I call the police.
The relationship between being and doing is profound. Each can change the other. When an evolution (or devolution) occurs in our being, then we do differently. When we practice some doing long enough (for good or ill), then our being moves to conform to the doing. Doing issues forth from being. Being is shaped by doing.
Of course, our doing is rarely a complete picture of who we are. Even in the midst of our most miserable acts there remains the part of our identity that knows the act was miserable. If we know we acted badly, then we can't be entirely bad. That's really good news.
But what we do remains a serious business. Our doing, if left unchecked and unexamined, has the power to blur and even bury our identity. Our character. To take seriously the connection between being and doing is to realize that at some point it is possible to no longer be doing evil, but to have finally become evil. Gives me the creeps.
Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas. Contact him at skalas@ reviewjournal.com.