An Example of Risky Change with a Bus Driver
By far the great majority of people in the world have not been unconditionally loved enough that they can feel it in their bones, where it has formed their judgments of themselves and of the world.
Because of that, we don’t know how to unconditionally love and teach our families. With every passing year, I am impressed deeply with the knowledge that very few people can truly change the beliefs, judgments, feelings, and behaviors they learned as children.
Recently somebody sent me a video of a large bus driving on a narrow road on the crest of a mountain ridge. For reasons unknown, the driver decided to turn around. That proved to be just as difficult as it looked. There was no wide place in the road, no convenient turning circle. Just a narrow road at the top of a mountain ridge, with a very steep slope falling hundreds of feet to the valley floor on both sides.
But the driver just took one step after another. Each time he turned off the road a little, it looked like he’d keep right on going to the bottom. But somehow he’d back up and turn a little more.
Over and over, the driver pulled forward and backed up, turning a little more each time. When he’d pull forward, the entire back of the bus would lift up into the air—impossibly high. When he backed up, the front wheels lifted up far off the ground. It became a circus act, and even though I was just watching a video, my heart was pounding in my chest.
But the driver didn’t give up. After uncounted movements forward and backward, and one scare after another, and rocks sliding down the mountain, the driver actually turned 180 degrees and drove back the way he came. It took a lot of courage and persistence, but he did it.
Risky Change in Parenting Brings Happiness
Parenting is very much like this. The steps we have to take are difficult and often scary. We find our front wheels off the ground, then the back wheels.
We have to move forward with courage, but not too fast or far, or we crash down the mountain slope. But we have to move, because continuing down the road in the direction we’ve been taught has proven beyond all doubt not to work.
But no matter how risky change can be, I promise you that it can be done. We CAN learn new perspectives. We can find new feelings. We can learn to feel loved, be loving, and be responsible.
We can learn to make choices instead of just reacting to a lifetime of lies, false judgments, pain, and fear. We can choose happiness instead of just careening down the ridge road that goes nowhere.
We can do this. We can do it together. We can learn to love and support each other in the process. Don’t give up. Turn the bus around.
Although the percentage of people who have this courage is small, nonetheless many people before you have done it. Be one of them.
