What are others for?
“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.”
— Bessel Van Der Kolk
One of the most insightful questions I’ve ever heard from a therapist was “To you, what is ‘the other’ for?”
Simply put, this question is asking what, to you, is the purpose of others, both in relation to yourself, but also as an entity? What do they exist for, in your belief system?
This question illuminates the fact that each of us, whether we realise it or not, is running some script about the purpose of others.
This question - usually unasked and unanswered - is vital in understanding how we relate to others, and the kind of relationships we’re capable of - our relational range.
And like every pattern in our behaviour, it’s mostly unconscious, and honestly come by.
Where does our script come from?
Whatever our unconscious beliefs about others, and our resulting behaviours, they all came from somewhere. As children, we absorb the energy of the others around us, and this hardwires deeply into our implicit memory - the memories formed before speech or explanation.
If your experience from your earliest years was of conditional love - say a parent who only validated you when you met certain criteria - then as an adult, other people might be for impressing.
If your deepest identity is that of a caretaker, and you were rewarded - internally or externally - for taking care of people, then others may now be for helping.
If you grew up with a dangerous parent, then other people may exist to be managed, dominated, or avoided for safety.
So where does that leave us?
In any pattern of behaviour, the first thing we need to do, always, is simply to notice. Ask yourself:
What are my beliefs about others?
Do I feel other people are generally - as a whole - benign, or dangerous?
Even if I say they’re safe, do I really believe it? Way deep down?
How do I act? Am I generally open and trusting? Or do I feel I need to be careful of others, cautious, defensive or even hostile?
An honest inventory is always the place to start. And actual honesty involves divesting from any stories we’re telling ourselves, and looking our bare-faced truth straight in its plain, unlovely face.
If my identity is tied up in helping others, how is this affecting my relationships? What am I gaining from this dynamic? What needs am I unconsciously meeting, in always being the provider of support? Am I infantilising others, or subtly demanding dependence in order to scaffold my own identity as a caretaker? How do I relate to people who don’t need me, and how do I feel about accepting help, or having wants or needs of my own?
If on the other hand my self-story is that of a dominant, commanding leader, then what effect is that having on others? If others are there to be controlled, dominated or ordered around, how would I feel about being treated that way? If I turn every interaction into a competition, how am I creating the conditions in which I’ll lose some inevitable day?
Ok what now…
When we do the work to make an implicit belief system explicit, we can then look clearly at this pattern, and decide if we want to continue as we are, or make some changes. We can also see where our stated goals - such as improving our relationships with colleagues for example - conflict with the unconscious belief system we’re running underneath our conscious awareness.
The brain, for all its inexpressible complexity, is simple in some ways. It can’t hold two conflicting beliefs at once, and left to its own devices, the unconscious will beat the conscious.
We can say that we’re feeling worn out, and we’d like other people to pull their weight, but if our identity is built on being a caretaker, then any help from others will be automatically slapped away. Our unconscious mind always clings to the familiar, even if we say we don’t want it anymore.
Equally, we could say we want to get along better with others, but if our nervous system sounds an alarm whenever anyone approaches, because our earliest memories are of threat, then we’ll continue to distance others, through hostility, neglect or avoidance, until we address the fundamental issue - a lack of trust in others - at the source.
As James Clear writes, we are what we repeatedly do. We get what we repeat.
Breaking autopilot patterns takes conscious work, and generates resistance, even if the new state we’re aiming for is better.
So what do we do?
Start small
This is the key to any breakthrough in personal development. We might feel that transformation should happen with a spotlight and a sweeping score, but most often, it happens in little daily course corrections - “tiny wins or tiny losses” - that compound to form a new way of being. This also gives our nervous system time to adapt, and to build trust in a new way of interacting with the world.
If you can look clearly at your pattern of behaviour with others, you can choose tiny ways to adapt. If you identify as a rational, logical teacher for example, then others may be for correcting, instructing and judging. Can you start to identify where you do that, day to day, and in one tiny instance, start to do something different? Could you decide not to honk in traffic, for example, and try to accept that some people may not know the rules, or might just make mistakes, and step out of a self-definition that requires you to correct them?
For myself, one of the biggest course corrections I needed to make was in opening up to receive the support of others, when my system was running a programme that independence equals safety, and any vulnerability - no matter how deeply felt - was unsafe. My own growth required endless small steps in opening up, in a painful, unfamiliar process that felt like prising a lid off a rusted paint can. It often still feels like that. It takes time, and repeated effort. Three of the teachings from Sanskrit tell us:
You will learn lessons.
There are no mistakes, only lessons.
A lesson is repeated until it is learned.
And repeat it will. Like a record baby.
The good news is that there is such deep reward in making the unconscious conscious, and choosing a new and better path for ourselves, as wobbly as we might be at the start.
