02 My Light – Spot 6
Community: I belong
And when we come together with our rough edges and our handbrakes off, friction happens. Different points of view. Different needs. And it gets really hard where things go wrong. Where somebody makes a mistake. Where I am disappointed.
Monday morning, the office. The project has gone wrong. An error in the costing that has cost us a client. And I know exactly who made it.
I go over to his desk. In front of everyone. “How could that happen? That was your job. A beginner’s mistake like that simply cannot happen.”
He goes red. Says nothing at first. Then he mumbles something about time pressure. I wave it away. “Excuses. Look more carefully next time.” He nods. Doesn’t say another word all day.
And the others? They look away and keep typing. Don’t stand out. Don’t be the next one. I have made my point. And I was right, after all – the mistake was his. And still, I have just lost.
Because what does he do with the next mistake? He hides it for as long as he can. He doesn’t come to me any more when something is stuck. Soon nobody will.
Guilt and shame turn people into hiders. Anyone who gets cut down keeps his head down and gets out of the line of fire.
And bit by bit the whole working relationship gets sick. Whispering behind backs. Blame passed around like a hot potato. Everyone covers himself, nobody risks anything any more. No creativity. No innovation. Standstill.
Nothing grows that way. Nothing gets better. I won the exchange – and lost the collaboration. There is another way. But for that I have to put something down.
Until now I have always armed myself for a conversation like that. Lining up my arguments, hardening myself, putting the armour on. As if before a battle. But I don’t want to win a battle. I want us to get better together.
So I take the armour off. And I no longer sit opposite you, on the other side of the table. I come round. I sit down next to you.
The problem is no longer between us. It is in front of us. We both look at it together.
And before I judge, I ask. What happened there? How did it come about? I listen, honestly. Maybe there was time pressure. Maybe a piece of information was missing. Maybe something in our process isn’t right.
It could be that I am wrong.
And something else helps me to look without shaming anyone. Behind almost every weakness there is a strength. It is often the same quality – only seen from the other side.
My colleague, the one who made the mistake, is the fastest in the team. His workload puts everyone else in the shade. His speed is his talent. And sometimes it is also his mistake.
Another one always has his thoughts somewhere else. In return he often has the most creative ideas. Anyone who takes forever usually works the most thoroughly. Anyone who doesn’t get his hands dirty may be good at inspiring others and delegating.
This is not sugar-coating. The weakness stays a weakness. But when I see the strength behind it, I see a different person in front of me.
Not “you failure”, but: this is where your power lies – and this is where it costs us money and nerves. Let’s get your abilities into a good balance.
But the most important thing is the sentences themselves. And mostly I say exactly the wrong ones.
I don’t dare admit that there is something I can’t do. So I muddle on and make a mess. When three sentences would have been so simple.I don’t know. I need help. I would like to try it.
My attempt goes wrong. I cover it up and somehow carry on, instead of saying:It didn’t work, but I learned a lot. How would you see it? Can you show me how it’s done?
A colleague does it differently from me. Instead of coordinating our approaches, I stubbornly work against him. When I could say: I see it differently. Can we talk? This is how it leaves me. This matters to me. Let’s carry on together.
And the hardest one: I have made a mess. I cover it up, I push it onto somebody else – until it blows up in all our faces. How much smaller the damage would have been with five honest sentences.Yes, it was me. I take responsibility. I’m sorry. What can I do better?
All these sentences have one thing in common. For a moment they make me look small and attackable. And that is exactly why they stick in my throat. When the opposite is true. They are not a weakness. They open the door.
Of course it takes courage. I am the first to drop my guard. But that is exactly what changes everything. Because when I show myself, the next person dares to as well. Suddenly everyone is allowed to not know something, to need help, to get it wrong.
That is how a team that holds together comes about. Not one where everybody hides his mistakes. One where we get better together.
I write these door-opening sentences into my DoD. I read them again and again. So that they come to me in the heat of the moment – and not only afterwards.
But why is all this so hard for me? Why does an accusation come more easily than a request for help? Because underneath it all lies the oldest need of all. I want to belong.
For a child that is vital for survival. Anyone who falls out of the family is lost. So the child learns what it has to do in order to belong.
And mostly it learns: if you are good. If you function. If you show no weakness. Then you belong. Belonging in exchange for good behaviour.
That is still sitting in me today. If I show weakness, the old alarm goes off: any second now you won’t belong any more.
So I adapt. I become the man I think is wanted. I say yes where I think no. I laugh at jokes I don’t find funny. I hide whatever doesn’t fit the picture.
But adapting is not belonging. It is the opposite. If I adapt, only my mask belongs. Not me. That is why I am lonely in the middle of other people.
I look at my colleague again. The red face. The lowered eyes. The way he makes himself small. And suddenly I know that face. It is mine. Back then. Small, caught out, not good enough.
And my tone of voice earlier? That wasn’t me. That was my father. Out of my mouth. That is how it gets passed on. Father to son. Boss to colleague. Rucksack after rucksack, one generation to the next.
It stops in one place only. When somebody takes the rucksack off and says: not with me. Not any more. And somebody is watching me do it. More closely than anyone else. My son.
He will copy me. My words. My actions. Not what I preach – what I live. So I start with myself. I make the difference. A new era begins with me.
I stop pointing the finger at other people.
I don’t have to wait long for the proof. The living room, in the evening. My son is playing with his little sister. She trips into his tower. Everything falls over. By accident.
He spins round. “Can’t you be careful?! Don’t make such a fuss!” Sharp. From above. A tone like a blade.
I freeze. I know those words. I know that tone. That is not my son talking. That is me. Out of his mouth. A hundred times I have told him to be kind to his sister. A hundred times. It changed nothing.
Children don’t do what we say. They do what we do. He reads me like an open book. And copies. So I look closely. Do I say one thing – and do another?
I demand good marks. And tell laughing stories about what a terrible pupil I was. I forbid cigarettes and alcohol. And boast to guests about my wild nights.
I say you don’t steal. And I don’t go back when the cashier has got it wrong. Talking and living. Two completely different things. I want to change that. What I say, I want to live as well.
Does that mean I have to be the perfect father now? Get everything right, never slip, always set the good example?
No. I put that pressure down. There is no such thing as the perfect father. I am imperfect and I make mistakes, like every other father.
On the contrary: that is exactly what my son may see. That I sometimes don’t know what to do either. That I make mistakes – and own them.
Not everything, of course. Some things are none of a child’s business, some need time and maturity. But my mistakes he may see. That way he learns that you don’t have to be perfect to be worth something. He learns it because I live it in front of him.
I write a sentence on a piece of paper. I put it where I will see it every day.
I want to be the father I wished for myself as a child.
Because I can’t give my child what I don’t have myself. Only when I am good enough for myself can I pass it on.
And if I don’t have children? Then every word here still applies. Because there is one child I am always a father to. My inner child. And here I recognise how my parents treated me – and how I treat myself today.
But I want to be honest. I haven’t always managed it. I have raised my voice. I have said and done things I regret today. That is part of the truth too. I can’t undo it. However much I would like to.
Now the shame could grab me.What kind of a father are you.And nail me to the floor. But shame doesn’t make me a better father. It only makes me smaller. It paralyses.
So I accept it. No glossing over, no pushing away. Looking at it. Because only what I look at can I change.
I can’t change anything as long as I don’t see it and accept it.
I take my DoD and write down this morning’s scene. We want to leave, my son is dawdling. I get impatient, I push, I snap at him. He jumps, and in his fright he drops the cup. Broken china, juice, everywhere. Now we really are late.
And now, with some distance, I see it clearly. I was the one who was running late. My son could do nothing about it. He is a child. In the here and now. He doesn’t understand time management yet. I am the grown-up. My responsibility. Next time we leave earlier. Relaxed.
There is one line I draw. And I promise never to cross it. No hand raised to a child. No shouting, no humiliating, no showing up, no love withheld.
Because that is exactly what destroys what I am painstakingly rebuilding in myself. Self-worth. I know today how much strength it costs to get it back, step by step.
But violence is not only the loud kind. There is the quiet kind too. The kind that leaves no marks on the skin. Only inside.
A child senses every day whether it is enough. And some learn early:I am not the way they want me. They are always cleverer. They talk about other people full of admiration – never about me.
My son should never have to think that. He is good enough. Not because he behaves. Not because he functions. Simply because he exists.
Good enough even when he screams. When he doesn’t finish his food, makes a mess of himself, is cheeky. When he brings home bad marks, breaks something, contradicts me and goes his own way.
I tell him that. And more importantly: I show him. Every day. Outside I can’t protect him. In the playground, among other children, things are sometimes cruel. Laughed at, shut out. That is hard.
At home this holds: you belong. Whatever happens outside. Whatever you bring home. Even if I haven’t done it so well up to now. Even if he has taken a fair bit from me. I am starting today. It is never too late.
And I give myself the same. My worth doesn’t hang on any condition either. Not on the house, the car, the job, the flawless appearance. I am good enough. Exactly like him.
I stop pulling my child about. Stop trying to bring him into line. Stop making him fit. Instead I build something. A connection that holds. That nourishes and strengthens.
I crouch down. To his eye level. I listen without judging straight away. I ask instead of ordering. I take his world seriously. The beetle on the path. The row at nursery. The little tower that has fallen over three times already.
For him that isn’t small. For him that is everything. And while I give him what I never had myself – I give it to the child in me as well. We grow together. And I don’t protect him from everything. However much I would like to.
He is struggling with his shoelace. My hand is already twitching towards it. I pull it back. I let him do it. He swears, he strains, the loop slips through his fingers three times. And then – the bow holds. His face. That pride.
I would have stolen that from him. With my quick hand. I don’t clear every stone out of his way. Honestly: it isn’t that he can’t bear the difficulty. It is that I can’t bear watching him struggle.
But it is exactly in the struggling that he learns what will carry him all his life: I set myself a goal. I find a way. If the first one doesn’t work, the second one will. I can rely on myself.
I come back into the living room. My son, his sister, the toppled tower. This time I don’t walk over him. I go to him. “That was loud just then, wasn’t it? Come on, let’s build it up again together.”
His look. Disbelieving at first. Then something in him lets go. He nods. And I know: that is exactly what I am giving him. Not my hardness. But how you get back up when something falls over.
That is how a child grows who doesn’t have to be afraid. One who knows his feelings instead of pushing them away. And anyone who can handle his fear breaks nothing. He builds. He finds ways that are better than violence.
One child after another. One generation after another. It starts with me.
And then there is one more thing I pass on to children without meaning to. My perfectionism.
It is catching. A child who grows up with a perfectionist learns early: what matters is not what I feel. What matters is what other people think.
That turns a child into one who wants to please everyone. Who is constantly comparing. Who has to prove himself over and over. Never enough. I want to break that. In me, and with that in him.
Fuckperfection.I would rather be emotionally successful.
For that I practise two small things. Every day. My son comes home from school. The door opens, and my efficiency fires off straight away. “Wash your hands! Shoes away! And straight on to your homework.”
No hello. No warm look. No “how was it?”. Only demands. Before he has even taken his rucksack off. What he hears is: function, and then I love you. Is that what I want? No, it isn’t.
So I turn it round. The door opens – and the first thing is a smile. “Good to have you home.” “What did you get up to today?”
The rest comes later. Hands, shoes, homework. All in its own time. The first moment counts. And that one should be love. Not a to-do list. The second exercise is tiny. A single word. And it changes everything.
I replace “you are” with “you have”.
Not: you are lazy. But: you haven’t done this piece of work yet. Not: you are bad at maths. But: you haven’t quite got the hang of it yet. Not: you are cheeky. But: that was cheeky just now.
Not: you are clumsy. But: the spoon slipped there. It sounds like splitting hairs. It isn’t. “You are” hits the whole child. “You have” hits only the behaviour – and that he can change.
If I tell a child often enough that he is all fingers and thumbs, he stops making any effort at all when he makes something. Why would he? With hands like that it will never work anyway.
The label becomes the truth. So I stop sticking labels on my child. Two tiny things. A smile at the door. One word I swap.
Both of them say: you are good. You belong. And if you stumble: get up. Put your crown back on. Carry on.
That is exactly what I would have needed as a child. That is exactly what I pass on now.
Closing
I take it off.
The armour. The masks. The smile I hid behind. Piece by piece. It is hard, my hands are shaking. But I take it off. And underneath there is no hole. No failure. No little boy who isn’t enough.
Underneath there is light. My light. It was there the whole time. I step forward. Out of cover. Into the arena. Here I am. Look at me. With everything I am. With everything I can do. No better. No worse.
Yes, it can go wrong. Yes, they can laugh. Point the finger at me. I do it anyway. Because I want to do it. Because the people in the cheap seats, the ones who only watch and judge – their voice doesn’t count any more.
What counts is who stands in the arena. And that is me now. And there is somebody who sees me. My son.
He doesn’t see a perfect father. He sees one who falls down and gets back up. Who shakes and goes anyway. That is exactly what he needs. Not a hero. A human being.
He won’t hide his light. Because I am showing him: you don’t have to hide it. The rucksack I have carried, heavy and full – I am not passing it on. It ends with me.
He sets off light. That is my greatest gift.
I am not afraid of my fear any more. It is still there. Of course it is. But I don’t walk around it any more. I walk straight through. And on the other side there is no heap of rubble. There is something I have built.
Anyone who can handle his fear breaks nothing. He builds. A foundation of respect. For himself. For everyone.
No fear. Only respect.
I live with my whole heart. Connected to everything. And my inner child? Walks beside me now. I will never leave him alone again. It was me I was waiting for. I am good enough. I’m doing really well.