Contempt
Our culture is steeped in contempt. Contempt is everywhere. It's in the headline on the news; it's in your favorite magazine; it's on the road. You can find it in the eyes of your partner when you arrive home late from work, or in your child's scowl when you have to set a firm boundary. According to Dr. John Gottman, contempt is the most significant predictor of divorce in distressed couples. However, it is not only an issue in intimate partner relationships. Perhaps the most common place we find contempt is on the face we see every day in the mirror.
Contempt has been explained in many ways, but for the sake of our discussion, we'll define it merely as ascribing indifference or hostility to yourself and others. It means that when your partner is late coming home from work, you think they don't care. It assumes that your parents are putting a boundary in place because they love to watch you suffer. It believes that something is fundamentally wrong with you; a flaw from which there is little hope of recovery. When we walk in contempt, we think poorly about ourselves and those who care the most about us.
Self-Contempt
If the world could listen in on the inner monologue that most of us live with, we would probably want to crawl into a hole and die. Most of us live under a barrage of negative self-talk that would traumatize and scar all but the most calloused among us. Where do we develop this level of venom and vitriol? What makes us deserving of such slander? At some point in our life, we learned that shame and slander would increase our orientation to action. Like the horseman's whip drives the horses, we will beat ourselves to produce results. In the short term, we may see positive gains. But in time, we will stop believing that things could be different. We start to accept the narrative we speak over ourselves and fall into a pattern of self-degradation; we sink into contempt.
The other day I was privileged to hang out with a good friend and mentor. He always asks excellent questions, and I answered them as best I could. But upon leaving, a pit developed in my stomach. I realized that I had been so busy answering his questions that I had not given him much opportunity to speak, nor offered many questions of my own. I felt foolish, and the self-talk started. "Are you a narcissist?" "Why didn't you pay more attention?" "You're a crappy friend." Before I knew it, I was swimming in a pool of self-contempt.
Others-Centered Contempt
It is from this pit of self-contempt that we begin to orient toward others. In our self-flagellating condition, we look at others with a lens of disdain. We begin to think that we are better than they are. Our stories hold the roots of our contempt; when we were children, we learned the movements of scorn from our caregivers. We would watch our parents berate themselves under their breath after they made a mistake. Even in the best of homes, we had to navigate minefields of disdain and judgment.
While writing this post, my wife read me a quote from a prominent religious thinker. This individual had summarized some basic tenets of his faith into a pretty provocative statement to which my wife responded strongly. Naturally, I immediately took the antagonistic position believing that she was not thinking clearly about the idea. I wasn't sure I was right, but I was pretty confident that she wasn't! And so we talked for nearly an hour about why she responded so strongly which ultimately revealed my contempt for strong responses. In what could have been an opportunity for me to offer kindness in the process of learning more of my wife's heart, the infusion of contempt turned our interaction south.
From Contempt to Connection
Contempt erodes the foundations of a healthy relationship; safety and connection are undermined when it is present. To preserve our relationships, we must turn from our contempt. The first step toward connection is compassion; for ourselves first, and then for others. Compassion creates the space for curiosity; which needs to be maintained with courage. From here, we have the freedom to engage with one another, creatively weaving our hopes, dreams, and desires into the beautiful tapestry of connection.