Zooming Out A Thousand Times
My father believed that every person’s essence is pure—that each one of us is born perfect, and then our experiences and conditioning shape us into the people we later become. This conviction even extended to the brutal Nazi guards he closely observed during his three years as a concentration camp prisoner. My dad often speculated about what he would have been like if he’d been swapped at birth with one of those guards and had experienced the same upbringing in pre-war Germany.
The wise psychotherapist and parenting expert, Dr. Becky Kennedy, also has faith that deep inside, everyone is good. This belief is so foundational to all her theories that Good Inside is the title of her best-selling book. “When I say, ‘good inside,’” she wrote, “I mean that we all, at our core, are compassionate, loving, and generous. The principle of internal goodness drives all of my work—I hold the belief that kids and parents are good inside, which allows me to be curious about the ‘why’ of their bad behaviors.”
Oprah agrees as well, which is why she teamed up with the renowned neuroscientist and child trauma expert, Bruce Perry, MD, PhD, to write the book, What Happened to You? Their goal was to make a profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?” to asking, “What happened to you?” They share the belief that once people understand how they were adversely affected by their conditioning and the traumatic events in their lives, they can begin to heal and reclaim their fundamental good nature.
Co-hosts of the We Can Do Hard Things podcast: Glennon Doyle (left), her wife, Abby Wambach (center), and her sister, Amanda Doyle
I recently listened to a powerful episode of author and activist Glennon Doyle’s “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast that addressed the concept of how behavior is shaped by conditioning, and how we can illuminate this by widening our perspective—a theme I’ve been focused on in anticipation for our Write Your Mind Open workshop tomorrow. During the podcast, Doyle shared her first “Letter from Love”—a free-writing practice created by author Elizabeth Gilbert meant to help people access their deepest wisdom.
Essentially, a “Letter from Love” starts by jotting down the question, “Dear Love—What would you have me know today?” and then allowing the answer to surface on the page. This source of unconditional love can be viewed as whatever feels most true to us: a communion with God, a spirit guide, our wisest inner self, or the life-force energy of nature.
“What would ‘Unconditional Love’ tell you if it had a voice?” Elizabeth wants us to ask ourselves. “What does your heart need to hear today, in this exact moment? Where is the suffering, and what does it long to be told? What reassurance or comfort does your spirit need?” She advises anyone who is feeling stuck to imagine what they would say to a beloved child or friend that needed comfort or reassurance. “Write those words—but to yourself.”
The theme that spontaneously arose for Glennon was forgiveness—a concept that she has always struggled with. In her letter, Glennon’s inner wisdom explains that the reason she’s always felt confused about forgiveness is because forgiveness is very different from her preconceived notions of it. Her inner voice said that forgiveness is not about deciding if someone was right or wrong, giving the gift of absolution, or letting go of anger. “Forgiveness is about distance. It’s about perspective. It’s about zooming out.”
Glennon’s letter described how when she was a young girl, she loved looking at the pages towards the back of Highlights magazines for children that had “magic pictures” readers were meant to decipher. She talked about one she stared at for hours, trying to figure out what the swirly, glimmering silver lines on a shimmering purple mountain-like shape might be.
When Glennon finally turned the page to view the photo that revealed the answer, she discovered the exact same image, but now zoomed out “a thousand times.” What she’d been staring at for so long was actually a micro-focus on the tiny scales of a dragonfly’s wing. From the wider perspective of the second photo, she could see the entire dragonfly as it sat on a large leaf growing on a huge tree that was part of a vast forest.
Glennon’s inner voice explained, “It’s been 40 years, and you still remember both images like they were the most important pictures you’d ever seen. Here’s why: For today, so I could use them to help you understand forgiveness.”
Looking closely at one moment in her life from decades before, Glennon saw herself with her father when she was thirteen. He was yelling and she was afraid. Then the moment zoomed out so that the same scene was part of an entire timeline.
Now Glennon could see her father when he was a child in the company of his own father. In addition to yelling, there was hitting. Then she saw her father’s father with his father when he was a small, hungry, fearful little boy on a ship fleeing a famine. And back and back it went. “None of it is okay or not okay,” her inner wisdom said, “You just see all of what is and has been.”
The love within her explained:
“If you want to know what God is, God is just a better view, and forgiveness is just zooming out a thousand times until you have my view…I see not just your planet but the entire universe, and then the beginning of time till the end of time all at once. And I promise you, from where I stand, every single last one of you makes perfect, perfect sense.
“That’s why people have to think of heaven as so far above, because you know that heaven is just perspective. Someday you’ll have a perspective like mine wide enough to hold the whole world and you’ll forgive everybody. Then it’ll be automatic. It’s just what happens when you can see.
“For now, you just keep zooming out. Just stand back and see everybody, and especially yourself as wide and as high as you possibly can. You make perfect sense. Your father makes perfect sense. Every last one of you does. Every single one of you. It’s just a magic picture and I get to see the second image and that is forgiveness.”
Writing can be a powerful way to explore our innermost selves, as well as to gain more perspective about the world around us. Please join me for a mind-opening adventure tomorrow, February 24, for a free online writing workshop, Write Your Mind Open, led by the extremely wise and talented author, poet and artist, Patrice Vecchione. Everyone is welcome! No writing experience necessary.
