The Anatomy of Respect

Posted on by respectful.com

The previous two posts have illustrated what I believe is integral to respect.  The giver of respect must truly listen to or see the perspective and experience of the other and make an honest effort to understand that perspective.  The receiver of respect comes away with a sense of having been heard, understood and accepted.  Agreement is not necessarily part of this experience, though it often occurs.

This is not, as they say, “rocket science”.  I’m not stating anything here that hasn’t been taught, expounded, written, preached and sung countless times by more articulate and wiser voices than mine.  But because the examples I’ve given are so ordinary, so prosaic, so simple, I hope they might awaken in you some memories about times and places in which you have been moved to offer, or blessed to receive, signs of respect as well. I believe we could enrich one another’s comprehension of respect by sharing some of those incidents with each other.  Thereby, we might understand that respecting one another, at this time in our history and this place in our world, is not some Herculean task that demands a great leader, prophet or seer, to show us the way, but the stuff of our everyday lives, nearer to us than our own shadows, perhaps.

The other side of the coin of respect is fear.  Perhaps that will seem like too strong a word to describe feelings that often are labeled or expressed as dismissal, discomfort, embarrassment or indifference.  But I have always found that fear comes into the equation in some way for me.  Do I feel safe or unsafe in some very subtle way?  Am I afraid that I will be even slightly diminished?

With the above reflections in mind, I invite you to post some descriptions of your own experiences with respect/disrespect and the conclusions you have drawn from them.  Please keep in mind the guidelines I established in the introduction.  Please also feel free to comment on anything I have written.  I look forward to reading what you will bring to this conversation.

 

Respect: Accidental

Posted on by respectful.com

Sometimes an act of respect simply happens, without either party involved noticing or consciously identifying it as such at the time, though usually one, or both, come away feeling good about the interaction.

During my work life as an executive assistant at Radcliffe College and Harvard University, I served a total of six deans, a president, and a vice president. I plan to write more about executive assistants and respect in future posts, but the incident I’m describing today occurred toward the end of my career and happened at the school of engineering.

The workday of an executive assistant is full of a long string of interruptions; sometimes the interruptions are themselves interrupted. Priority projects are extremely difficult to complete.  Anything that needs focus, concentration, and quiet must usually be done before or after work hours, when co-workers and bosses are not in the office.  I and my fellow EAs at the school of engineering, as we were wont to call ourselves, came up with a tentative plan to claim some “quiet time” for ourselves during the workday by closing our doors from time to time so that we could concentrate on tasks that needed, well, concentration.

At the suggestion of another EA that we ask our bosses if this plan were acceptable to them,  I looked for an appropriate time to speak with the dean I was then supporting, who happened to be new in his role.  From my perspective, the conversation did not go well.  He seemed, shall I say, resistant to the idea.  Up until then, he been very understanding and supportive of my work needs, so I was disappointed and a bit surprised by his reaction.  I felt deflated by the end of the conversation, and he seemed annoyed.

I was in the EA business for a long time and considered myself very adaptable, resourceful and tough. I tried to start each new day fresh and cheerful, so when the dean came into the office the next day, we exchanged a “good morning” and asked each other how we were.  I said my usual, “Fine.”  A few moments later he returned to my desk and said, “Tell me more about your need for quiet time.”  My heart smiled.  I thanked him for asking and described how difficult it was to get things done with many interruptions, however legitimate they might be.  He described his feeling that it was important for the dean’s office, and the dean, to have an “open door policy” and to be available throughout business hours to faculty, students and anyone who might need us.  I expressed my understanding and agreement and explained that I thought simply closing the door part way might encourage those who were headed toward the office to think again about the importance of their errand and whether it might wait until another time.  We didn’t “settle” on a policy, but by the end of the conversation, we better understood each other.  I respected him even more than I had previously, especially for his courage, sensitivity, and generosity in continuing a conversation that had gone badly the previous day.  I felt heard, and because I felt heard, I felt respected.

Respect: Intentional

Posted on by respectful.com

I don’t intend for these blog entries to be merely “personal,” but I thought I might begin with a couple of personal anecdotes that demonstrate my own experience of feeling respected.  The first is an example of what I will call “intentional” respect.

As I mentioned in the introductory post, I retired a year ago.  The precipitating reason for my retirement was chronic pain that had been growing gradually worse over a three-year period.  I’d undergone a number of diagnostic tests. No cause could be identified, and my primary care physicians were stymied. I was frustrated with the medical system and anxious about possible reasons for the pain.  Often when I attempted to talk about “my pain” to friends and professionals alike, eyes would glaze over and the subject would be changed.  Most people were not uncaring; they just didn’t have any idea how I felt or how to help me.

After months of painstakingly working the healthcare system, I was referred to a pain clinic near Boston, MA where I was given a choice of two clinicians, a woman and a man.  I chose the woman, imagining that she would better understand me.  She did not, unfortunately, have an opening for over a month, so I reluctantly agreed to see the man, a pain psychologist, who had an opening the following week.

I imagined I would be invited to join a therapy group where, with other chronic pain sufferers, I would describe my struggles with pain, and we would support one another with understanding, sympathy and suggestions for various pain management strategies. Instead, I entered a one-on-one therapy relationship.  At our first meeting, my doctor asked me to describe what had brought me to the clinic.  I gave a succinct description of the pain, the various tests I had undergone, the various specialists I’d seen, and how I had been referred to him.  He took a deep breath and said, “That’s an impressive description.”  Strange, but I felt immediately recognized and validated.  He briefly described the theory of pain management that he and his colleagues embraced and what we would cover in our sessions, and gave me the names of two books, asking me to choose one and read it in between our meetings.  I immediately bought both books and started reading them simultaneously.  I was going to get this right!  I desperately wanted this therapy to work.

He had seen my desperation but wasn’t thrown off balance by it and didn’t judge me.  He accepted my desperation, and gradually taught me to accept it too – it, my pain and much more.  I quickly learned that he was less interested in what went on in the days between sessions and more interested in what happened during the sessions themselves.  My “reporting in” behavior was kindly humored and accepted, but somewhere in the midst of a session, he would ask me to stop, breathe, and identify what I was feeling at that moment.  That’s where the windows into healing occurred – in those “present moments” when I simply told him about my feelings and he listened – listened to me, as I had never been listened to before in my life – with intensity, concentration, acceptance, and respect.  I was allowed to be who I actually was in that moment without any judgement or commentary.  At the end of each session he would remind me that I should sit quietly in my car before driving away and continue the noticing.

Over the six months of therapy I read both books and took copious notes.  I took baby steps into the practice of mindfulness and began to understand how my life experiences had resulted in the repetitive stress that had produced my pain.  I began to treat my body more gently and to listen to it and my mind/heart more carefully.  Yes, this story has a happy ending.  I am not pain free, but I now recognize the pain that I struggled against as a “gift”; the pain that was once the center of my life is now on the periphery.  I am feeling healthier, more alive, and more aware of myself, others, and the world around me.

And one of the keys to my healing was the experience of being truly respected.

With All Due Respect – Introduction

Posted on by respectful.com

My name is Moriah Freeman.  I’m a retired executive assistant who worked at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA for 25 years.  Since my retirement nearly a year ago, I have spent much time reflecting on my career, my life and responsibilities outside of work, my relationships, the American society in which I live, and my beliefs about what is true, good, loving and just.

In all my reflections, the theme of “respect” has come up repeatedly.  I have decided to start a blog as a way of sharing some of my thoughts about respect and of inviting conversation about this topic.   I think respect is key and integral to life in community – and we all live in at least one community, our families.  Many of us live in several.

I will describe some of the situations in which I have experienced both respect and disrespect and some in which I have observed respectful and disrespectful actions and attitudes toward others.  I’d like, also, to share my reflections on how I believe disrespect has arisen in that situation and how respect might be expressed – what it might look like.

I acknowledge that my perspective is limited by a number of factors: my race, age, economic status, family and social background, education, life experience and belief system.  That’s why I hope to encourage a conversation about respect.  I’m very interested in your perspectives.

I’d like to establish several guidelines for participation in this conversation:

  1. No obscenities, swearing or disrespectful language.
  2. Contributions should be limited to 500 words per entry.
  3. Briefly describe your background when submitting a contribution.
  4. Write about your perspective, and refrain from criticizing that of another contributor.

I will request that you edit posts that do not meet these guidelines. If you do not do so, I will delete the post.

Some of the topics I hope to introduce include the following:

  • What being respected does for a person
  • Learning to walk in another’s shoes, or at least to watch the other walk
  • Respect for the aging and elderly
  • Respect for homeless persons and understanding the “system” of housing the poor
  • When just one person cares and respects
  • Respect for the religious beliefs of others
  • Respect for those who serve and, in particular, those who serve us
  • Respect for animals
  • Respect for the earth
  • Respect in the long run – long-term relationships
  • Respectful endings

Most of the incidents I will describe and discuss are true and involve real people.  In each case I will ask the person or persons involved before writing about them.  In some cases I will involve them in writing the post; most often I will not use their real names.

This is not a “political blog,” but in present-day American society, it would be silly to imagine that political opinions will not enter into our discussion.  My hope is that, as we write, we will try to explain clearly our points of view and how they have arisen and been formulated, and that we will not resort to vilifying those who disagree with us.

I want to thank one of the most respectful people I know, Professor Harry Lewis, of Harvard University, for suggesting the title of this blog. I served as executive assistant to Professor Lewis for six months while he was interim dean of the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.  

I believe the ideas we will share with each other have great value.  Let us be gentle with one another.