How to ‘Hush’ Other People’s Opinions in Personal Discernment (Part 2 of 3)
How to ‘Hush’ Other People’s Opinions in Personal Discernment (Part 2 of 3)
Look under the surface and consider the source
Note: this is part 2 of a 3 part mini-series on dealing with advice from other people. These first two installments are free to read, to help you get a sense if joining as a paid subscriber is a good fit for you at this time. (Right now, it’s only £5/ month.) Paid subscribers get an audio version of these essays as well the other regular perks: weekly essays, journaling prompts, all of the archives, quarterly Q&As, and wonderful, friendly discussions in the comments sections.
Last week we explored how to recognize if you might be the sort of person who tends to overemphasize the voices of others in your own discernment and decision-making; how to understand this tendency in a Christian context; and why embracing a season of ‘hushing’ might be helpful.
Today, I’m offering three questions to help you navigate the tricky waters of dealing with other people’s opinions in your own discernment, if you tend towards overemphasizing. (If you tend towards the other extreme, these questions will probably make things worse.)
These are questions you can use in the moment, or to (prayer) journal with any time.
1. Why do I rely so heavily on the voices of other people?
Our motivations can often be mixed: it isn’t always one thing or the other. Maybe we rely heavily on other people’s opinions because we have great respect for their life experience, and also because we’re afraid to take ownership of our own lives.
Do you trust your gut? Maybe you feel like you don’t even know how to know what your gut is saying,1 or maybe you feel like you’ve made bad decisions in the past. Maybe you’re new to making decisions for yourself and are afraid of making a mistake. Maybe you’re lacking role models in good decision-making. Maybe you don’t know your own priorities in life, and so you don’t have any good criteria by which to make a decision.
Usually there’s something under the surface that needs addressing, and the more you can bring it to the light, the better positioned you’ll be to deal with it.
2. Whose voice is it, in relation to me?
Sometimes we let certain voices have a significant amount of influence over us: sometimes that’s proportionate, and sometimes it’s not. Parsing it out can be helpful.
First, it’s important to identify if it’s a real voice. I’m not talking about hallucinations, here, but rather that one middle school teacher who told you that you couldn’t draw, and now her voice follows you around whispering: you’ll never be an artist. You’ll never be good at anything. That’s not real! That’s your own negativity trying to gain status by masquerading as a figure of authority. Bring it out into the light and watch it disintegrate.
If it is an actual person trying to influence your life, you can ask yourself: how well does this person know me, and how much do they love me and want what’s best for me?2 Try to give their voice proportionate weight. A good friend or spouse ought to know you and love you more than a colleague, for example, so it’s proportionate that their ideas, opinions, and advice carry more weight.
Sometimes, though, we find ourselves in relationship to someone who ought to know us and love us, but in fact they don’t. This can often happen with a parent, for example, who tends to dish out advice to their adult child as if that person is still the child they once knew. In a case like this, it’s common to feel like the voice of that parent should carry more weight - but in fact, it shouldn’t, because they don’t actually know you well.
Other times, we tend to want to give a lot of weight to someone whom we admire or consider a kind of authority: perhaps an expert in the field, or even someone at our church that everyone says is really holy. Again, it’s helpful to ask ourselves why we think their voice should carry so much weight in our particular, personal situation, if they don’t know us (or know us well).
Are they offering generally good principles to live by (“it’s healthy not to be obese”), or are they telling us exactly what to do (“intermittent fasting is the best possible way to not be obese, regardless of your personal circumstances and health”)? A wise authority will often refrain from intensely personal advice, because they are wise enough to know that they don’t have the full picture! But often they can offer good general principles and even help us talk through how those might look when applied to our personal circumstances.
3. Is this advice generic or personal?
Most people aren’t comfortable with silence, which leads to a lot of unnecessary commentary in this world.
This means that when you say something like, “I’m thinking about taking up running,” most people feel uncomfortable, or even downright rude if their only reply is, “that’s nice.” Very often people feel that they ought to offer an opinion or advice, when in fact none is needed. So instead of saying, (unironically), “good for you!” they’ll instead say, “Oh my cousin did that and she lost 35 pounds!” or, “I heard a podcast the other day about how running is actually really bad for you.” In a case like that, most people aren’t actually trying to influence you in a particular direction; they just feel the need to say something.
The same is true when you actually ask for advice. “I’m thinking about taking up running: what do you think?” Most people feel that they ought to respond with more than, “I don’t know,” and so offer something generic instead. “Oh, that will be so nice for you to have some quiet time,” or “I could never do it, myself, but I admire you for trying!”
These are vague and generic statements. They’re not really about you at all - they’re just general conversation / culturally appropriate things to say.
And of course, there are people who do have strong opinions about many things, and want to vocalize them loudly to anyone who will listen. Nevertheless, usually in those situations, the opinions are still general: people shouldn’t run, they should lift weights - rather than personal: have you thought about your body type and how different forms of exercise might impact it?
Try to sort out generic from personal, weigh up just how personalized the advice really is, and therefore just how much proportional weight it should carry.
Next week, I’ll offer 3 more questions to help you understand yourself better, and put other people’s voices about your discernment into context.
Now, it’s your turn: did any of these questions make you pause to think? Have you ever taken generic advice only to realise that it didn’t apply to you? Any helpful tips on sorting out the insistent voices of others?
I had a great chat with
about this on her podcast, Born of Wonder. You can listen to that episode here or anywhere you listen to podcasts.What’s best isn’t always the thing that will make us happiest or placate us in the moment. Sometimes the mark of a true friend is that they’re willing to say difficult things. On the other hand, it’s often the mark of a jerk that they’re always saying difficult things, so even this takes discernment!