Lean in or Pull Away

Sometimes we face conflicting principles.  Is it best to lean in and deal with a negative situation or is it best to pull away because the situation is not within my control?  While it is important to set boundaries to protect ourselves, where is that line drawn?  There are people for whom I have great love, affection, and history with but are negative forces at the moment.  The logical thing would be to talk about the issues, but when that has been tried in the past without success, it seems futile to keep trying.  When talking about these issues with friends, it has been recommended to cut the negative people and their negative energy out of my life.  It certainly makes sense to protect one’s self from negativity.  

However, experience has shown that nearness to negativity sometimes provided influence that has eliminated or changed that negative force. For example, being a gay person of a certain age, homosexuality for the most part, was neither accepted nor tolerated in the seventies and eighties.  Unlike other minorities, LGBTQ people are often raised by their oppressors.  Having the experience of proximity to anti-gay family and others did move them over time to tolerance, acceptance, and even love.  Uncomfortable situations and conversations endured by LGBTQ people through the years have eventually led to a better place.  

Many gay people have lived hard fought lives to be in a place where they have loving friends and have healed from wounds inflected by others.  They do not want to expose themselves to more negativity so they avoid people and situations that seem likely to bring negativity.  Setting those boundaries seems not only reasonable but self-preserving in many cases.  

When is it best to expose yourself to negativity in the hope of making things better and when is it wisest to protect one’s self from negativity?  There is no clear answer.  The right thing to do is situational based on the people involved and a person’s ability to endure what known or unknown things that may take place from being exposed to a negative person or situation.  There is no objective answer; the answer is individual, situational, and subjective.  

The principle from the Taoist parable illustrating that we do not ultimately know what is good or bad has been explored in this blog before.  Perhaps talking about this bad situation could lead to a good outcome.  Maybe it’s necessary to engage with negativity if there is any hope of neutralizing it or having the chance of transforming it into something positive.  In Buddhism, there is a principle of leaning into it.  We naturally want to avoid negativity but avoidance can mean not dealing with something that must be dealt with.  Friends who have tried to stamp down negative things that have happened in their past, have had those issues resurface later.  The lean in principle means going through that negativity, letting the pain happen without dwelling on it, then the pain seems to dissipate more quickly.  

It is not clear that discussing the negativity that is happening now, is simply a desire to voice outrage over things that have happened that should not have happened.  It seems unlikely discussing the situation will lead to healing or resolution, but that cannot be known.  Is the right thing to do to lean in or pull away?