Don't Pay the Fine
Change is hard, always. I have seen, in my life and in my work, that it takes courage to change, always. But I have also seen that it often takes more courage right after we make the decision to change. First we muster the courage to step out of bounds, to go outside of the lines of where we have been living our lives. Sometimes we are desperate for freedom and relief. There is often an over-correcting, angry, or just hopeful energy that pushes us to try something new. But after the dust - that we just kicked up - settles, we have to be even more brave. We have to continue to choose to believe that our new way is not the wrong way, even if things start to get uncomfortable. Almost 20 years ago, I had 3 sessions with my therapist that changed my perspective on my life. But after that came the real courage, and it took moment by moment, some excruciatingly hard, to bravely choose what was true and freeing. I recently heard a story on the radio that made me think about this second wave of courage needed when we go against the norm…
Apparently Susan B. Anthony never paid her fine for voting in the first election before women were allowed the vote. She defiantly told the judge that NO, she would not pay the fine when she was brought to court after the 1872 election.
I laughed out loud when I heard this on NPR. And it got me thinking, how often in life we pay fines we shouldn’t be paying….
Not paying the $100 fine for voting in an election she believed she had the right to vote in, is an act of defiance itself. Many of us labor under laws in our lives that we disagree with, and yet we continue to pay the fines, as if the laws were legitimate. (Though hindsight allows us to approve what Ms. Anthony did, I am not here advocating breaking actual laws of course.)
However, her point is well taken: many of us labor under laws in our lives that we disagree with, or just decide to get ourselves free of, and yet we continue to pay the fines, as if the laws were legitimate.
I am advocating breaking the laws we put on ourselves, those we are conditioned to by relationships, or by faulty beliefs, which result in our believing and choosing something that is not true for us. Her courage in this example had two steps, first breaking the law, then refusing to pay the fine. Sometimes we get brave enough to break the laws in our lives, but then we often shrink and give in when we are fined.
There are times we finally see it and we get brave enough to throw off the expected and approach our own ballot box. We take a deep breath, choose something different, and count ourselves worthy of a vote.
This may be when we stop allowing the person who criticizes us to do it anymore, politely hanging up the phone and casting a vote for ourselves instead. Or this may be when we tentatively - for the first time - disagree with our internal critic.
Our vote may be choosing to believe something different about ourselves than a hurtful upbringing taught us. We may finally encounter enough truth and get fed up enough to stop believing we are not enough or that we should be somewhere or something that we are not yet (and may never be) in order to be worthy of love.
We decide to stand up, walk forward and vote for ourselves. “I am not going to let you tell me that I am not good enough anymore.”
“I am good enough. I am worthy just the way I am. I now believe that.”
We cast the vote, straighten our skirt and shirt, look around nervously, hold our heads up high and walk into the rest of our lives gingerly applying the new truth – which is in reality our ticket to freedom and well being.
But then the word gets out that we have broken the law. We are called into the court of our own lives. We have broken the law that says we are not worthy to show up and be counted in our lives, relationships, or work place. And now the law is riled up, the order internally or relationally is disrupted. You are called into the court of your own life, will you pay the fine?
It is written in many informed consents for therapy, mine included, that when we begin to change, there may be some people that do not like it. Families are built like systems, and when we change our role, there can be a gravitational pull to get us back to our previous role, when everyone knew what to expect. Every action has a consequence, and actually a number of ripple-like consequences.
As we breathe in the new air of believing that we deserve to be counted, and as we feel the freedom deeper, the old belief or the old relationship, upset, rattled and bruised, tries to move us back to the comfortable norm.
We are now Susan B. Anthony in court, confronted by the faulty system for daring to step out of our prescribed role. We dared to say this isn’t working for me anymore. “I will no longer tolerate the role or belief system I am in.”
The judge tells us we are wrong, and we are to pay a fine, a way to get us back in line. And what I am trying to tell us is that Susan B. Anthony’s astounding courage was not just in casting her vote. Her courage, and our courage must be, choosing to stand up for what is true, even when we are told to pay the fine.
You may be penalized for rising up and casting your vote in your own life. But when you are, don’t pay the fine. Your vote is valid, and in time, just like in the case of Susan B. Anthony, the smallness of the fine in comparison to the magnitude of your vote will be clear. Ignore the doubts and fines, and keep moving forward, vote by vote and truth by truth. Courage and changing your life are a long arc, and not always a smooth one. We must not give up when our bravery is penalized. That is when we must be the most brave, and choose the truth again.