In my post titled “Our Journeys,” I wrote about an adolescent girl who was frustrated when a classmate didn’t agree with her opinion about a topic the girl believed was very important. After writing that post, I found myself thinking about the idea of noninterference that I had read about in Dr. Terry Chitwood’s book, Meeting Force with Silence.
Dr. Chitwood writes “When you spread your opinions where they are not wanted, you are interfering.” He goes on to say “If you want to make people tense, angry, or sad, try pushing your opinions on them.” He also shares this insight: “That is why noninterference is a concept that works. If you let situations unfold naturally and share your views when appropriate, then everything will progress smoothly.”
There are times when our ideas and opinions seem so right to us that it’s hard to resist trying to convince others that they should have those same opinions. But I agree with Dr. Chitwood that we must not interfere with other people in this way. No matter how strongly we hold a certain belief, it is wrong to try to force it on others. At the crisis line organization where I am a counselor, we are expected to use a counseling model that emphasizes trying to get a sense of each caller’s degree of readiness to do or try to do something, such as a coping strategy or self-care. It doesn’t do any good to tell a caller what he or she should do. Instead we try to collaborate with the caller to determine what might be the next step for him or her. This is another form of noninterference.
I also appreciate what Dr. Chitwood writes about letting situations “unfold naturally.” To do this takes patience and wisdom. Changes will happen naturally if we do not interfere.