Do you know about Father Greg Boyle? He’s a priest in South Central LA, one of the worst gang neighborhoods in the country. He is NOT what you might expect when I say “Catholic priest”. He’s a disrupter. He founded Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world.

I feel like he’s one of the most amazing humans alive today.

His approach is rooted in curiosity and relationship. Not instruction and othering.

I heard him on a recent podcast talking about how the focus on behavior is the wrong focus.

We need to “find the thorn underneath” that is causing the behavior. Get curious about it. Ask questions. “What does this mean, I wonder?”

Tara Brach, the Buddhist meditation teacher who I also love, was interviewing him and added, “We need to see beyond the fault to the need.”

This isn’t just for gang members.

Father Greg, known as “G” by the gang/former gang members he works with, said he prefers the Buddhist way of “looking at the suffering” versus “seeing the sin”, which he says is the way of western religion.

I love this perspective:

I wonder what this behavior means?
What’s the thorn underneath?
What need am I trying to meet with this behavior?
Where am I suffering?

I invite you to try it with whatever rub you have right now. I tried it with my recent bout of overeating, which is not like me. I tried to just make myself stop overeating, but I just kept shoving food in my mouth. So I asked these questions, which led me to the thorn, which changed everything. I didn’t even need to address the “behavior” per say, just the thorn.

If you’d like some help, this is the kind of thing we do in coaching. You can schedule a session here.

PS: I HIGHLY recommend Father Greg’s first book, “Tattoos On The Heart”. It is one of my all-time favorite books. I loved listening to the audio. He reads it and his voice and the accents he does make it a really rich and touching experience.

photo: my hubs