Many people are raised with personal or cultural values that once they evaluate them don’t really make sense.  They may have mistaken good for bad and bad for good. They may have decades of bad habits to unlearn once they learn how damaging they were to themselves and others.  Sometimes the first valid step someone can take when they realize they confused good and bad is to stop being bad.

Based off my experience working with troubled teens often the stress of “being good” while  learning new habits is severe.  For many people interested in change it is ok to take the intermediate step of “not being bad.”  I have seen this with kids from families that were generational “gang bangers.” They don’t want the street life for themselves or their children.  They cannot save their whole family but they can hopefully break the cycle of generational incarceration for their children. But all of the anger, trauma, and bad habits of being raised by anti-social parents is still with them.  Being good for them is like tensing a muscle until it cramps.  By transitioning them through a period of “not being bad” or letting them know that any break they take from being good has to stop at “not being bad” is really helpful for them.