The Anatomy of PEACE. RESOLVING THE HEART OF CONFLICT. The Arbinger Institute

of World
Angry Unfair
Depressed Unjust
Bitter Burdensome
Justified Against me
98
• FROM PEACE TO WAR
"No," Ria answered, followed by the others saying the same thing.
"But how about at the end of the story," Yusuf asked, "when I was down in this box seeing him as a bigot and Zionist threat? Was I feeling resentful then?"
The group looked at the feelings that were listed in the box: angry, depressed, bitter, justified. "Yes," they nodded.
"So why was I feeling that way?" Yusuf asked. "I had cer¬tainly suffered my share of hardships. Was that the cause of my bitterness, my anger, my resentment, and my contempt?"
"Probably," Gwyn answered.
"Look at the diagram again," Yusuf said.
"No," Pettis answered, "your hardships did not cause your feelings."
"Why do you say that?" Yusuf asked.
"Because whatever hardships you had suffered you had already suffered at the beginning of this story. But those hard¬ships didn't prevent you from seeing Mordechai as a person when you felt the desire to help him with his coins."
"Exactly," Yusuf said. "So what's the only thing that hap¬pened between the time at the beginning of this story when I wasn't feeling angry and bitter and the time at the end when I was? What's the only thing that happened between the time that I saw Mordechai as a person and the time I saw him as an object?"
"Your choice to betray yourself," Pettis answered.
"So what was the cause of my anger, my bitterness, my re¬sentment, my contempt, my lack of peace? Was it Mordechai and his people? Or was it me?"
"Well, the diagram says it was you," Lou answered.
"But you're not convinced."
"No, I'm not sure that I am," Lou said. "Look, isn't it possible you simply had a momentary lapse of memory when the coins
A NEED FOR WAR • 99
spilled from Mordechai's purse, a moment when your hardships weren't foremost on your mind? It seems to me that's what likely happened. And then a moment later you came back to reality and remembered all the trouble you'd suffered at the hands of the Israelis. It's not like your bitterness just started in this moment. You'd felt it before. And you might have felt it, like Gwyn said, because of what the Israelis had done to you and your family."
"What, you're siding with me now?" Gwyn asked in jest.
"I know. It has me worried too," Lou smirked.
Yusuf smiled. "That's a great question, Lou. You're right, of course, that this wasn't the first time I had felt angry and bitter toward the Israelis. And you are right as well when you imply that my father's death, and the hardships it caused my family, certainly played a role. But I believe it played a different role than the one you are suggesting. You seem to be saying that I ended up feeling the way I did about Mordechai because of what his people had done to me and my family. In other words, the hardships I had suffered caused the feelings I came to have about Mordechai. Is that what you are suggesting?"
"It's what I'm wondering, anyway. Yes."
"And I'm proposing something entirely different," Yusuf re¬sponded. "I'm suggesting that my feelings about Mordechai were not caused by something others had done to me but by something I was doing to Mordechai. They were the result of a choice I was making relative to Mordechai. So," he continued, "how shall we evaluate these very different theories?" He looked around at the group.
"I don't know about evaluating them," Elizabeth said, "but Lou's theory leads to a pretty depressing outcome."
"Which is what?" Yusuf asked.
"That we're all just victims, powerless in the face of diffi¬culty, inevitably doomed to be bitter and angry."
100 • FROM PEACE TO WAR
"I'm not saying that," Lou disagreed.
"I think you are," Elizabeth countered. "You said the only reason Yusuf wasn't bitter at the beginning of the story was be¬cause he simply wasn't thinking about his hardships for a mo¬ment. Remembering them caused him to feel bitter and angry again. If that doesn't make one powerless in the face of hard¬ship, I don't know what does."
Lou had to admit she had a point. He didn't believe in that kind of helpless victimhood either. He knew of too many great souls who had passed through terrible mistreatment without be¬coming embittered by it to believe that mistreatment left us without choices. But it does have an impact, doesn't it? he won¬dered to himself, thinking of Cory.
"Excellent points, Elizabeth," Yusuf said. "I'd like to con¬tinue with your idea if I might."
"Certainly."
Yusuf looked around at the group. "Not having a memory at the forefront of my mind is different than having forgotten it. I can assure you that there has never been a moment in my life since my father's death that I haven't remembered that he died and how he died. Having said that, Lou is right that the level and nature of my focus is often very different from moment to moment. Lou reasoned that that fact allowed me to see Mordechai differently in the moment I had the inclination to help him. Actually, however, Lou's theory has it exactly back¬wards. It isn't that I saw Mordechai as a person because I wasn't dwelling on my hardships. Rather, it was that I wasn't dwelling on my hardships because I was seeing Mordechai as a person. I needed to dwell on my hardships only when I needed to be jus¬tified for treating Mordechai poorly. My hardships were my excuse at that point. When I didn't need an excuse, I was free not to dwell on them."
A NEED FOR WAR • 101
"Oh, so an abused woman is at fault for hating her abuser?" Gwyn mocked. "I'm sorry if I can't go there."
Yusuf paused and took in a deep breath. "I couldn't go there either, Gwyn," he said. "May I share a story with you?"
Gwyn didn't respond. Yusuf took a piece of paper out of a folder on a table in the front corner of the room. "This is from a letter I received in the mail a few years ago," he said. "It was writ¬ten by one of our former students here who had fallen on very difficult times in her marriage. Rather than try to give you the context for it, I will let her speak for herself." He began reading.
One Friday more than a year ago, my estranged husband came to visit me at my parents' home. He came over rela¬tively frequently, ostensibly to visit our daughter but really to try to win me back. Shortly before he left on this particu¬lar day, he asked me to show him a copy of our life insurance policy. He asked if we were paid up on it and asked me to double-check his reading of a phrase in the suicide clause. By the time I closed the door behind him that evening, his intentions were obvious. David was going to commit sui¬cide. I said good-bye, expecting that I would never see my husband alive again.
I could hardly contain my excitement.
You see, my charming young groom had become violent shortly after our marriage. Within months, I had grown so terrified of him that I would not do anything, even turn on the television, without his approval. He was extremely jeal¬ous and soon forced me to throw away my address book, my high school yearbooks, and even pictures of my family. He threatened my life, humiliated me in public, flirted openly with other women, and finally reduced even our physical intimacy to violence.
102 • FROM PEACE TO WAR
All the while, he would occasionally show such amazing tenderness and remorse that for two years I could never bring myself to leave him. Finally, at the urging of our mar¬riage counselor, I escaped to my parents' home. With their love and support, I slowly began to pull away from the bonds of my attachment to David. But he, more and more urgently, tried to win me back. I feared him, yet at the same time I needed him; I felt unable to free myself from the re¬lationship. All in all, I was overjoyed to think that my night¬mare might finally be ended with his suicide.
I was heartbroken when he appeared again the next morning. He was very depressed and proceeded to tell me the events of the night before. He admitted he had been planning to kill himself. He had gotten pills from a friend and had waited until nighttime so that nobody would be able to find him. Then he had sat down to compose his sui¬cide note and will. After he had typed a few lines, the power suddenly went out. There wasn't even enough light for him to finish his note by hand. Without that sense of comple¬tion, he had been unable to go through with his plans. Then he told me that perhaps fate had interfered to keep him alive, and that this was a sign that he and I still be¬longed together.
As he told me this story, I felt fury. I had come so close to being rid of him, finally so close, and one tiny twist of fate had ruined it for me. I was still stuck with this cruel, unsta¬ble man, the man who had destroyed my confidence, who showed every intention of tormenting me the rest of my life. I had never before been so consumed with hate. My disap¬pointment was so intense, I decided immediately what I would have to do. I knew, especially given his current emo¬
A NEED FOR WAR • 103
tional state, that if I handled the situation the right way he would likely try suicide again. So I opened my mouth to say, coldly, that I still thought he was a horrible monster and that I would never come back to him no matter what he did. I was about to say that I didn't care if he lived or died and that if anything, I preferred him dead. I was prepared to be as cruel as necessary to drive him back to suicide.
But then I paused. I still raged with hate, but I paused. I saw how close I was to encouraging a human being to die and was shocked by how far I was willing to carry my hate. I looked at him and was suddenly struck by something— something I learned at Camp Moriah. I was struck by his personhood, his humanity. Here before me was a person. A person with incredible emotional problems to be sure, but a person nonetheless. With his own deep hurts. His own heavy burdens. He himself had been raised in an abusive environment, with very little love and almost no kindness.
These thoughts made me cry. To my surprise, however, these were not tears of despair but tears of compassion. After all, this was a man who had intended to end his life. I found myself putting my arm around him to comfort him. It's a moment I still can't fully comprehend. In spite of everything he had done to me, I was consumed with love. And most sur¬prising to me of all, from that moment—the moment I be¬gan seeing David as a person — I was never again tempted to return to the relationship. I had thought loving David meant I had to stay. That's partly why I had felt trapped. But it turned out in my case that being freed from the need for justification for not loving him is what allowed me to leave—and to do so compassionately and calmly, without the bitterness that could have burdened me for a lifetime.
104 • FROM PEACE TO WAR
Just as I learned at Camp Moriah, when I started seeing people, the world transformed around me. I now feel free- not just from an unhealthy relationship but from feelings that might otherwise have poisoned me. My life certainly would have been easier had I never married David. But I will always be glad I did not encourage him to die.
At that, Yusuf looked up from the letter. Clearing his throat, he said, "If someone is abused, my heart breaks for that person; what a cruel burden to have to carry. If I know such a person and he or she rages inside, should I be surprised? Of course not. Under such circumstances, I think to myself, Who wouldn't?
"In the face of that question, however, I find great hope in stories like the one I just read to you. For such stories show me that it is possible to find peace once more, even when much of my life has been a war zone.
"Although nothing I can do in the present can take away the mistreatment of the past, the way I carry myself in the present determines how I carry forward the memories of those mistreat¬ments. When I see others as objects, I dwell on the injustices I have suffered in order to justify myself, keeping my mistreat¬ments and suffering alive within me. When I see others as peo¬ple, on the other hand, then I free myself from the need for justification. I therefore free myself from the need to focus un-duly on the worst that has been done to me. I am free to leave the worst behind me, and to see not only the bad but the mixed and good in others as well.
"But none of that is possible," he continued, "if my heart is at war. A heart at war needs enemies to justify its warring. It needs enemies and mistreatment more than it wants peace." "Yuck," Ria said under her breath.
A NEED FOR WAR • 105
"Yuck, indeed," Yusuf agreed. "Make no mistake. The out¬ward wars around us started because of an inward war that went unnoticed: someone started seeing others as objects, and others used that as justification for doing the same. This is the germ, and germination, of war. When we're carrying this germ, we're just wars waiting to happen."
"What can you do about it?" Carol asked.
"To begin with," Yusuf responded, "we need to learn to look for the ways we're needing to be justified."
12 • Germs of Warfare
"Justification has some telltale signs," Yusuf began. "I've already mentioned a few—how we begin horribilizing others, for example. In fact, that sign is a subset of a whole category of signs that you might think of as exaggerations. When our hearts are at war, we tend to exaggerate others' faults; that's what we call horribilizing. We also tend to exaggerate the differences between ourselves and those we are blaming. We see little in common with them, when the reality is that we are similar in many if not most respects. We also exaggerate the importance of anything that will justify us. If I had had an appointment around the time Mordechai spilled his coins, for example, it would have suddenly seemed critical that I get to it. If I had happened to be carrying a book with me, I might have sud¬denly felt the need to bury my nose in it and start reading. Whenever we need to be justified, anything that will give us justification will immediately take on exaggerated importance in our life. Self-betrayal corrupts everything—even the value we place on things.
"And consider," he continued, "when in the Mordechai story did I start to devote my energy to blaming others? Before I betrayed myself or after?"
The group looked at the board. "After," Pettis answered
first.
"And when in the story did I start feeling like a victim?"
"After you betrayed yourself," Ria said.
106
GERMS OF WARFARE