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

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people. And you'll remember that we learned that we can do almost any behavior, whether hard, soft, or in between, in either of these ways. Here are two questions for you then: If we can do almost any outward behavior with our hearts either at peace or at war, why should we care which way we are being? Does it matter?"
"Yes," Carol answered. "It definitely matters."
"Why?" Avi asked. "Why do you think it matters?"
"Because I've seen how a heart at war ruins everything."
Avi waited for more.
Carol continued. "I've been acting outwardly nice toward our boy Cory ever since he started getting into trouble, but I've known that I didn't really mean it. And this has done a couple of things to me. First of all, I think I have played into an I-deserve box that has me thinking I am being nothing but sweet and kind, and he's just mistreating me and the rest of the fam¬ily. And Cory can tell that's how I'm feeling. I know because he's called me on it many times. Although I always deny his accusations," she added meekly.
"I think I've also spent most of the last few years feeling a gnawing guilt knowing that I'm not really loving Cory, even though I've been making it look like I do." She paused for a mo¬ment. In the silence that followed, her eyes suddenly began fill¬ing with tears. A single drop cascaded over her lid and streamed down her cheek. "And no good mother does that," she choked, as she wiped the moisture away. She began to shake her head. "No good mother does that." She paused again for a moment. "I think I've developed a worse-than box—that I'm a bad mom."
"I think you're being too hard on yourself," Lou said. "The truth is Cory has been a terribly difficult boy. It's not your fault."
"It depends what you mean by that, Lou," she said, regain¬ing her composure. "I understand that I may not be responsible
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for the things he's done. But I am responsible for what I've done."
"Yes, but you've done nothing but good," Lou offered. "I'm the one who's been the jerk with him."
"But Lou, don't you see? We're talking about something deeper than merely what I've done or haven't done. Yes, I've cooked his meals and cleaned his clothes. I've stood there and taken his abusive language, and more. But that's just on the sur¬face. The point is that while I've been playing the part of the out¬ward pacifist, my heart has been swinging at him. And at you," she added, "for the way you outwardly war with him. I've been at war too, but just in a way that makes it seem like I'm not."
"But who wouldn't be, under the circumstances?" Lou countered. "At war, that is."
"But that can't be the answer, Lou! It can't."
"Why not?"
"Because then we're all doomed. That's to say that our en¬tire experience, even our thoughts and feelings, are controlled and caused by others. It's to believe that we're not responsible for who we've become."
"But damn it, Carol, don't you see what Cory is doing? He's making you feel guilty for stuff he's doing. What about Cory being responsible?"
"But in the world you describe, Lou, he couldn't be respon¬sible. If we can't be expected to react to a heart that's at war with anything but warring hearts ourselves, how can we expect or de¬mand that he act any differently to us, when our hearts too are warring?"
"But he caused it all!" Lou bellowed. "We've always given him everything he's needed! It's his fault! You're about to let him off the hook and take it all upon yourself. I won't allow it!"
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Carol took in a deep breath and exhaled heavily, her body shuddering with deep hurt as she did so. She looked at her lap and then closed her eyes, her face drawn in pain.
"What are you afraid of, Lou?" Yusuf spoke up.
"Afraid? I'm not afraid of anything," Lou said.
"Then what is it you feel you cannot allow?"
"I can't allow my boy to get away with destroying my family!"
Yusuf nodded. "You're right, Lou. You can't."
That was not the answer Lou had been expecting.
"But that is not what Carol is suggesting. She hasn't said anything about letting Cory off the hook. She's only been talk¬ing about not letting herself off the hook."
"No, she's sitting here blaming herself for things that are Cory's fault."
"Like what? Has she said that the drugs and the stealing were her fault?"
"No, but she's saying that she's been a bad mother, when the fact of the matter is that any halfway good son wouldn't have ever made her feel that way."
"And Cory didn't, that's her point," Yusuf said.
"Didn't what?"
"Didn't make her feel that way."
"Yes he did!"
"That's not what I heard her say."
Lou turned to Carol. "Look, Carol," he began, "I know you're upset, but I don't want you to take on more than you are able. I don't want you to internalize problems that aren't yours, that's all."
Carol smiled at Lou, her face painted in melancholy. "I know, Lou. Thank you. But Yusuf s right."
"Right about what?"
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"That I am responsible for how I have been feeling, not only for what I have been doing."
"But you wouldn't have been feeling that way if it wasn't for Cory!"
She nodded. "You may be right."
"See!" Lou pounced. "That's what I mean."
"Yes, I think I do see, Lou, but I'm afraid that you still do not."
"What do you mean?"
"The fact that I wouldn't have felt the way I've come to feel if it weren't for Cory doesn't mean he has caused me to feel as I have."
"On the contrary, of course that's what it means," Lou objected.
"No, Lou, it doesn't. And here's how I know: I'm not feeling that way now. Cory has done everything he has done—every¬thing he has done in the past, everything I have blamed for how I have been feeling—but I don't feel the same now. Which means that he hasn't caused me to feel how I've felt. I've always had the choice."
"But he makes the choice difficult!" Lou objected.
"Yes," Yusuf stepped in. "He likely does, Lou. But difficult choices are still choices. No one, whatever their actions, can de¬prive me of the ability to choose my own way of being. Difficult people are nevertheless people, and it always remains in my power to see them that way."
"And then get eaten up by them," Lou muttered.
"That's not what he's saying, Lou!" Carol pleaded. "Seeing someone as a person doesn't mean you have to be soft. The Saladin story showed us that. Even war is possible with a heart at peace. But you know that, Lou. You've been here the whole time I have, and you're a smart man. Which means that if these are really still questions for you, then you are refusing to hear.
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Why, Lou? Why are you refusing to hear?"
This rebuke caught Lou short. Normally, he would have pounced all over such a pointed comment and leveled the in¬sufferable soul who had made it. But he had no such urge in the moment. Carol, ever meek, even timid, had perhaps never crit¬icized him so directly. Certainly never in front of others. And yet here she was, countering Lou's complaint that she was let¬ting others off the hook by refusing to let Lou off the hook! Lou began to marvel that he was learning lessons on outward tough¬ness from the most gentle person he knew. He had worried that this course would invite people to be weak and soft, and yet Carol seemed to be metamorphosing in the other direction right before his eyes. "Some justification boxes make people go soft," Lou remembered. Maybe Carol has had those kind of boxes, Lou thought. And so maybe getting out of the box for her will invite her to be more forceful at times.
But that's not my problem, he chuckled. If I'm in these boxes, they must be boxes that invite me to go hard—really hard, in fact. He chuckled again. So maybe getting out of them will mean that I will soften up some.
Despite the epiphanies, that thought worried Lou.
"Lou," came Yusufs voice, ripping him away from his thoughts. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, fine. I'm fine."
He leaned over to Carol. "I think I may be recovering a bit of my hearing," he whispered.
I'll be damned, he thought, I am going soft. But suddenly he wasn't so worried about it.
"So—" Yusuf continued, looking around at the group. "In response to Avi's question, Carol has suggested that the issue deeper than our behavior—our way of being—matters. A lot. Do you agree?"
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Lou nodded along with the others.
"Then I have another question for you. If the choice of way of being is important, then how do we change from one way to the other? Specifically, how do we change from peace to war— from seeing people to seeing objects?"
"Through self-betrayal," Elizabeth answered.
"Which is what?" Yusuf asked.
"It's what you illustrated through the Mordechai story. You had a sense to help him, which means you were seeing him as a person, but then you turned away, and began to justify why you shouldn't have to help him, and he became an object to you."
"Yes, excellent, Elizabeth," Yusuf said. "That is exactly right. So self-betrayal—this act of violating my own sensibilities toward another person—causes me to see that person or persons differently, and not only them but myself and the world also. When I have the impression to help my spouse clean the kitchen, for example, but stay planted on the couch instead, I begin to see her and myself in ways that justify my failure to help. For example, I might begin seeing her as too demanding and myself as deserving a break. When I ignore the sense to apologize to my son, I might start telling myself that he's really the one who needs to apologize, or that he's a pain in the back¬side, or that if I apologize, he'll just take it as license to do what he wants. And so on.
"Which is to say," he continued, "that when I violate the sen¬sibility I have about others and how I should be toward them, I immediately begin to see the world in ways that justify my self- betrayal. In those moments, I am beginning to see and live crookedly, which creates the need within me to be justified."
"But what if I don't have those impressions to help to begin with?" Lou asked. "I actually don't think I have them very often, to tell you the truth. Does that mean I'm not betraying myself?"
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"It might," Yusuf allowed. "But it could also mean some¬thing else." "What?"
Yusuf pointed at the choice diagram.
THE CHOICE DIAGRAM
Sense/Desire
'Help Mordechai by gathering his coins for him.
((I'm seeing Mordechai as a PERSON with needs, cares,) worries, and fears that matter, like mine do) My Heart Is at Peace
CHOICE
Honor the sense
Y
I continue to see
Mordechai is a person like myself
Betray the sense
Y
I begin to see Mordechai in ways that justify my self-betrayal. He becomes an OBJECT of blame
My Heart Goes to War
View of Myself View of Mordechai
Better than No right to be there
A victim (so owed) Robs me of peace
Bad (but made to be) Zionist threat
Want to be seen well Bigot
Feelings View of World
Angry Unfair
Depressed Unjust
Bitter Burdensome
Justified Against me
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