A request to our leaders

I want to remind you that one day in the future, perhaps in a few decades or perhaps in a few days, who knows, you will be lying on your death bed. And, as they say, it is likely that your life will be flashing in front of your eyes. There will be images of the things you will regret, and of the things you will feel joyful and grateful about. You will remember things that brought meaning into your existence as well as the things that brought pain and sadness. For some things you will wish you had done more of, and for others you will wish you had found strength to restrain from. We all will face this moment and I believe that we all hope our hearts will be filled with content and joy rather than regret and guilt.

Now, our dear leaders, after Copenhagen, after Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Darfur, Tibet, Myanmar…, after observing and experiencing the state of the humanity nowadays and throughout the history, I have a request and I strongly believe that should you choose to comply with it, this is going to be one of the things you will feel good about when recapitulating your life during your last hours.

It is a series of steps and I believe it can all be done within 24 hours. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?

1. Please have a look around yourself and find people who are full of enthusiasm about changing the world and making it a better place. Look for the new type of people, those who eagerly want to find new ways. Because, as you will probably agree, the old rat-race ways of trying to get to the top and have power over other people just do not work. It is so easy to see that, isn’t it? These old ways serve only some people, a very small percentage really. When you find these spirited, motivated, idealistic and enthusiastic people (they are all around, you see, in NGOs, in activist movements…), give them power, make them leaders so that they can work before they get spoiled.
2. Have another look around and look for people who have compassion for everybody, whose heart is in pain about the billions suffering, about 30.000 children dying every day, about the destruction of Nature… Find those who have enough compassion in their hearts to be genuine servant leaders, you know, leaders who know that their one and only mission is to serve people, to take care of others and not of their pockets and egotistic desires. When you find them (look in humanitarian movements, seek people who work for free, who have devoted their lives to helping and giving…), make them leaders, give them power.
3. Then go home and spend the night with yourself. Think about what is it you want to be proud of in your life. Think about what you want your life to be about. Think about what you want to tell your grandchildren when they ask you how you had contributed to the well-being of this planet and to the beauty of lives around you.
   Then let it all out. Cry your heart out, let yourself mourn over the fact that you have failed to be as good leader as you hoped you would be. Get all the sadness out, it’s all right, it’s all right…
   In the morning take a shower, have a healthy breakfast, dress up nicely – this is going to be a big day. At the first glance it may seem like a failure, but don’t worry, the history of humanity will praise you for that. Grieve not, because this is going to be a big contribution, remember? You will help this world become more beautiful and you will be proud of it. You will help humanity make a step to the higher level of coexistence. Now take a long walk to your office, to your Tower of Power. Don’t forget to smile and breathe, smile and breathe.

   When you walk in, hand your letter of resignation – you know where to put it, right?

   Now walk out, smile and breathe, and, please don’t forget, you have done a beautiful thing, you have contributed to the beauty of life on Earth. And there is going to be so much gratitude.

Humbled

The day started well. I was looking forward to leading a workshop for Bosnian volunteer organisation that is supporting Bosnian immigrants. I felt I was going to do a good, meaningful contribution. But only after an hour or so into the workshop I realized this was not going to be just another conflict resolution workshop.

You see, with me in the room were people that have gone through it all during the Bosnian war. Members of their families were killed, their friends were raped, their neighbours were slaughtered, their houses burned down… This was not going to be a workshop in which I would be cracking my jokes and be a star. These were people that faced the aspects of life I know absolutely nothing about.

I have never experienced the horrors of war. Nothing worth mentioning ever happened to me in my life; except of the petty events I like to inflate a bit in order to impress people in my self-promoting attempts. No member of my family was hurt or killed. I know about the world of horror, pain and suffering merely from the TV and newspapers, books and other people’s stories. I take as much of that as I am comfortable with, and the rest I happily deny.

So there I was, a successful, well-off, happy person washing my conscience by giving a pro-bono workshop, feeling good about myself. Oh, what a good person I am, indeed. And I was talking about nonviolence to the members of the most nonviolent minded nation I know. I was talking about the nature of a conflict to people who have gone through much bigger conflict that I am even capable of comprehending. And, frankly, I knew what they have gone through, but I was afraid to ask. I was afraid to mention. I was afraid to hear. I was a chicken and I wanted to play it safe, avoid the painful stuff, pretend it is not there.

Yet, throughout the day I was surrounded with their warmth, love, respect, appreciation, acceptance. I felt totally accepted in this beautiful family, with endless love, patience and understanding. One part of me felt great about this, the other felt small, dirty, unworthy.

I feel like an ignorant, spoiled child that knows nothing about life.

At least I am aware of that. So the day ended well.

A time for mourning

There are so many things that I wish to write about. But I just cannot. Thoughts just vanish once I sit down.

My heart is aware that right now there’s so much suffering going on in Gaza. So much pain. Right now.

I feel sad.

And I can not write.

Blood gold

When travelling around the world I really like to step in various sacral places like churches, mosques, temples, cathedrals…, preferably when there’s not too many people around. The energy of those places is somewhat special to me. The centuries of people gathering at those places, with all their inner fears, pain, wounds, dilemmas, hopes…, trying to open up to the future, praying it will bring less pain and more fulfilment to them and to others – well, all this has left a special atmosphere and I find it very appealing, like getting into a contact with this collective human soul.

But!

There is something I am having difficulty coping with in these sacral places. A big difficulty indeed.

It is gold. I find gold truly unacceptable in places like this. Out of two reasons.

The first reason is that this is, in most cases, blood gold. Through the centuries it was taken, collected, stolen, conquered through wars, slavery, killings, abuse… Violence. And more violence. I really see no connection with all the human virtues religions preach about.

And the second is that people are dying out there. They are hungry! They have no shelter, no food, nothing. And it is millions of them. Would it not serve humanity far better if churches fed people with this wealth, invested in irrigation systems, sustainable development, schools, hospitals…? Would this not be more in accordance with every religion on this planet than this distasteful show off of not only gold, but power and wealth in general?

I wonder why religious people, followers of these ideologies and investors in the wealth of these systems, put up with this? Is it denial, is it ignorance, is it indifference?

Definitely not a fast learner

It is pretty embarrassing. To begin to understand something I have been teaching others for about two decades or so. You see, I have been preaching all over the place how extremely important it is to firstly understand each other fully, before you even think of trying to make a deal, an agreement, a strategy to resolve a conflict and to then proceed. I have been teaching all that time that it is really essential to genuinely wish to understand the other person first; if you ever want to reach an understanding and resolve a conflict.

And just during the last couple of weeks I finally started to get this myself too. In a way, I am understanding myself finally.

I am just beginning to comprehend that it does not make any sort of a sense to even open my mouth unless I have a clear and sincere desire to simply connect with another person, to just connect with what they are feeling, how they are perceiving this life, what is hurting them, what is motivating them. Unless I have this genuine intention to step in their shoes and listen, understand and empathise with their world, it is far better to keep my mouth shut and to walk away for the time being. And perhaps come back later.

Because as long as I want to change others, as long as I want to fix them, make them understand, make them see, make them realize that they are wrong and that I am right, as long as I try to prove my point and have it my way, they will resist. They will not feel understood, they will not feel respected, they will not feel accepted… They will in fact feel violated, pushed away and they will resist. Fight. And I can easily understand them, since I don’t like to be pushed around and be told that I am wrong, that my perception is wrong, that my feelings are wrong. When I am being treated this way my motivation to communicate truly goes downhill.

Although I know it on the rational level, it is so damn difficult to put in practice the knowledge that it is never about who is right and who is wrong. Conflict never resolve at this stage – they just get suppressed and postponed. Yet I like to jump, especially when emotionally involved, right into it, proving how right I am and how wrong the other person is. You know, firstly to climb on a higher ground, obtain a superior position and then, and only then, start talking. But who will want to talk to me then, after I have built these walls?

So, right now, after these intense realizations I have had in the last few weeks, I want to imprint it in my brain, tattoo it all over my hands so that I can see it all the time and not forget about it tomorrow when communicating with my kids or wife or whoever: “Firstly connect with them, with what they are perceiving, what they are feeling, what their needs are… You don’t have to agree upon anything, just understand, empathise and create a genuine, open, sincere connection with a human being over there.”

After this it is all much easier.

Mamma Mia, here I cry again

Me and Marjeta went to see Mamma Mia! this evening and it was a bingo, pure joy for us. Ok, it is not the deepest movie that we have ever seen and neither does it have any sort of a mind blowing plot, but this was meant to be an emotional experience, not an intellectual one. And emotional it was!

One trigger of the emotions was the pure nostalgia that connects me with Abba. It was the first pop band in my life that I became a fan of, knew all the songs and sang them over and over again, sitting by the tape recorder. And, of course, I was deeply in love with Agnetha. Now, who wasn’t?

But the crucial thing for me was that the whole movie was about people coming out with the deeper self and deeper reality, and coming together on more fundamental levels. Yes, I guess it was the coming out and coming together that did it again. As it always does. And we cried and cried, ran out of handkerchiefs after half an hour already.

And it made me remember the sharing we had at the NVC training in July about the question why do we cry when we are happy, when we are touched. Why are we not just plain happy, like kids? They do not cry when they are happy, for the first few years of their lives at least.

So, the best explanation we came up with was that when we are touched, when we open up emotionally and get in touch with ourselves, with others and with life, when there is a sense of reunion, reconciliation, we feel two different emotions at the same time; on the one hand it is happiness, fulfilment, joy. But on the other hand we, at the very same moment, get connected with all the past pain that accumulated in us during the period of separateness. We re-experience the time when there was pain because of having no contact with ourselves, life or others. There seems to be some deep existential mourning and grieving going on.

This sounds so true to life, at least to me. For instance, whenever I watch the video I have posted a couple of weeks ago, I cry, every single time. It is always pure joy of coming out and coming together, yet there seems to be an awesome lot of mourning within me, mourning over all these billions of tons of separateness, barriers, distinctions and pain within us and between us.

Children, on the other hand, have not yet generated that many painful experiences and can still enjoy pure joy and happiness. May they enjoy it forever.

A beautiful shock

I believe everybody that has ever worked as a psychotherapist or a social worker, has heard enough heartbreaking family stories to be now highly aware of the consequences that certain ways of treating children create. I have, with years, developed such a sensitivity for that matter that it is not only rather stressful for me to observe parent–child scenes that are causing pain in children; much more, I started to notice that I actually automatically expect a power struggle to be happening at some point and so am all the time a bit tense when in company of parents and their kids. Not much, but just ready for the moment when a big one will hit the fan.

And yes, they often do happen to a certain degree, power struggles in which parents either go violent and want to have power over their kids, to win, to dominate, to have the final word, or going passively and become victims of their own little dictators, who at the end really freak out in these relationships with no clear boundaries.

These situations tend to evolve and turn into habitual nightmares in which parents go manipulating (…but don’t you love your daddy?), threatening (…if I see you doing this just one more time you are going to regret it!), laying guilt trips on kids (…our kind visitor is going to be very sad and he is going to cry…), lying (…I really don’t have any money left to buy you a chocolate…), evaluating (…you are such a selfish boy and you are making your mommy so sad…) and so forth. The latter one is a particularly hard one for me to hear since I have heard it so many times in my own childhood. And it was damn painful, confusing and isolating feeling. Terribly isolating.

Well, this is a post about good news, actually. You see, being ready for the worst, sometimes I experience a beautiful shock. The last one was when spending time in Warshaw with my newly acquired friend Ian and his little daughter. Of course, for about ten minutes or so I was in my typical state of alarm, but than I noticed how respectfully, with gentleness, patience, empathy, honesty, openness and love he was treating her. And I started to feel I was just melting down in a relief, just emotionally relaxing, breathing again.

Suddenly it was so great to be there, knowing I did not need to worry; he was going to handle everything in the most beautiful way. All her ups and downs, all her problems and demands, all her feelings and needs, all her worries and confusions. Man, was I enjoying their father-daughter company and all that day became beautiful, with love all around.

I don’t know, Ian, if you are ever going to read this, but thank you so much for infusing that day for all of us with all that love.