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 family. 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 moment. In the silence that followed,
her eyes suddenly began filling 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, regaining her composure. “I understand that
I may not be responsible 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 surface. The point is that while I’ve been
playing the part of the outward 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 entire 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 responsible. 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 demand 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!”
Carol took in a heavy breath, and
exhaled deeply, 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 talking 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?”
“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 — everything 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 deprive 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. 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 insufferable soul who had made it. But he had no such urge
in the moment. Carol, ever meek, even timid, had perhaps never
criticized him so directly. Certainly never in front of others.
And yet here she was, countering Lou’s complaint that she was
letting others off the hook by refusing to let Lou off the hook!
Lou began to marvel that he was
learning lessons on outward toughness 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 Yusuf’s 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
to himself, 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?”
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 feel 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 such a pain in the
backside, or that if I apologize he’ll just take it as license
to do what he wants. And so on.
“If I feel I should share a helpful
bit of information with a coworker but don’t, I necessarily
begin to see the coworker in ways that justify my choice not
to share — as being unhelpful, for example, or a threat, or
too dependent on others. Or I’ll tell myself how I deserve the
information because of how hard I worked to get it. And so on.
“Which is to say,” he continued,
“that when I violate the sensibility 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?”
“It might,” Yusuf allowed. “But
it could also mean something else.”
“What?”
Yusuf pointed at the choice diagram.
“What do you suppose happens,”
he said, “if I get in this box here toward Mordechai and then
don’t get out?”
No one responded for a moment.
“Nothing will happen,” Lou finally
said. “Everything will stay the same.”
“Yes, Lou, which is to say that
I will end up carrying that box with me, right?”
“Yes, I guess that’s right,” Lou
responded slowly, trying to grasp the implications.
At that, Yusuf added an arrow to
the diagram, signifying how the box can travel with us.
“In other words,” Yusuf resumed,
“If I get in this box and don’t get out, I end up taking the
box with me. And in my next interaction with Mordechai, I am
likely to start in the box — from the very beginning, right?”
Yusuf waited to see comprehension
in the eyes before him. Sensing that they were understanding,
he continued. “And if I’m already starting in the box, do you
suppose I would be likely to have a sense or desire to help
in my next interaction with Mordechai or with others I lump
together with him?”
“Oh, I see,” Lou said. “No, you
wouldn’t. You would start out bothered, and bitter, and angry.
And in that state you probably wouldn’t have a sense to help
at all.”
“That’s what I’m suggesting,” Yusuf
agreed. “I can end up living in a big box from which I already
perceive people as objects. When I develop such bigger boxes,
I erupt whenever my justifications in the box are challenged
or threatened. If I need to be seen as smart, for example, I
will get anxious whenever I think my intelligence might be at
issue — as, for example, when I am asked to speak in public
or when I believe others are evaluating me. If I feel superior,
I will be likely to erupt in anger or disdain if others fail
to recognize how I am better, or if I perceive that someone
is trying to make himself look better than me. And so on. I
no longer need to betray my sense regarding another in order
to be in the box toward him, because I am already in the box.
I am always on the lookout for offense when in the box, and
I will erupt whenever my justification claims are threatened.”
“So you’re saying that if I find
I don’t have many such senses, it may be an indication that
I’m already in a box, that I’m carrying my boxes with me, so
to speak.”
“I’m suggesting that possibility,
yes.”
Lou pondered this.
“I have a different question from
Lou’s,” Carol said, raising her hand.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“My problem isn’t that I have too
few of these senses to help. I’m worried that I have too many.
And frankly, as I think about this, I’m a bit overwhelmed that
I have to do everything I feel to do in order not to betray
myself.”
“I have the same question,” Ria
said.
Yusuf nodded. “It’s a good thing,
then, that that’s not what this means.”
“It’s not?” Carol asked hopefully.
“No. And to see why not, let’s
look at the choice diagram again. Notice two elements of the
diagram: first, notice that we use the words honor and
betray rather than do or not do. Notice
as well the word desire along with sense. In other
words, this sense we’re describing is something akin to a desire.
You with me?” he asked Carol before continuing.
“Yes. Honor and betray,
and desire — I see them.”
“Okay, then, let me ask you this:
Have you ever been in a situation where you ultimately weren’t
able to do something you felt to do for somebody, but nevertheless
still wished that you could have done it?”
“Sure, all the time,” Carol answered.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
Yusuf nodded in acknowledgment.
“Notice how those experiences are different from this experience
of mine. In my case, after I failed to help, did I still have
a desire to help?”
Carol looked at the diagram. “No.”
“No, I didn’t. You’re exactly right.
So notice the difference: in my case, I started with a desire
to help but ended with contempt, whereas in your case, you started
with a desire to help and ended with a desire to help.”
He paused to let that sink in.
“Although it may be true in such
cases that you didn’t perform the outward service you felt would
have been ideal, you still retained the sense or desire you
had in the beginning. That is, you still desired to be
helpful. My guess is that there were probably a number of other
things that needed to happen, and you just couldn’t do this
additional ideal thing. Am I right?”
Carol nodded.
“And that’s life,” Yusuf shrugged.
“We quite commonly have many things that would be ideal to do
at any given moment. Whether or not we perform a particular
service, the way we can know if we’ve betrayed ourselves is
by whether we are still desiring to be helpful.”
“Okay, I think I get it,” Carol
said. “So you’re saying that the sense I’m either honoring or
not is this desire of helpfulness, not the mere fact of doing
or not doing any particular behavior.”
“Yes, Carol, that’s exactly what
I’m saying. And that’s why we use honor and betray
on the choice diagram rather than do or not do.
“Incidentally,” he continued, “this
shows how I can actually behave the way I feel would be ideal
but nevertheless still be in the box. Think about the Mordechai
story. Let’s say that after I got in the box, I saw someone
who knew me, and then out of shame, not wanting to appear insensitive,
I turned and helped Mordechai gather his coins, all the while
fuming that I was being made to do it. In that case, was I seeing
him as a person while I was helping?”
“No.”
“Had I retained my desire of helpfulness?”
“No, you hadn’t.”
“So had I honored or betrayed my
sense of helpfulness?”
“You’d betrayed it,” Carol said.
“Okay, I get it. It’s not simply about the behavior, is it?
It’s deeper than that.”
“Exactly. My heart wasn’t at peace
even though I was being outwardly helpful, which suggests that
I had betrayed my original desire to help.”
Carol winced at that comment and
bit her lip. “Then that raises another question for me.”
“Go ahead.”
“The situation you described —
retaining my desire to help even when I can’t help — explains
some of my experiences, but not all of them.”
“Go on,” Yusuf invited.
“Well, a lot of times, when I can’t
help, I don’t think I feel peaceful anymore either. To be quite
honest, sometimes I’m burning up inside. I feel overwhelmed
— all anxious and stressed because I can’t help. It eats me
up, and I can’t seem to relax or find peace. Like when my house
isn’t clean, for example. I get all anxious when we have others
over if I haven’t been able to clean up.”
“Ah,” Yusuf responded, as if stumbling
upon something long lost, “then in those cases it sounds like
you might be in the box, doesn’t it?”
Carol nodded.
“And you might, Carol. Ultimately,
you’re the only person who would know for sure, but it sounds
like you might have developed a hyperactive must-be-seen-as
box. Maybe you have a box about needing to be seen as helpful,
for example, or thoughtful, or kind, or as a kind of super woman.
Any must-be-seen-as boxes like those would likely multiply in
your mind the list of obligations you think you have to meet
and would likely rob you of peace when you aren’t able to meet
them.”
Carol slumped slightly in her chair.
“That’s me to a T, she said. “That’s exactly what I’m like.”
She looked up at Yusuf. “Then where
do they come from?”
“Where do what come from?”
“These boxes — like this must-be-seen-as
box.”
“Again, let’s look at the choice
diagram,” he said.
Pointing at it, he continued, “When
in that story did I have a box — whether of the better-than,
I-deserve, worse-than, or must-be-seen-as varieties?”
“After you betrayed your sense.”
“Exactly. Which is to say that
we construct our boxes through a lifetime of choices. Every
time we choose to pull away from and blame another, we necessarily
feel justified in doing so, and we start to plaster together
a box of self-justification, the walls getting thicker and thicker
over time.”
“But why have I developed a must-be-seen-as
box as opposed to some of the others?” Carol followed up.
“Good question, Carol,” Yusuf said.
“If you’re like most people, you’ve probably developed boxes
that have elements from each of these styles of justification.”
“I think I’m usually in the worse-than
or must-be-seen-as categories,” Carol said.
“Not me,” Lou interjected, “better-than
and I-deserve all the way.”
“What a surprise,” Gwyn joked.
“Yes, shocking,” Elizabeth agreed.
“I wouldn’t want to disappoint
you,” Lou said. “You’re expecting it of me now.”
“So why do Lou and I have different
kinds of boxes?” Carol asked, returning to the question at hand.
“With respect to the box,” Yusuf
responded, “don’t be too taken in by the categories. They are
simply linguistic tools that help us think a little more precisely
about the issue of justification. The differences they show
are in key ways artificial. What I mean is that our similarities
are much greater than our differences.
“What you and Lou share with everyone
else on the planet is a need to be justified that has arisen
through a lifetime of self-betrayals. If we justify ourselves
in different ways, it is because we justify ourselves within
a context, and we will reach for the easiest justification we
can find. So, for example, if I had been raised in a critical
or demanding environment, it might have been easier for me,
relatively speaking, to find refuge in worse-than or must-be-seen-as
justifications.
“Those who were raised in affluent
or sanctimonious environments, on the other hand, may naturally
gravitate to better-than and I-deserve kinds of justifications,
and so on. Must-be-seen-as boxes might easily arise in such
circumstances as well.
“But the key point, and the point
that is the same for all of us, is that we all grab for justification,
however we can get it. Because grabbing for justification is
something we do, we can undo it. Whether we find justification
in how we are worse or in how we are better, we can each find
our way to a place where we have no need for justification at
all. We can find our way to peace — deep, lasting, authentic
peace — even when war is breaking out around us.”
“How?” Carol asked.
“As Avi said a few minutes ago,
that is our topic for tomorrow.
“For tonight, we invite you to
ponder what boxes you are carrying, and the nature of your predominant
self-justifications.
“I also invite you to consider
how your box — this warring heart that you carry within — has
invited outward war between you and those in your life.
“Remember this collusion diagram?”
he asked, pointing at the picture of Avi and Hannah’s conflict
about the edging.
Most of the group nodded.
“Look for that pattern in your
own lives tonight,” he said. “See where you might be inviting
in others the very behavior you are complaining about. Ponder
what boxes might be behind your reactions in those situations.
Try to figure out what self-justifications you are defending.”
Yusuf looked around at the group.
“In short, our invitation to you for tonight,” he said, “is
to notice your battles and to ponder your wars. Using the conflict
in the Middle East metaphorically, we are,
all of us, Palestinian and Israeli in some areas of our lives.
It will serve neither ourselves nor our loved ones to think
that we are better.
“Have a good evening.”
Copyright
© 2006 by The Arbinger Institute
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