If you have ever wondered if people could change, or if you’ve just wanted to know how to do it, check out the website, the book, and the Ted Talk of Christian Picciolini, former Neo-Nazi skinhead, turned peace advocate.
Category: Reconciliation
What Personal Peace is Like and How to Get There
If you’re one of those people who says you can’t understand how you can forgive when you’ve been deeply hurt, how you can be silent when injustice abounds, or how you can rest when you must make amends; I would say you already know how, if you know how to sleep. Continue reading
The People of the Mind
As if it wasn’t hard enough to deal with the people who hurt you, you also have to deal with their representatives you carry around in your head. Actual people you can divorce, send to jail, move across the country and never see again; the people of the mind follow you, they share your bed despite divorce. Regardless of orders of protection, they dog your footsteps, day and night. It’s imperative you find a way to cope with these imaginary people or they will do you more harm than the real ones ever could. Continue reading
Take Out the Garbage
I once facilitated a group for people recovering from severe mental illnesses. We met once a week and they talked about how things were going for them. They tried to support each other. One day a member of the group came in and said his landlord was going to evict him if he failed to clean his apartment. Landlords can do that if the apartment is really bad. We knew that just talking about it and offering moral support was not going to help him much, so, the next week, we all went to his place to help him clean. In the end, he got to keep his apartment and I got a story about letting go. Continue reading
The Re-Negotiated Relationship
Once you’re in a relationship with someone, you’ll always be in a relationship with that person. It’s like the Hotel California, you can never leave. I don’t care if you never speak to her again, if you move to the other side of the world, and put up a dartboard with her face on it; you’ll always be in relationship. There will always be a corner of your brain, I dare say, a corner of your heart, that has her name on it. Continue reading
Calibrate Your Compass
When you escape the madness that your relationship has become, whether you are gone for the rest of your life or for twenty minutes, you have an opportunity to do something that can set the course of your life from that point on. You can calibrate your moral compass. Continue reading
Getting Closer by Separation
Look at the shoes you’re wearing. Your two shoes go together, they match. No one can say that they don’t. Even if you lose one and leave it behind in the road, they are still a pair of shoes.
Now tie them together, one to the other. Go ahead.
Now try to walk.
You’ll be able to do it. You’ll take short, mincing steps. If you had to walk that way, you could. If you lived in a world where everyone tied their shoes together that way and walked, you might not consider doing it differently. However, I think you’ll agree it’s not the best way to get around.
Go ahead and retie them the way they are supposed to be tied. This is the end of the demonstration.
Now think about your relationship with the person who hurt you. How tightly are you tied together? Continue reading
