Iran Awakening, by Shirin Ebadi

Iran Awakening, by Shirin Ebadi

Nobel Peace Laureate (2003) Shirin Ebadi has written a riveting account of her life in Iran, from her childhood (when the Shah was installed by the CIA), to the revolution that brought the Ayatollah to power, and onward to current circumstances in her country.  As a judge, then a lawyer, Ebadi’s life’s work has been defending human rights, particularly for women in Iran;  and striving for peaceful and civil resolutions to violently disputed questions.

When others chose to leave Iran, she chose to stay and fight her non-violent campaign against unjust laws.  A judge when the Ayatollah took over,  she was quickly demoted to file clerk and eventually persuaded to “take early retirement.” She then began practicing law, taking almost exclusively pro bono cases in which human rights and/or civil rights were at the core. She chose cases that allowed her to argue the regime’s repressive interpretations of  points of Islamic law.

Colleagues, friends, even her teenage nephew were arrested, tortured and murdered by the Ayatollah’s forces. Ebadi spent a lot of time thinking about what she would do when (not if,  for she knew she was in danger all the time) her turn came, and reports without any sugar coating what her imprisonment was like.

She carefully shields people she needs to protect, but otherwise is astonishingly practical and direct in her account of what women’s lives have been like in Iran for the past 50 years or so. I found myself wondering over and over, “Why didn’t she just get out?” and wavering between thinking her stupid for staying and courageous for pushing onward.

For me, the most galling and bizarrely fascinating chapter is the last one, which details the chain of evens that led to the book finally being published in the USA after dealing with the American government’s censorship.

The book is well written, with none of the usual stiffness of texts written in one language and translated to another.  I highly recommend it for teenagers and adults. (The descriptions of torture are straightforward and not sensational, and for that reason are all the more disturbing, so it’s not a good book for readers under about 14 years old.)

Forgiveness – A Skill That Can Be Learned

©2008 Ramona K. Silipo. All rights reserved.

FORGIVE FOR GOOD, by Fred Luskin, subtitled, ‘A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness,’ is a striking combination research report, case study and handbook. The material is groundbreaking, fascinating and instantly accessible.

In the courses he teaches, Fred Luskin, Ph.D., Director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project, is absolutely authoritative and professional, without for a moment being dry and academic. His book breathes the same directness and expertise, written in a crisp, homely, very personal style. When the book was published, Dr. Luskin told me that, after he first submitted the manuscript, an editor handed it back to him with voluminous changes, putting everything into ‘proper’ English, taking the life out of it. Fortunately for the reader, he stood his ground and insisted that his own voice remain.

The ease of reading is crucial, because the material can be difficult. Most of us grew up hearing ‘forgive and forget,’ which in our minds connected the act of forgiveness with allowing ourselves to be hurt again and again. To forgive someone, we gathered, meant to ‘overcome’ the hurt, to ‘forget’ and be reconciled to the person who hurt us.

But Dr. Luskin’s work leads us in a different direction. Forgiveness is not condoning unkindness, or forgetting pain, not excusing bad behaviour, denying or minimizing your hurt. Shame, guilt, redemption, reconciliation— those things we learned about in Sunday school, are not necessarily connected with forgiveness. In fact, holding on to those ideas can actually prevent us from moving into a healthier state of mind and body.

His research and practice as a psychologist show that forgiveness is for the forgiver, not the offender. It is, essentially, a decision not to let past pain continue to hurt in your present and future life. It is taking back your personal power, taking responsibility for your emotions. Most important, forgiveness is about healing yourself and not about the people who hurt you. What’s more, and most promising, Luskin’s research shows that forgiveness is skill, one that can be learned just like tying your shoes or doing sums.

The book, throughout, is sprinkled with real life examples drawn from Luskin’s active counselling practice and his own life. His story of how he ‘got into’ studying and teaching forgiveness is at once a self-revealing recount of deep hurt, and an effective lesson in learning how to move past the pain and stop giving it room in one’s life.

Part One of Forgive for Good sets out the elements of grievance, blame and our tendency to take things personally that were never meant that way. The fine art of nursing a grudge is examined, as are the physical, emotional and psychological implications of doing so.

Moving to Part Two, the elements of forgiveness are presented, along with the medical evidence and a dramatic example of the effectiveness of deciding to forgive. In chapter seven, ‘The Science of Forgiveness,’ Luskin distills key research from a number of scientific studies which show that forgiveness improves physical as well as emotional and mental health. Then he gets specific and, in addition to detailing his earlier research, tells us about his work, aptly named HOPE, with mothers from Northern Ireland who lost sons, and a second programme for both men and women who lost family members in ‘the troubles.’

The positive results of the Northern Ireland programmes were deeply gratifying, and, Luskin admits, surprising even to him. He was not confident that his methods could work with people so deeply wounded. But, he concludes, ‘I marvel at the implications of these results. They demonstrate the incredible power of human beings to heal from even the most blatant of horrors. They reinforce my belief that people can learn to forgive.’

Part Three of Forgive for Good is a clear, practicable handbook on the process of forgiveness developed by Dr. Luskin. He is sublimely articulate and complete; the exposition of the material is logical, specific and practical. By working the exercises and techniques in the book, the reader can virtually complete the course Dr. Luskin teaches.

To cite one example, PERT (don’t be misled by the cute acronyms; this is serious work)– Positive Emotion Refocusing Technique. Through it, he says, ‘We gain tremendous confidence when we are suddenly faced with a painful situation or memory and are able to sustain our positive focus. Practising PERT helps us stay calm so we can make good decisions.’ Then Luskin gives detailed, simple instructions for the technique, which is essentially a relaxation and refocusing process that can be learned in less than half an hour.

The final chapter summarizes the process with ‘Nine Steps to Forgiveness.’ The first step is to know what happened, how you feel about it and be able to articulate it.’ Other steps include making a clear decision to do what you need to do to feel better; to give up expecting things from people that they do not choose to give you; and to understand your goal.

Luskin says, ‘What you are after is peace. Forgiveness can be defined as the peace and understanding that come from blaming less that which has hurt you [and] taking the experience less personally.’

Ironically, the final manuscript was ready for publication ten days after the September eleventh debacle in 2001. Luskin’s ‘Note to the Reader’ at the back of the book is alone worth the price of a copy. In part:

To help make sense of the relative importance of forgiveness at this time, think about the balance of a scale. . . On one end, there is vengeance and on the other forgiveness. At first the forgiveness end is up in the air, as it carries little weight against the strong desire for retaliation. . . Forgiveness, not forgetting, not condoning and not reconciling with offenders, is one of the powerful tools that we can use.

Violent Anger: Is it “in a Normal Range of Emotions?”

©2008, RK Silipo. All rights reserved.

Recently I happened to meet a psychiatrist who believes that violent anger and violent behaviour are  “in a normal range of emotions.” Her view was that people who do not lash out violently are actually somehow lacking in their range of emotional responses; that the absence of violence is abnormal. As usual in this kind of unexpected encounter, I thought of half a dozen things to say in reply afterward.

I’ve been thinking about it quite a lot since then. I’ve been thinking what an unlivable world we would live in, if what she says were true. People who lash out, hit and kick and stab and shoot and carry out countless angry violent acts would be acceptable. If her assertion were correct, it would be those of us who eschew violence, who try to find other ways of expressing and dissipating anger, who were considered odd, and the wanton bullies who were considered normal. I wonder, would murder be considered normal in this world?

I think she is wrong. I completely reject her premise. To me, any violence is an unacceptable way to express anger. Violence is not only physical, but also verbal and emotional. In fact, the latter are potentially more psychologically damaging, and often have longer-term and more debilitating effects than physical violence.

I felt this way long before I became a Quaker, and it is one of the reasons that Quakerism appealed to me. Quaker faith and practice have become the core of the way I choose to live. My husband isn’t a member of a Quaker meeting, but he learned Quaker ethics when he lived in Friends International Centre (London) while he was a student. In fact, even earlier, in his teens, he had learned the yogic ethical code and chosen to live by it. The yogic code holds the view that violence in any form, physical or otherwise, is proscribed. The Quaker Testimony is that we work to remove all occasion of violence, including anger. So my husband and I put these precepts into practice.

If you know anything about the Religious Society of Friends (doubtful in itself as we do not proselytize much), it would most likely be something about the Testimony of Peace. People generally understand this to be opposition to war. But it is much broader than that. It also encompasses more than the well known passive resistance taught and practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. (although both were aware of Quaker thought and practice).

The Peace Testimony is an all-enveloping concept which imbues all aspects of ethical living. It means that we choose in daily life, in every instance, to try to avoid violence. Since Quakerism is a non creedal religion, individuals commit to various levels of living the testimonies, but virtually all Friends commit themselves to live the Peace Testimony.

So screaming matches, door slamming, threats, withdrawal of affection, the silent treatment and other fairly common acts of emotional/psychological manipulation and domestic violence are rare in Quaker homes. Quakers avoid confrontational behavior and instead try to make a habit of simply expressing anger, then moving on to ways to dissipate it.

Expressing anger, that is, saying outright, “This makes me angry,” and then letting go of it, is completely in the spirit of a non violent life choice. It is the way we try to handle anger. Of course we don’t always completely succeed, but neither do we commit frequent acts of violence–verbal, emotional or physical.

Several years ago I learned a method of dealing with anger called the Peace Empowerment Process© (PEP), including the Blueprint of Emotional Wisdom© and can now teach these techniques. This process reveals that anger is virtually always a mask or an outward manifestation of a deeper, hidden emotion. People learn the techniques to look under the anger and identify the underlying emotions: fear, disappointment, grief or guilt. By finding the true emotion and dealing with it, we remove the reason for the anger.

When the process is learned, it can become almost automatic in moments of anger. The PEP demonstrably reduced violence (including bullying) levels in classrooms where it was taught to children, especially ages nine to fourteen, but also through high school age. I practice the PEP whenever I need to deal with anger. (See Creativity in the Lion’s Den: Releasing Our Children from Violence, by Carolyna Marks, and go to www.wwfp.org for more details.)

I have also been interested in forgiveness studies for many years, and before I left  California I completed the intensive forgiveness seminars at Stanford University.  Dr. Fred Luskin, founder of Stanford’s Forgiveness Project, gave me permission to teach Forgive for Good© workshops in the UK.

The catch phrase for his seminars is  “Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past.” That is, we cannot change the past, and in order to move forward and grow emotionally, we must let go of it. His research shows that holding on to resentment, pain or anger is literally bad for physical as well as psychological and emotional health. (See www.learningtoforgive.com.)

My personal feeling is that anger is wasted energy; and stewing in anger, resentment or revenge fantasies only serves to make people unhappy.

Quaker Spirituality and the Peace Testimony

Discussion point:

We know what we know not because well-meaning Friends bowdlerized and paraphrased and rearranged the 1660 document [the Religious Society of Friends, known as Quakers, was founded in the1650s-60s] but because it has been shown to us in our hearts.

I recognize this as a description of spiritual realization. It’s in a kind of phrasing my erstwhile Presbyterian (Later in life she took up Science of Mind) grandmother used. For her, heart and soul were virtually the same “place.” To say that something “has been shown to us in our hearts” is to speak of Divine Inspiration, perhaps even Revelation, and the soul’s intuitive open reception to a truth when it is presented. This knowledge, a certainty that does not need intellectualization, rationalization, examination or any other kind of interference from the ego– this knowledge happens in a moment of clarity and becomes part of our Self. It’s a spiritual certainty, not an intellectual acquisition of dry facts or a thought process about tangible evidence.

I was once in a gathering of several thousand people who had come to hear a respected and much loved teacher give a talk. Twenty minutes for questions and answers followed the formal presesntation.

The first person, a twenty-ish man, told a story about something that recently happened to him, ending with his question, “I’m not sure. Was that a spiritual experience?”

The teacher giggled (for which he was known, giggling, that is) and said, “Spirituality is like sex. You’ll know when you have it.” After the guffaws died down, the teacher said, “When you are fully conscious, when your spirit is fully aware, you will know, with a certainty. You will not have to ask.”

It seems to me that this is the kind of knowledge we are describing when we try to quantify or explain what happens in Meeting for Worship or Meeting for Worship on the Occasion of Doing Business, or any other Quaker gathering where we wait upon the Light.

Discussion point:

We all basically believe what we want to believe. We also tend to believe in those things that we think are the right things to believe in.

As I see it, we exercise our free will. We have choices in how we relate to the Divine Principle, the Absolute, or whatever you want to call “God.” Belief is individual and personal. What I believe, even within a group of “like minded” people, is going to be at least slightly different from what anyone else believes, because beliefs come at least partly from our experience and partly from our communication with whatever “God” we know.

Beliefs are very different from the kind of deep soul knowing of something “shown to us in our hearts.” I feel the latter is that certainty about which we do not have to ask.

Discussion point:

Probably, many Quakers throughout the last hundred years have taken great solace in the Peace Testimony quote because it relieves them of having to come to it themselves. The Testimony serves as creed and that had to have been its intent.

It is very unlikely that any Quaker has taken any solace in the peace testimony. Peace is not an easy principle to live by. Do people believe that it’s a lark, working for peace? It certainly isn’t easy or comfortable work. And nothing in Quakerism was intended to serve as a creed. Testimonies, advices and queries give us guidance based on previous experience, not canon law or the Apostle’s Creed.

Discussion point:

There is a tendancy to have a de facto political litmus test for entry to Quaker meetings that effectively bars entry to anyone who thinks they might be in favor of war or violence in certain circumstances.

This is a ridiculous assertion. I’ve met Quakers on both sides of the Atlantic who believe it was right to fight Hitler, as well as Quakers who were non combatants during WWII. In all the discussions of the peace testimony that I’ve heard, the conditions under which one might use violent means is a crucial point, and people speak in very real terms about self-defense, defending their children or another person, etc. I’ve observed that it’s a frequent and soul rending discussion among Quakers, most of whom admit they can’t know what they’d do without having to face a real situation.

A few relevant web sites:
http://www.learningtoforgive.com/
http://www.pathways-to-peace.com/presentation.html
www.wwfp.org/

http://www.soulforce.org/

Children’s Anger and Transformation

©2008, Ramona K. Silipo. All rights reserved.

THE PEACE EMPOWERMENT PROCESS
HELPS PEOPLE TRANSFORM VIOLENCE INTO CREATIVITY

The World Wall for Peace transforms the lives of people, children and adults, through the Peace Empowerment Process® (PEP), taught by its creator, Carolyna Marks. The process comprises two distinct sections, the PEP®, and the Blueprint of Emotional Wisdom®. The PEP gives people simple, repeatable techniques which allow them to dissipate anger and the impulse to violent reaction, and to respond to violence or the threat of violence with creative thinking and compassion.

The PEP focuses not on unlimited freedom of the self, but on the free choices available to the whole individual in the context of a vital and responsive community. In many programs, self- esteem is often overemphasized to the detriment of responsibility and service. We are one with other people, and in the PEP self esteem is not emphasized to the exclusion of these things. The objective is for people to grow together; to be interrelated, not singular; to live creative individuality without sacrificing community.

In nearly thirty years of peace work, Carolyna Marks has observed lasting changes in attitudes of both children and adults with whom she has worked building peace walls; and participants who have learned the Peace Empowerment Process relate moving experiences of recognizing the transformations in their own consciousness and emotions.

The listing of Peace Powers, one of the first exercises in the PEP, leads children to redefine, as valuable abilities, qualities often seen as weak or “wimpy.” By writing down and reading them out, children see and own as powerful skills such as listening, drawing, or being persistent. In one school, a very quiet girl at the back of the classroom amazed her teacher by raising her hand, eager to read her list of Peace Powers to the class. The girl had never seen her quietness or her thoughtful nature as powerful until then. The teacher told Ms. Marks that the girl was the shyest child in the class and was literally transformed by learning the PEP.

The Walk-a-Mile exercise opens compassion and empathy. The procedure is to pair off from the circle and listen very closely to the story of another person’s experience; then return to the group and become the other person, to relate your partner’s story in the first person. In a recent PEP workshop, an African American man and a sixteen year old Chinese boy were partners.

The boy related that he had come to the United States when he was about five. He said that, although his whole family, seven children and his parents, all lived in one room, they were a close, happy family, even though they were poor. His father, who regularly went out with friends on Saturday night, one night went out as usual, and was shot and killed in an argument with his friends. It completely changed the boy’s life: He began to steal and was arrested, but fortunately was placed in a program, in which he learned from career prisoners what it would be like if he did end up in jail. The experience woke him up and started him back toward a more constructive life.

The African American man had been raised in minister’s family, and rebelled dramatically against his father as a young man. As he matured, however, he found great respect for and began to understand the power of his father’s ministry and ideals. The black man and the Chinese boy were from a neighborhood where friction between their two races was a daily fact of life. But they bonded instantly and intimately when they realized their experiences of loss and family conflict were not all that different from one another. Both had a fundamental change of attitude through experiencing the other’s story.

In working with the second component of the PEP, the Blueprint of Emotional Wisdom®, children learn to look at their emotions and identify the source of their anger. Marks’ work is based largely on the concept that underlying all violent actions is anger; and under anger are fear, guilt and grief or disappointment.

In one PEP session, children began spontaneously to share their grief by telling stories about the deaths of dogs and cats, grandparents, an aunt. They were very emotional stories, filled with anger, fear and guilt. Soon a wave of tears swept through the room. Everyone was crying because the schoolroom had suddenly become a safe place for them to express their feelings. The teacher reported that for the next several days the children were extraordinarily kind to each other. One boy had a foster sister who had died, and didn’t know what to do with his feelings about it. After this PEP training he decided to draw and write about it. Children do make creative choices when they have permission not to be violent.

For more information on the World Wall for Peace, go to www.wwfp.org. Marks’ book, Creativity in the Lion’s Den, is available from the organization.