If you read history, it is abundantly clear that mental health issues have always plagued our species. They may be more widespread today due to lifestyle, but the main difference between then and now is the level of seriousness and intelligence with which they are being addressed.

When we show kindness, we internalize kindness. When we show generosity, we internalize generosity. When we show anger, we internalize anger. And so it is with every action. It follows that whatever we do to others, we also do to ourselves.

Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.

Forgiveness is the restoration of power.

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will avoid 100 days of sorrow.

Don’t say something permanently hurtful because you are temporarily upset.

When I was a kid, I always identified with the hero in movies. Nothing could be more natural. The hero is portrayed as a sympathetic character. The hero’s perspective dominates the narrative. The hero is the good guy. Villains, on the other hand, typically aren’t given much of a platform. Attention is paid to their background and psychology only when it condemns them for being the way they are. Villains are always wrong. And if you identify with the villain, then something is wrong with you.

Villains often lose their status as such when their side of the story is told.

Today I am still typically persuaded that the villain filmmakers have invented is more or less in the wrong. The villain simply doesn’t stand a chance against complicit costumes, makeup, dialogue, disturbing music and the occasional smoke. But I also realize that life is more complicated than a hero-villain binary would let on. The most realistic villains are normal people motivated by a sense of grievance. They learn to resent those they deem responsible for their plight and lose faith in the institutions they represent. Sooner or later this process leads to a desire to get even. In the extreme, destructive, anti-social behaviors manifest. How many people say that they have lost faith in their political system due to a sense of grievance? This is a dangerous sentiment because in it lies a seed of revolution. The same seed that villains nurture in response to an offense.

A prime example of this comes from the movie 300. Ephialtes of Trachis was a deformed man whose parents ran away from Sparta, a huge no-no in that culture. Ephialtes hoped to redeem his father’s honor by returning to Sparta and serving in Leonidas’s army. However, he was quickly turned down by Leonidas himself for being too weak to raise his shield. Leonidas said to Ephialtes, “If you want to help in a Spartan victory, clear the battlefield of the dead, tend the wounded, bring them water. But as for the fight itself, I cannot use you.”

Rather than accept a downsized role, Ephialtes reacted by informing the Persians of the Anopaea, a path that only the locals knew. This treasonous act that gave the Persians a tactical advantage was motivated by revenge. Had Leonidas accepted Ephialtes in the Greek army, the outcome of the story would obviously have been very different. In reality, however, his noble intentions turned sinister. The truth is there is both a hero and villain inside every man. The one that triumphs is the one that gets nurtured the most.

Today there are countless wars being fought around the globe. And there are many interests being represented. Leaders notoriously demonize the opposition in motivating their side to support a conflict. It’s a lot easier to kill villains than ordinary people with differing interests. You know the expression, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” To be clear, I’m not saying there is a moral equivalence in every conflict. There isn’t. What I am saying is people tend to portray their enemies as evil even when there is no often appreciable difference in morality between the two sides.

People are usually pretty good at managing positive emotions–it’s the negative ones that we need help with. And the king of negative emotion is anger. If love is the most powerful force for good in the universe, then it may be said that anger is the most powerful force for bad. Anger demands to be expressed. Even when it doesn’t get expressed externally, it makes its home in the subconscious mind and wreaks havoc in the life of its subject.

Dr. Christian Conte is the author of Walking Through Anger: A New Design for Confronting Conflict in an Emotionally Charged World. Per the book’s author description:

Christian Conte, PhD, is a licensed professional counselor, a certified Domestic Violence Counselor, and a Level V (highest level) Anger Management Specialist from the National Anger Management Association. He is co-host of USA Network’s The Secret Life of Kids and is a frequent guest on many national and local programs, including Good Day, ESPN Radio, and CBS’s KDKA. His Yield Theory training has generated successful results for violent criminals, family therapy, and professional athletes.

Dr. Conte gave a talk on YouTube in which he shared his 5 tried-and-trued keys to controlling anger–don’t be attached; don’t take things personally; learn when to let things go; be aware of what’s going on with your body; and learn how to say what’s really going on with you. They have helped me out a lot, and I’m sure they will help you out as well if you put them to work.

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Dr. Christian Conte, and in this video I’m going to give you 5 keys on how to control your anger. I run a website called www.DrChristianConte.com, which is all about emotional management because at the end of the day we all experience emotions, and we all certainly at some points in our lives experience anger. And to me, anger management is something that we all could benefit from. And anger management is so much more than just dealing with anger, it’s dealing with the emotions that surround anger. Look, I’ve posted some videos on YouTube before, but I’ve never really done it consistently. This video marks the first in a series of videos that I’m about to do on a regular basis. So if you like some of the information, I’m going to ask you to subscribe to this channel. If you have questions, put it in the comment section. I’m going to go through them, and I’m going to try to answer them each week on different videos.

So let’s come to these 5 keys to controlling your anger. Let’s face facts–all of us have anger, and there are ways to deal with it in a more effective way. When you think about the world today, when you think about how many people are exploding out of anger. How many people are losing control and hurting other people. It’s unacceptable. All of us–we’re challenged to have the discipline to handle our anger well. So I want to give you that. Look, I say we all have issues. If you’re alive right now, you have issues. That’s OK ’cause so do I. Do I look like a person who’s never been angry? Of course, I’ve been angry. I just know how to deal with it. I still get angry. But the difference is knowing how to handle that anger well. Sure, anger is going to come up for you, but follow these 5 keys, and I’m telling you you’ll handle it in a much more effective way.

So here they are. The first key is this: Don’t be attached. Now think about this, our egos–they have us wanting to be right in all situations. Think about the last time you’ve been in an argument with someone or a disagreement. Instead of being open to learning, which we all would say–we all say ‘I’m open to learning. . . I have a lot more to learn in my life.” Most people would say that, but then when it comes to an argument or a disagreement, all of a sudden it’s, “Hey, my ego is right. I’m defending myself to the end.” We become very attached. I’ve talked about attachment in this way before. I’ve talked about it as this. Let’s say that these are all my ideas. I put my ideas here [clutching books to chest] and I hold on to my ideas. If you disagree with my ideas, and I’m attached to my ideas, I get really upset. I think “How dare you disagree with who I am?” But if I take my ideas and I set them down over there [sets books down] and you disagree with my ideas, I can recognize “Hey, you’re not disagreeing with the essence of who I am. You’re just disagreeing with some of my ideas.”

So not being attached helps us in a significant way. Because I realize it leads to the second key of what I want to tell you about, which is don’t take things personally. Look, how many times have you allowed your anger to swell up and grow because you’ve taken things personally? One fact, as I’ve said at the beginning, we all have issues. We all have things that are going on in our lives. The problem happens when we start to take other people’s issues personally. Now a lot of times people will say, “What if someone is saying something directly at me.” Then they say, “It is about me. It is personal” I say “No, it’s not. It’s not personal.”

Look, in the comment section below this video you will see lots of questions emerge–positive things, people will say appreciative things. But there will definitely be people who just lash out and say mean things. I’m not going to take that personally. It’s not about me. If you don’t even know me, how can it possibly be about me? It’s about you. And when it comes to people saying mean things and lashing out at you, it’s not about you. It’s about them. When you learn that, when you really get that, ’cause I have a sense people understand that here [head] but then understanding it here [heart] is a lot different. But when you can learn to not take things personally it’s one of the greatest gifts you will give yourself. That’s why it’s one of the 5 most practical keys to managing your anger well.

The third key to handling anger well and to controlling your anger is learning when to let things go. All too often people have such a hard time letting things go. Why is it so hard for us? Why is it so hard? Because again, I believe it comes back to our egos. We want to have things go our way. So we say I’m going to put myself out there. And when I put myself out there, here’s what’s going to happen. And we become attached to our view. And until we learn how to let go of needing things to be our way, then we crumble when things don’t go our way. So letting go of needing things to go your way is a really important key to handling your anger well. And you say “Well, I never get anything to go my way. Things never go my way.” And it’s important to understand to not use extreme language. Because all too often we say “Never. Always. Can’t stand it!” And those words drive anger even bigger. So learning to let go of needing things to go your way is huge. Letting go is a powerful, powerful step.

The fourth key is this: being aware of what’s going on in your body. I call it being mindful of what’s going on in your body. In other words, if I say to you how many times in your life have you snapped at someone when really you were hungry. Just about everybody watching is going to be like “OK, that was me. I did it.” If I say to you how many of you were angry with someone else because you were really just overly tired. I would say a majority of people are going to be like “I guess I can think back to a time when I was arguing, but really I was just overly tired.” If I say to you think about a situation where you were stressed out and you snapped at somebody. All of things happen to us. Hunger, fatigue, being stressed. Even something as simple as being overly heated. It can agitate us.

When we’re not aware of what’s going on in our body, we start to make up a story. So we get hungry, and we start to say “I feel agitated, and because I feel agitated, I must be upset about this.” And then we make up whatever story, and then we get really upset about it. Whereas if we were well-fed at the time, we probably wouldn’t have gotten so upset about the same thing. So it’s really important to be mindful about what’s going on inside your body. The more mindful you are, the more aware you are.

Then you can get to the fifth key. For me, the fifth key it’s simple to understand but it’s really hard to practice. And that’s learning how to say what’s really going on with you. Listen to that. Learning how to say what’s really going on with you. In other words, if I’m hungry I can say–instead of snapping at my wife–I can say, “You know what, honey, I’m just really hungry right now. Now’s not a great time to have that conversation because I’m so hungry. Let me grab some food here real quick, then we can sit down and talk about it.” Or–I’ve written about this a lot on my website–www.drchristianconte.com–I’ve written about this a lot. There’s an old adage that says “Never go to bed angry.” And I think that’s silly. And I think it’s outdated. Because if the only reason is because you’re both overly tired or one of you is overly tired, then by all means go to sleep. Go to bed angry. When you wake up in the morning and you’re well-rested, the odds are–listen if you want to keep fighting, keep fighting–but the odds are that you probably won’t want to.

Being mindful of what’s going on in your body and expressing it accurately. So many people across the country–I go all over and speak across the country. I get to interact with thousands of people. It sounds so simple, but why is this so hard? And I believe it’s so hard for most people because we’ve gotten into these behavioral patterns of just not learning to express what’s going on with us. Once you start to do it–and believe me, every technique I’m talking about, these 5 keys to controlling anger. As soon as you’re done with this video, turn this video off and start practicing it, and watch what happens. In other words, if you’re feeling a certain way–let’s say you’re feeling anxious. Instead of lashing out in anger, say that. Try it. Just try saying it. “You know what, I’m really sorry, but I kind of feel really anxious right now. I think it’s making me feel a little agitated. And I feel a little angry. I don’t think it’s about you, I think it’s about me, and let me deal with it for a little bit.” See, the more you learn to express that accurately, the more effectively you control your anger.

These fives keys to controlling your anger management–trust me, I’m telling you–these are really important things, so try them. I’m going to start posting videos more regularly, so any questions that you have leave a question in the comment section. If you like this video, I’d really appreciate if you hit like, and go ahead and subscribe to the channel. And you’ll know whenever there are new videos posted. Listen, we all have issues. We all have anger. And that’s OK. Sometimes, we need to be easy on ourselves as we’re learning. What I taught you today–whether it was a review for you or not–what I expressed today in this video maybe you got it here [head], but we got to work on practicing it here [heart]. I wish you all much peace. For more information on me or the emotional management that I teach, visit www.drchristianconte.com

Sammy Rangel’s life gave him every reason to be angry, bitter and resentful. And for a long time, that’s exactly what he was. Physically and sexually abused as a child, Rangel ran away from home at age 11 and joined the Maniac Latin Disciples. He spent years engulfed in a life of violent crime, lengthy prison sentences, drug abuse, and promiscuity. Rangel took the first step toward transforming his life with the help of a prison drug rehabilitation program and soon after his release started working for a Safe Streets Outreach Program in Wisconsin. In 2011, he co-founded Life After Hate, a non-profit whose mission is to help people leave hate groups. He is the author of Fourbears: Myths of Forgiveness. According to its description on Amazon, the book is “a graphically illustrated guide from tortured child, to remorseless beast, to healing and change.”

I first heard Rangel’s Ted Talk over a year ago. It was powerful and inspired me to stop making excuses in life. There are a few mottos I like to repeat. One of them is, “If he can do it, I can do it, too.” Other people’s testimonies can sometimes help us recognize that many of our limitations are self-imposed. If Sammy Rangel, who was barely given a puncher’s chance, found the strength to move forward in life, what’s holding you and me back?

Recently, I stumbled across the same video and was surprised to find that there was no transcript or subtitles available. The talk is 22 minutes long and is a lot longer than most content of its kind on this site. That said, I was willing to spend hours transcribing it because I believe it is a message that can help people heal. Resentment, they say, is like drinking a poisoned cup and waiting for the other person to die. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is strength. It makes life better every single time.

Keep reading, and I’m confident you will get something out of Sammy’s testimony.

What I have learned is although the details of our lives may be different. The underlying process of getting stuck or suffering in our parts of life is the same for all of us. We do not have to be victims of our experiences or in the way that we tell our stories. But interestingly enough, stories are the only way out. And it is us who create those stories. We hold the power to change our stories and what they represent. I invite all of you to consider if it would serve you well to create a new story and a new path. And to please remember that the things that held you down will one day hold you up.

Sammy Rangel

Transcript:

Today what I’m going to share with you is a difficult story for me to talk about, and it may be difficult for you to hear. I was 41 years old when I discovered that my mother had killed my brother Renee. I was sitting in my office waiting to see the next patient. I had about 3 minutes before that appointment started. And when I read the article and this news came to me–it said that my mother had beaten my brother with a Tonka truck when he was 20 months old. At that time, that article was dated January 5 of 1969 and my mother would have been about 5 months pregnant with me. The email went on to say that my brother had died at 19 as a result of his injuries. He had permanent brain damage, partial paralysis down the side of his body, and the article said that he was losing consciousness and bleeding out of different places from his body. As I was sitting there, what I imagined myself–what I wanted to do, what I knew I was capable of, was getting up, taking off my suit coat, walking to my car, finding where I knew my mother would be, and taking her life.

At this stage in my life I had obviously overcome a lot of the abuse, a lot of the neglect and torture that she had put me through, but for some reason I was more angry at this than anything I had experienced previously. And it became quite apparent that at some point, my family had conspired to keep this secret from me over 41 years. It was just a twist of fate that I was able to discover this news. So I knew I had about those 3 minutes to pull myself together because I knew then, even though I wanted to, I was not going to get up, I was not going to drive toward where my mother was out, and I was not going to kill her. What I was going to do was pull myself together so that I could meet my responsibility to the next patient coming into my office. But in those 3 minutes I relived quite a bit of what she had done to me.

I was 3 years-old when my mother left me and my sister with her brother. And I can remember him motioning to me to come to him through a mirror that laid or rested on his bedroom doorway. When he was calling me in, I knew I didn’t want to go in there, but I felt powerless. And so I found myself next to the bed. He was naked. He was fat. He was ugly to me. And behind him I saw my sister crying. And even though I shouldn’t have understood what was happening, I did understand what was happening. And he pulled me on to the bed, and at that point my sister tried to defend me. She was just a couple years older than me at that time. And I remember him threatening her, that if she didn’t shut up that he would kill us both. And then he raped me. On the same night that he raped my sister.

Eventually we told my mother what had happened to us at the hands of her brother, and she did worse than nothing about it. She continued to make us show this man affection and respect. We had to spend time with him. We had to sit on his lap. We had to kiss him on the cheek when we greeted him. And this happened over many years. When I got that message, I realized that my mother had picked up with me where she had left off with my brother.

By the time I was 8 years old I had already tried to kill myself for the first time. Oftentimes, I wasn’t allowed to eat. I wasn’t allowed to sleep. I wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom. And I had other siblings, and quite often the beatings I was taking could be happening right here and my siblings could be watching TV, or playing, or talking as if nothing was going on a few feet from them. The scars you see on my head are not from other men, are not from the streets. These are scars I [have] because as they would cut my head open with objects, as they were hitting me, I didn’t get to go to the hospital to have stitches or to get my broken bones fixed.

A part of the abuse was deep humiliation. A part of her cruelty included not being able to use the bathroom. And I would often have to walk around in my underwear in front of my siblings and family because she didn’t want me to be able to sneak food into my mouth or into the bathroom or into the basement when I went to go do chores. And so there was no hiding the fact that eventually if I needed to go to the bathroom and they wouldn’t let me, I would eventually sh*t and p*ss on myself. And if I did that, she would often make me take my underwear off and put them in my mouth, and then put her hand over my mouth so that I couldn’t throw-up, I couldn’t spit it out. And if I had the nerve to throw up, she would punish me even more.

I reached a turning point at 11, just after my birthday. I remember on this occasion I had snuck out of the room. I used to have to kneel next to her bed, and I remember crawling very quietly on the pattern on the floor that I discovered wouldn’t creek as loud as I snuck out in the middle of the night. And I found myself back in the room standing over her with a knife. And I was debating killing her, but there were 2 reasons that I remember that prevented that. One, I was afraid. I don’t think I was born to kill. And the other is I loved my mother deeply despite all that abuse, and I couldn’t bring myself to do that. And so I made a choice. I made a choice to leave. To run away. And that was a pretty big event because as a result of the abuse, I had no friends. I had no sleep-overs. I had no one in the community that I could go to. I was going into a completely unknown, unfamiliar, isolated space in the world.

And it didn’t take long. Within that first year, I was having sex. I was drinking. I was smoking. I was doing cocaine. I was in a gang. I was violent and aggressive, carrying weapons. I had dropped out of school and right before I turned 12, me and my 11-year old girlfriend buried our first child together. When we went to the hospital while she was in labor, they put me in a room by myself. And eventually a doctor opened the door and he rolled in a table, like a medical table, and on this table was a blue napkin that looked a lot like a tablecloth. And there was something underneath there. And then he left and he closed the door behind him. I had a feeling that I knew what was under there, but your mind can’t quite grasp it just yet. And eventually I got up and I lifted the paper towel and there was my dead son. He had been dead 2 days before she gave birth to him, and so his body was already starting to decompose. He was green and black and other colors that nobody should have to see on a baby. And his head was like a balloon filled water, it was just lop-sided and laying on the table. And there was no one there to talk to me about that or to process that or to make sense for me.

And I walked out of that hospital and I remember feeling less like a runaway and more like a throwaway. I felt that no one would be there to help me process or to understand my life or these experiences. And I remember moving from being scared to being angry. And I expressed that anger through violence. I escalated the type of violence. Before I was fighting but it was more defensive, now I’m choosing to be aggressive. Now I’m choosing to start fights. Initially when I went to the streets I remember there was a situation where a man asked me to participate in a murder. As he was killing someone he asked me to finish. And I couldn’t bring myself to that. But now after this situation, I felt like I wanted to kill, I felt like I wanted to hurt someone. And I remember me and my friend, we picked a homeless person–an innocent victim–and we beat him up and I tried to kill him that day. He had done nothing to us but it was my expression.

Eventually, that led me to going to prison as an adult at the age of 17 years old. And I was sent to prison not for the crime I actually committed but because of how terrible a teenager I was before I became an adult because the crime they sent me to prison for was usually considered a minor crime but technically it was enough to send me away. And I ended up in a maximum-security prison because I was fighting all the time, I was talking crap all the time. I had no problem cussing you out or trying to pick a fight. For the record, I wasn’t a very good fighter, but I was wiling to fight.

This prison that I walked into had a pretty hostile climate. I walked into racial tension between the whites and the blacks. And very soon after arriving there, a race riot kicked off. And it was the white against the blacks, and as a minority I had to side with the blacks if I was going to join the fighting. And we were quite outnumbered. There was about 10 of us willing to fight and about 30 of the men that we were going to be fighting. And we knew it was clear which side you were on. I myself had 2 knives in my hand, and the whites were armed with knives and spears and metal chairs and mop ringers–you name it, anything that could hurt or maim you. And the order was given to start fighting.

As we started fighting and we’re all trying to kill each other at this point, a guard came in much like on a cat-walk [a runway or ramp] like you see up here. And from above he started shooting and when he shot, everyone ran. But unfortunately my position–my escape was between the whites and the door out. And so my back was against the wall. And eventually the guard who came in to start shooting left again, and that signaled another round of fighting. And those white men came to get me–I’m doing my best to fend them off. An acquaintance–if you can call another person in prison such a thing–saw that I was isolated and cut off, and he joined the fight to help protect me and to help me find a way out. And at that point, that guard came back in and another shot rang out.

I looked to the side and I saw my friend who had joined was shot in his side–had a rather large hole. He was laying on the ground, the whites ran back to their cells. And I remember the guard yelling at me that if I were to touch him, he would shoot me too. But at this point, I had no fear, I had no sense of danger. My friend was screaming, and the ironic thing is that I have two knives in my hand, and I’m looking at a group of men who are armed. And yet they shot him because he was black. I grabbed my friend and I dragged him 150 cells to the other side of the building that I was in. And it was immediately apparent that the guards were not going to allow me or him to go to the hospital. No one in, no one out is what they said. And I asked several times and when it was clear that there were going to allow him to die, I started fighting with the guards. And then other people came out to help me, and we eventually took over that cell hall and took the keys from the guards and we forced our way to the hospital that was in the prison. By that time, my friend had already passed away.

I spent the next 28 months in segregation and isolation for that but because of my courage, or my role, in that prison riot. I started to gain more respect and more power through my gang. Almost immediately from the hall 28 months after spending that much time in the hall, I was released to society. I remember going in as a street punk, a kid who was just loud-mouthed and willing to fight to now I’m still loud-mouthed and willing to fight, but now I have power, now I have authority, and now I have embraced hate, not just anger. And when I embraced hate I was willing to kill for any reason. And I’ve always said, I had more animal in me than human at that time.

So it’s no surprise that just a few months later I was on my way back to prison in another state for even more violent crimes. As a gang leader at this point walking into that prison, I was able to take over and take control of prisons rather easily. I was able to have guards beat up or inmates beat up. I had access to resources that others would find hard to get. And eventually that led to me more encounters, and while I was in that prison system I beat up 4 more guards. And I spent approximately 5 years out of the 7 that I stayed there in segregation and I was transferred 17 times.

And what was ironic to me was that on one of these occasions, a man had said he felt he was in danger for his life because of my presence. And so they came and got me in the middle of the night and put me on the bus and were transferring me to another prison. And when I got to that prison and as I’m walking off, the security staff recognized me and then told the bus driver and their staff “This man cannot come here. We’re not equipped to take him here.” It is one thing to be locked up for many years, and it’s another years to be kicked out of the well completely. When a man is rejected even from prison, where is there left go? And so it was a deeply shaming and humiliating experience in many ways.

At some point, I was forced into a treatment. And at this point, I thought I could go into this treatment, outsmart myself, and outsmart the people there who were meant to give me help. I was willing to play the game because I was willing to fight for the carrot on the end of the stick, which was an earlier release than if I didn’t do the prison program. So I said, “I’ll go there, I’ll play this game.”

In the process of treatment, I remember my counselor asking me in front of my peers to talk about my mother. This struck me as very odd, I had not talked about my mother since I ran away from home, and had no desire to. And he pressed me, and when he asked me to do that, almost with the first word came the tears. I described all that abuse, all that neglect, all of the times she made me go to school smelling like urine, all of the times she had pulled patches out of my hair, all of the times she had left wide open gashes and cuts on my body. I had no problem expressing that.

And then he did something very strange. He took a chair, and he put it in front of me. And he told me to imagine that my mother was sitting in that chair. He said “What would you say to her if she was sitting here?” I was like I don’t want to talk to her. And he pressed me, and as I thought about what I would say, I remember saying “How could you do this to me? How could you do this to us? Why did you do these things?” But of course no answer came.

And then he pressed me further. He asked me to sit in the chair. I had no desire to sit in that chair. Did not want to empathize. Did not want to understand her perspective. I wanted to hate her and blame her. And I felt wholeheartedly justified in that stance, in that position, because much of what she had done was unforgivable if you asked me. But I did. I looked back at my chair, and I racked my brain what would she say. The only thing I could come up with was “I’m sorry.” Here I am in my late 20s still trying to see her as a human being underneath all that hate. Then he asked me to go back to my chair, and he asked me how I was feeling. And I expressed all those feelings of being a victim, being abandoned. Being brutalized, being unloved, unseen, invisible to her and to everyone else in the world.

And my turning point came with this next question: “Sammy, have you ever hurt anyone the way your mother has hurt you?” Since then my life has been one long apology. To my victims. To my siblings. To my children who I had abandoned at this point. Including my enemies that I felt had deserved whatever I did to them. And as you can see, getting to this point is still very difficult to talk about. I didn’t want to mess up my final point, so if you bear with me I’d like to read it to you to make sure that it comes across clear. I feel that this is the most important part of this message:

What I have learned is although the details of our lives may be different. The underlying process of getting stuck or suffering in our parts of life is the same for all of us. We do not have to be victims of our experiences or in the way that we tell our stories. But interestingly enough, stories are the only way out. And it is us who create those stories. We hold the power to change our stories and what they represent. I invite all of you to consider if it would serve you well to create a new story and a new path. And to please remember that the things that held you down will one day hold you up. Thank you.

There are clues for living well everywhere you turn. Many of the same principles that govern in nature govern in the world of human affairs. Nature offers vivid illustrations of truth that can serve as powerful mnemonics (memory aids) throughout our lives. Recently I wrote an article entitled “Finding Inner Peace: Magical Quotes of Thich Nhat Hanh.” In it, I shared my favorite quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk, peace activist, and prolific author. Today I want to expound on a metaphor Hanh crafted that has wide implications for how we approach relationship conflict.

The Wisdom of Lettuce:

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or
less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.

Reason is my natural resort in a conflict. You’re wrong, and I’m going to tell you exactly why you’re wrong. The problem is this approach rarely ever works. If it has any effect, it is usually to exacerbate the situation. Why does my reason not work? Because it’s less than half of the equation. One half is reason and the other half is emotions. I can reason about a situation from the outside, but I don’t have all the information influencing an individual’s thoughts and actions. At the same time, emotions are the primary driving force of life. Reason molds and directs emotions, but without emotions reason has no basis for action.

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Proverbs 4:23

When we show understanding, we connect on an emotional level. Understanding is the recognition that there are powerful emotions at work in the situation, even though we cannot fully understand them from the outside. That is not to say that people can use emotions to justify bad behavior. Emotions must be ruled on an individual level. But the key word is individual. We can’t rule other people’s emotions for them. The best way we can help people transform negative emotion is to show love. When we show love by understanding, people’s behavior will naturally improve because it has an emotional root.

Understanding awakens us to the human condition. It is the recognition that people are largely a product of their environment. Living well is as much about working with what you have as it is putting yourself in the right environment to thrive. It’s when the environment is right that an individual can reach their full potential. And there’s no telling how low an individual will go when the environment is not right.

American-British author and motivational speaker, Simon Sinek, captured in a talk on leadership and love just how critical the environment is to human well-being. Courage was the topic of conversation, an attribute people typically think has more to do with the individual than anything else. See the excerpt below from Leadership is about Love.

The courage to do the right thing in the face of overwhelming pressure–only the best leaders have that courage. Only the best leaders. And here’s the folly, courage is not some deep internal fortitude. You don’t dig down deep and find the courage. It just doesn’t exist. Courage is external. Our courage comes from the support we feel from others. In other words, when someone–when you feel that someone has your back. When you know that the day that you admit you can’t do it, someone will be there and say “I got you. You can do this.” That’s what gives you the courage to do the difficult thing. It’s not going off to an ashram [monastery] by yourself somewhere for four weeks and coming back and finding the courage. It’s not what happens. It’s the relationships that we foster. It’s the people around us that love us and care about us and believe in us. And when we have those relationships, we will find the courage to do the right thing.

Understanding can’t solve every problem, but it always makes the situation better. Remember this the next time you reach for a head of lettuce.