What about the Anatomy of Peace? How come War is so much higher in the search rankings?
When we start seeing others as objects, we begin provoking them to make our lives difficult.
The Arbinger Institute
Today I am listening to “The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict“. Go buy – it is well worth your time and attention.
I am also exploring “The Daily Blinkist” a service the delivers a book summary – more importantly it can be tailored to a specific area of interest or research, and every MORE beneficial it often offers a targetted series of summaries and actions that are tied in with the theme of the book.
Right now this is simply an experiment, I need to get permission to re-print from Blinkist – I’ll let you know how it goes.
Here is a Summary of the Blinkist entry, which you can find here:
- Two ways to view those around you or what you are encountering internally, with either war or peace in your heart.
- We actively perpetuate conlict by rfusing to accept other perspectives
- Instread of trying to force change on someone, change the environment of engagement
- Avoid categorizing or putting others in boxes – that only serves to justify behaviours that are best avoided in the first place.
Meister Magoo
This is a test of the ability to blog every day. So I’ve just got the Daily Blinkist on a piece called The Anatomy of Peace, and what’s really useful about that is that it brings a completely different mindset to how you are dealing with whatever thoughts or emotions are being presented to you in the present moment. It talks about an ability to bring an attitude of conflict versus an attitude of peace when dealing with them. So I’ll turn it over now to a summary review of the Anatomy of Peace that’s on Blinkist,
The Arbinger Institute. The Anatomy of Peace, how to resolve the heart of conflict.
(00:48):
Life would be so much easier if people would only stop being so difficult. Pretty much everyone has at one time or another, been entrenched in a conflict with a troubled teen, a dispositioned spouse, or a pestering neighbor. And as you probably know, confronting the difficult person usually leads to all the blame being put on you.
(01:47):
Blink number one. There are two ways to view those around you with either war or peace in your heart. Let’s imagine that you were raised to fear and hate left-handed people because 2000 years ago, a group of left-handed people attacked your family’s right-handed ancestors, but one day you notice a man leaving a store that sells left-handed goods, and he’s in the middle of crossing the street. He falls and drops his bag, spilling his belongings. What do you do? There are basically two options. You can have a heart of peace or a heart of war.
(02:42):
This heart of war suppresses our sense of compassion and urge to help. It’s the kind of mindset that creates and perpetuates hate, conflict, and war. The better option is to have a heart of peace and listen to your sense of compassion to see those around you as human beings. Even if you are forced into a war, you can still treat your opponent with compassion…..Once this happens, others will be more likely to treat you the same way, increasing the likelihood of peace blink.
(03:35):
Blink Number two, we actively perpetuate conflicts by refusing to accept other perspectives. No one enjoys getting into an argument with their spouse, child, or coworker. Yet all too often we end up starting and restarting conflict by engaging in the very behaviors that we don’t like. This is what happens when we have a heart of war and see those around us as enemies. We go around thinking everyone is trying to cheat us or work against us. A mentality that inevitably leads to conflict making matters worse. This approach to life results in our attracting like-minded people who support our mentality, which only draws more people into the conflict. We can see this play out on the world stage as well with groups of people being demonized and categorized as others who can only do harm.
(05:35):
Blink number three, instead of trying to change someone, improve things by changing the environment. When was the last time someone said you did something wrong? How did you react? Oftentimes, people will try to change a person when they find something wrong, but this only ends in further conflicts. Let’s say your partner hasn’t done his or her share of the chores in the last month. Your natural inclination is to say something about it, but that doesn’t mean you should try to force your partner to behave or think in a certain way. This will only be taken as criticism something nobody likes. Indeed criticizing usually only makes matters worse whether you realize it or not. Your partner has a reason for thinking or behaving as he or she does, so try to listen to your partner to relate whatever he or she has to say about the issue at hand.
(07:22):
Blink number four. We justify our behavior by putting ourselves in boxes, but this can be avoided. The human capacity for self delusion is spectacular. How often have you convinced yourself that some hurtful actions were completely justified? One strategy that we use to justify our poor behavior and to blind ourselves to the perspectives of others is to create boxes for ourselves. One of the more popular boxes is the better than box. This is built when we tell ourselves that we are more special, gifted, or talented than others. As a result, we’ll look at others as being less than we are less important, worthy or respectable. This outlook justifies our treating others poorly, or we can put ourselves in the victim box which works in the other direction, causing us to see everyone else’s privilege and the world as a bad or unfair place. Since we have it so bad, we take it out on everyone else around us and we’re justified because the world has shortchanged us and we deserve so much more than we get naturally.
The preceeding paragraphs are a summary of blinks to the Anatomy of Peace by the Arbinger Institute.
“The key message in this book is that our normal approach to conflict is to fight for our position and correct the other person, but this doesn’t lead to peace and success. It only perpetuates the chance of further conflict. Instead, we have to change the state of our heart and how we view the people around us. The path to peace is to overcome the justifications we create for our poor behavior and to see others as individual human beings. How can you apply the ideas of these blanks to your life? Get out of the better than box. Sometimes we won’t help someone because we tell ourselves it wouldn’t be polite or we don’t want to create an embarrassing situation, but this can also be a different way of us staying in the better than box and seeing the other person as a lesser than who doesn’t deserve help. Don’t prevent yourself from humanizing those around you. Once you see others as people with feelings and emotions, you’ll be more willing to help, and it might be the event that changes their lives for the better. Got feedback we’d love to hear from you. Just drop an email to remember@blink.com.”
