July/August 2008 Spirituality
I Will Not Be Broken

by Jerry White

There is much at stake.

Embracing the patterns of victimhood has cost the human race a great deal. Headlines of terrorism, violence and disaster assault us with increasing frequency. And the mass of victims grows daily. Individuals blame one another. Communities put up walls. Nations blame nations.

How can we turn the victim tide, reaching out to the growing number of hurting individuals, providing the hope and support they need to transform into survivors who seek to fulfill their potential, who aspire to thrive? Can we help ourselves do the same? Will we start reaching out to others, connecting our hardship and theirs?

It takes courage and a lot of hard work to turn the tide. It requires letting go of past resentments and bitterness. It means moving forward. I hope, by our example, we can help the world do likewise, building a future with survivors united.

Five Steps to Survive and Thrive

The five steps on our survivor journey offer a way not just to recover, not just to survive, but to thrive. Step by step, we find power to convert our dates - the days that change us - to become more than we were before the illness or the accident. We understand survivorship is anything but linear: it's a process that involves three steps forward, a flashback or two, and then a leap ahead.

Each of us is a mixed breed of survivor and victim. One day we can exhibit healthy survivor behavior and then reveal less attractive victim behavior the next. No one is perfectly resilient or consistent. But we progress, day by day, step by step, if we want.

  1. Face facts. A terrible thing has happened. It cannot be changed. So now what? There's little point wishing you hadn't gotten into that car, or gotten that tumor, or been fired from that job. We must face some brutal facts of the here and now.
  2. Choose life. Crisis and pain can hold us hostage for a time, but we still have a choice in how we will respond to our circumstances, no matter how dire. To truly thrive, we must consciously choose for our lives to go on in a positive way. Choosing life is akin to swinging between two monkey bars, letting go of one bar just as you reach for the second. It requires faith.
  3. Reach out. No one survives on their own, and no one thrives alone either. Yes, you might feel an excruciating loneliness after one of life's hurtful blows. But we are simply not built to survive solo. Isolation will kill us, not protect us. We must find peers, friends and family to break the isolation and loneliness that comes in the aftermath of crisis.
  4. Get moving. Climbing out of a crisis can require Herculean effort, physically and emotionally. We need to be tough to counter inertia and passivity. Only by summoning energy and then stepping into the future will we find the next best stage of our life. There is life after loss. But we are required to act. Consider these wise words of Abraham Lincoln: "I am a slow walker, but I never walk backward."
  5. Give back. How do we find the motivation to give after we have been sorely tested and tried, and our resources depleted? Isn't it sufficient to survive our troubles? Isn't it enough that we've recovered? Frankly, no, that isn't enough. Because until we reach a point where we can be grateful for our life experience, we are at risk of sliding back into victimhood. We won't cross the finish line until we rediscover gratitude and learn to give again. Only then will we thrive.

- Jerry White

We won't get very far without first looking in the mirror and taking full responsibility for our own survivor trek. We might have to sit down with pen and paper to chart the facts of our lives - marking the dates of sorrow and joy - with notes on the ups and downs of emotion and evolving relationships. Keep in mind all the survivors throughout history who have marked the way. Their survivor compass, using the five steps (see sidebar), will help guide us.

Though we don't ever fully "recover" from devastation and loss, we can and must integrate our toughest experiences and move on. Different, but still able to say yes to life.

Recall the story of Persephone being pulled into the underworld. She never fully comes back, but her life is certainly full. The sheltered daughter of Zeus and Demeter, Persephone lives a peaceful life until one day, innocently picking flowers with her nymph playmates, the earth opens up and devours her.

Hades, god of the dead, has burst through a cleft in the earth to abduct Persephone to become his underground queen. Zeus eventually negotiates the release of his daughter, and things get better, but they are never the same. Before Hades lets Persephone go, he makes her eat pomegranate seeds, so she cannot stay away forever. Part of each year she must return underground, since she has eaten from its depth.

I remember well the feeling of eating dirt in a minefield. Life never quite tasted the same. I think if we pick up treasures there in the underworld or in the dirt and integrate them, part of us will always belong to that other place. We may miss our earlier innocence - before our date - when life was simpler, God was simpler and relationships were simpler. But we must eschew a victim mentality and teach our peers and our children to tap into the positive power of a survivor society. We follow in the steps of survivors, aspiring to thrive.

Why, with what I've seen, do I still believe fiercely in life's possibility and potential? Am I just an idealist?

Yes, proudly so. I possess a deep-rooted optimism and faith in people and the universe. I know we can all do better, be better, choose better. So why don't we? There's absolutely nothing special about me. It's all about choices, matched by determination to survive well.

Jerry White, author of I Will Not Be Broken, is a recognized leader of the historic International Campaign to Ban Landmines, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace, as well as cofounder of Survivor Corps. Visit www.survivorcorps.org. Excerpted from I Will Not Be Broken with permission by St. Martin's Press.