Overcoming Depression

  • Home
  • Start here
  • Depression
    • Depression Symptoms
    • Depression: a Physical Illness?
    • Cognitive Therapy
    • Mood Analysis
    • Faulty Thinking Patterns
    • Postoperative Depression
    • Teenage Depression and Suicide
    • Achieving Good Self-Esteem
    • Get Rid of Guilt
    • Book Reviews
  • Anxiety
    • Types of Anxiety Disorders
    • First Aid for Panic Attacks
    • Tips for Overcoming Anxiety
    • Myths about Panic Attacks
    • Anxiety Relaxation Technique
    • Anxiety and love
    • Locus of Control
  • Stress
    • Stressed out?
    • Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale
    • Stress Relief Activities
    • Stress and Pregnancy
    • Stress Hives
    • Tips to Beat Exam Stress
    • Reduce Work Related Stress
    • How to cope when you’re looking for work
    • Winning when you lose
    • Crises of Adult Life
  • Alcohol Abuse
    • Codependent Checklist
    • Marriage and alcohol
    • Stress and Alcohol
  • Relationships
    • 5 Tips for Restoring a hurting marriage
    • Signs of an Abusive Relationship
    • Our Birth Family
    • 6 Common Human Needs!
    • 5 Stages of Grief
      • Helping a grieving friend
    • Overcoming Loneliness
    • Successfully deal with anger and criticism
  • Trauma
    • Trauma Survivor
    • Blaming the Victim
  • About Me
    • Contact Me
  • Blog

December 15, 2013 by Karin Stewart Leave a Comment

Nelson Mandela (1918 – 2013)

nelsonmandela
Nelson Rolihlala Mandela

I spent much of this week watching TV on the life of our beloved Nelson Mandela. What an extraordinary man we had as our President who brought about democracy in South Africa. Humility, forgiveness, empathy and love are some of the many lessons that we can learn from this man who spent 27 years in jail and emerged as a world leader.

When I counsel I often advise people to look at themselves as an actor in their lives. The script for your life is not set in stone. You can change the script! Look at your behavior and weigh up whether the consequences are what you would like. If not… then change the script.

So I was interested to read something along these lines in an obituary written by Mark Gevisser in the Mail and Guardian (December 6-12 2013, page 4).

In prison, Mandela had time away from the spotlight he had time to think about life. Mandela “learned about human sensitivities and how to handle the fears and insecurities of others, including his Afrikaner warders. He was sensitized by his own sense of guilt about the family and friends he had used during his political career. Mandela was racked by remorse about his absence as a husband and a father. By coming to see himself as an actor – a perpetrator, if you like – as well as a victim, he developed his most admirable quality: a capacity for empathy.”

He used this ability to empathize as a strategy to get what he wanted – for himself while in prison, for his people, and for his country. Empathy is the ability to ‘walk in another person’s shoes’ and so even the prison guards were won over. And to empathize you have to be a good listener, which he was, making people feel at ease.

This ability to empathize was the root of his almost inhuman lack of bitterness and forgiveness as well as his desire for reconciliation. Bitterness which leads to anger and a lack of forgiveness would have resulted in a different couse of events in South Africa’s history. Even where goodness wasn’t evident in others, his attitude and respect to others, that is,  his empathy, elicited the goodness he knew was embodied in every person.

He used his humor to help other relax or to disarm them or both, depending on the circumstance. He did not take a step – or do a jig – without calculating the odds. For the Rugby World Cup in 1995, Mandela insisted on keeping the Springbok emblem, which was strongly associated with the white oppressors. Mandela’s bigger purpose was reconcilation and it worked, the white people of South Africa were won over by his action. Mandela thought about the consequences of his actions. He certainly was a leading actor on the world stage.

So often we get bogged down by the small details of our lives, filling them with bitterness and unforgiveness, which ultimately affect how we behave. In Mandela we have a role model who experienced the worst that life could deliver, but his attitude to life and to others meant he reached great heights.

Lessons we can learn

  • Believe that there is good in all people. Even when people appear to be trying to do you harm (like Mandela’s captors) still believe that there is good within them, a goodness that needs to be coaxed out. Empathy is what makes people feel loved and understood. Try to understand others before you try to get them to understand you.
  • Listen well and forgive. Forgiveness is for your own sake as without forgiveness, bitterness takes root which is so destructive to the human spirit.
  • Weigh the consequences of your actions. There is the well known saying “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.” WRONG ADVICE! Change that to: “If at first you don’t succeed, reevaluate what you are doing, form another strategy and then try again.”

Hamba kahle, Tata – Go well, Father!

For excellent advice on learning how to deal with anger by using empathy please click here.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Relationships, Success Tagged With: Nelson Mandela

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

  • Psychological withdrawal for addicts
  • Need to be needed
  • Why You Can’t Rescue an Addict
  • Your words have power
  • Taking a leap forward!

Like Me on Facebook

Facebook

Categories

  • addiction
  • Alcohol
  • Anger
  • Anxiety
  • Approval
  • Attitude
  • Bible
  • Blog
  • Book Review
  • Depression
  • Perfectionism
  • Relationships
  • slider
  • Stress
  • Success
  • Thinking
  • Uncategorized
  • Work

Tags

Abraham Lincoln addiction alcohol Andrew Verster Anger anxiety approval be creative be yourself Bill Clinton change your thinking cognitive therapy depression Dora Taylor drugs encouragement fight or flight forgiveness friends funny George Bernard Shaw guilt honesty hope interference J.K. Rowling Jared Diamond Collapse Joaquin Phoenix John Gurdon Joy Laurence Olivier life with purpose love nagging perfectionism perseverance poetry self-esteem shyness stress success trauma try again women workaholic

Comments

  • tony deyn on Facing your giants
  • Veronica Frances Watkins on The real definition of relapse and why it matters
  • Roger Johanson on The old farmer and his horse
  • Veronica Frances Watkins on The old farmer and his horse
  • Karin Stewart on Victims attract Rescuers

Archives

Categories

Latest blog posts

  • Psychological withdrawal for addicts
  • Need to be needed
  • Why You Can’t Rescue an Addict
  • Your words have power
  • Taking a leap forward!
  • Nagging your partner really doesn’t help!
  • The real definition of relapse and why it matters
  • The old farmer and his horse

Feeling Good By David Burns

This is the greatest 'value for money' self-help book ever. It changed my life forever and it can change yours! Available from Amazon David Burns

Need help for anxiety?

L- Theanine available from Amazon.coml-theanine image

Copyright © 2021 · Executive Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Accept