Transparent Eye

I previously did a post on I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis by Jerry White based on sample chapters that were online. I’ve now been sent the full book to review and it does live up to the good expectations set up in the introductory chapters..

White is the co-founder of Survivor Corps who lost his leg to a land mine. He’s written something that looks like a self-help book, but it feels to me that its written at a higher level than what you would expect from the genre.

Based on his own experience and the experience of others described in the book, he distills a five-point program

o Face facts
o Choose life
o Reach out
o Get moving
o Give back

I think Buddhist readers will find the book compassionate and valuable. It’s about dealing with suffering and moving beyond it. White mentions mindfulness, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Lama Surya Das. He talks about letting go of attachment to the person you were before your loss as an essential step in re-empowering yourself. The final step, giving back, is a recognition that one is no longer so needy, and you even have enough resources to share with others.

Humanists will like much of it, but be uncomfortable in spots with the light spirituality. White recommends faith and prayer, but he does not seem to believe in miracles or a God who responds to prayers in a direct way. Still, Daniel Dennett wouldn’t like his belief in belief

My hypothesis is that faith and prayer activate the reward circuits in the brain, which have a role in the placebo response. Placebo-based expectations have real, therapeutic effects on pain and depression. These are not bad things, unless they motivate you to oppress those who pray and believe differently than you do.

I see White’s message as stoic in the ancient Greek sense, where one recognizes that one has control over one’s inner state even if the outer world presents great difficulties. He quotes his wife saying, “We can’t change what’s happened, but we can change our minds about it.” That’s out of Epictetus.

Often, the word stoic is used to describe people who shut up and suffer. That is not the original sense of the term, nor what is advocated in this book. Facing facts, he says, is about letting in the pain. He does at one point quote an older woman who says that people today chatter too much about their pain, but he doesn’t seem to fully endorse that view.

He doesn’t like whining, however. He wants people to get beyond the sense of being victims. Some might find that objectionable. Some might even say that it interferes with social justice work to prevent future victims. But White’s role in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines suggests that becoming empowered does not require that one forget about injustice.

White brings up a term I had not heard of before, post-traumatic growth, as something that can happen in the wake of tragedy, especially when it gives a survivor a new sense of purpose. He also says that in his experience, grief counseling has not been very effective, an issue that has been raised elsewhere.

Overall, I feel it’s a good contribution a literature of stoicism that shows we can adjust to dire circumstances and make more from them than would normally be expected.