Change From Within Sparks Forgiveness

When I went to the Leadership Development Workshop sponsored by the Institute for Sustainable Peace in 2008 I was in a period of my life where I felt I needed to expand my involvement in the community and give more of my time and energy. When the opportunity presented itself for me to attend this conference, I was elated and thought to myself “great!” as I had been looking for an opportunity to help build my leadership skills. I was expecting a conference where we would be taught the values and qualities of a good leader. I was amazed at the outcome because it was nothing what I expected but everything I had hoped it would be.

The first day was more or less what I expected but that evening Randy Butler’s opening remarks referenced a clip from the movie The Matrix. He offered us “the red or the blue pill” and said we should choose our color based on whether we wanted to experience a life-changing event or continue on as usual. I was neither familiar with the movie nor the analogy but it all came together in the end. As we proceeded with the conference and listened to speakers who came from all different walks of life, we opened a dialogue amongst ourselves and my senses begun to open and I started looking at the world from a different perspective.

The cumulative experience of the conference including the speakers, group discussions, films and finally the live demonstration of natural horsemanship was very significant for me. My most memorable conference moment came when ISP Fellow John Montgomery spoke on trust and forgiveness. These two topics hit very close to home. The manner in which he presented allowed me to analyze my personal grievances with friends, family and enemies. Before the talk on forgiveness, I had never considered the possibility of forgiveness when it came to Sudanese politics. I held a strong grudge towards the Northerners. Having group discussions with different representatives from Sudan helped me to stop demonizing the Northerners. I was raised to believe that they were the devil. For the first time, I was able to visualize the idea of a united and peaceful Sudan.

The talk on generative dialogue was also very helpful when it came to dealing with daily life and school issues. I work at a university laboratory and we collaborate with a lab in Africa. There is usually a lot of blame and pointing of fingers going around when things go wrong. A lot of times we tend to blame the African lab for not working hard or producing results. I noticed that we here in America tend to hold them up to our standards and expectations. We forget that they are in a different continent with a different environment, culture and work ethic. After the conference, a situation came up that gave me the opportunity to bring up this issue with some of my colleagues. We ended up having a serious, heated discussion about it and were able to come up with ways of changing our approach.

My experience at the conference turned out to be an introspective journey. I had definitely taken the red pill by the end, which ironically, I believe is the foundation of leadership. Like Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world." And that change has to start within and that is what happened to me.