There are two ways to be; one is responsive and the other is resistant. A responsive individual is more open and kind; while, a resistant individual is more closed and mean. Resistant, self-deceived criminals commit violent crimes from the inner-most sense of who they are.



-All criminals commit violence in their hearts long before their hands do.

-Violence is not necessarily a hit, but a way of being.

-To be violent is a choice.

-Nonviolence, just like violence, goes deeper than merely behavior. It's a way of being.

-Self-deceived violent people detach themselves from the feelings of themselves and others.

-Resistant people think, �I violate others by marginalizing their reality and treating them as an object. In this process I elevate myself.�

-Resistant individuals allow this thought pattern into their lives, �I batter for power without mercy or compassion.�

-"In violating my children, I destroy future generations".

-�When I violate others, I produce a violence in them that justifies me in violating them�

-Resistant people bring problems into their lives, not solutions.

-In the violent way of being, �I portray myself in ways that justify me and makes the wrong I do seem right.�

-In the resistant way of being, �I impede the flow of life�s light and energy. I repel others and live a life filled with self.�

Violence in a society comes about because of the citizen's way of being. To reduce violent behavior, a person must leave his or her resistant ways and become responsive. This involves an entire change of being.

Any program that does not help individuals at the deepest level is going to fail. Anger management and behavior modification techniques are just external remedies that do not go deep enough to make life-long changes. Cognitive restructuring, if performed properly, is a proven intervention that allows men and women to become �self aware� and thus more eager to change their personal way of being. Cognitive restructuring is not a force but rather an invitation to change. It gets involved at the deepest level where life-long changes can take place.

NOTE: Use of this article requires links to be intact.