It’s Election Time — Whatever the Outcome

It breaks my heart to see what we’ve come to – in our world and in our country.
For years I’ve taught, written, practiced what Jung so wisely wrote:
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”*

I’ve taught it by showing that if women did the inner work to heal their wounded relationships with their wombs, they would better be able to hold onto the freedom to make their own choices for their own bodies.

I taught that if women would do the healing work with their wounded relationship with their bodies, bringing out of the darkness the sexual abuses they had experienced … they would better be able to help make the world safer for themselves, each other, their children, and even the men.

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I taught that if women and men would do the healing work with the violence they had suffered early on – both up close in their families and far and wide in their cultures and their world – both right out in the open and also under the guise of something civilized, something righteous, and even something sacred . . . they would also be healing the currents of violence that lived in them; they would also be healing the currents of violence they acted out on others in their world; they would also be healing the currents of violence that made up the oceans of violence that swept through their lands and their planet.

I taught that if we all did the inner healing work with the true roots of our relationships with money, we would find the ancient traumas that we have suffered in our childhoods. We would find the ancient young traumas that had nothing to do with money itself, but that was transferred onto money. We would find the ancient traumas, so transferred onto money, acted out in our world – in our financial interactions and in the communal economic interactions.

Thus, we would see that we were creating trauma in the world, using money as the vehicle, even though the money itself had nothing to do with the original trauma that was now being imposed upon the world through money. As a result, we would be healing both the ancient trauma – personal and generational – and the current trauma, while at the same time preventing the multiplication of traumas, the escalation of trauma in the future.

And, among other things, I taught that if parents did their own healing they would treat their children with reverence, and not act out their own wounds upon their children, not pass on the damage of each previous generation’s trauma onto the next. And if they would continue to do their own healing work every time they were triggered in their relationship with their children, the healing would grow, the possibilities for healing would grow, and the possibilities for communal healing would multiply.

I taught, and taught – through the psychotherapy I did with people, through the soul work I did with people, through my courses, webinars, workshops, and my writing. And there have been people who have been deeply touched by and committed to this healing work. But many people have stayed away.  They didn’t want to know how they were wounded and how they re-enacted their wounding. They didn’t want to see it. And most of all, they didn’t want to feel the pain of the ancient trauma and go through it to the healing. As Jung expressed it, they didn’t want to “make the darkness conscious.” They instead were okay to keep creating more and more trauma as their way to defend themselves against the pain of their past traumas that lived in the darkness within them.

It is far less traumatic to make the darkness conscious purposely for healing, by doing the inner work proactively, by being in a process and way of life in which you are committed to bringing the darkness out into the light of day – the light of consciousness – and then healing it to its root.  But if instead you try to avoid feeling the pain by keeping your trauma – personal and communal – in the darkness and, as a result, create more trauma for yourself and in the world around you … then at least grow your consciousness to the point at which you will make a choice to utilize that newly created trauma  to help make the darkness conscious; grow your consciousness to the point at which you will choose to utilize the secondary re-enacted trauma for healing.

Here we are in the US  at election time – a mirror of other countries but – our own history of trying to hide our trauma beneath imaginary visions of light, like the most civilized nation in the world; our own history of our trying to deny our traumas by keeping them hidden in the shadows, like the huge degree of domestic violence that exists in our country; our own history of our trying to keep our traumas not known and not seen, by keeping them buried in the darkness.

No matter what the outcome of this election … we still face the question: “How are we going to keep this from happening again?”

We need to do the inner healing work that was needed to have prevented the trauma we are going through now. We need to take in the wisdom of Jung’s quote:

“Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness.
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
The later procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”

It is crucial that we understand that without making the darkness conscious we not only are unable to become enlightened, but we also are unable to make enlightened, sustainable changes in our lives and in our world.

It is also crucial that we understand that when he says the procedure of making the darkness conscious “is disagreeable and therefore not popular,” it means that it brings us to face the traumas we lived through and the traumas that we’ve caused since; it brings us to feel the pain of those traumas and to utilize that pain for healing..

So now, we need to take leaps of faith into this new way of living …
To keep the traumas that are happening now from happening again and again and again.
We need to take these leaps of faith for our own sakes, for the sake of those we love, for the sake of those we don’t allow ourselves to love or even care for, for our world, for our planet.

 

* The Philosophical Tree (1945)
Collected Works 13: Alchemical Studies
Paragraph 335

© Judith Barr, 2022

 

THE LITTLE FASCIST

“This isn’t who we are” “Oh, yes it is!”

Since 2016 (and even before) media hosts and political individuals and groups have been repeatedly saying,
“This isn’t who we are” when talking about destructiveness in our world, and particularly in our country.
Each time I hear that, the words rush out from me aloud …
“Oh, yes it is!”

In fact, it is that interchange that called me to write my August 2018 book,
How Did We Get Here? – Our Refusal to Know the Truth About Ourselves.*

Over the years I’ve continued to hear many claim
“This isn’t who we are,”
and I’ve heard a number of people respond as I do
with
“Oh, yes it is!”

Most consistently the one I hear with that response is Eddie Glaude Jr.,
academic, author, faculty at Princeton University, and guest
on television shows relating to religion, politics and ethics, racism and society.
One recent morning I heard Eddie in this same interchange with
Joe Scarborough, co-host of Morning Joe.*

That conversation called me to share with you the beginning of the chapter from
How Did We Get Here?, entitled 
This Isn’t Who We Are: Oh, Yes It Is!

This Isn’t Who We Are: Oh, Yes It Is! … Mounting

 Since I originally wrote this book and drafted this blog, this phenomenon has been mounting … again. there have been countless more mass shootings — some of the elderly, some of middle aged, and some of children … all heartbreaking.
The number of people who are still pretending
“this is not who we are”  is still breath-taking.

The number of people has multiplied who are declaring …
“this is who we are.”
But not nearly enough!

 Also since that time the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v Wade, demonstrating further that “this is who we are,” and

Threatening to continue that demonstration in countless arenas of our lives, including . . .
freedom of marriage

Climate change

Voters’ rights

The vile prejudice against people of color

Rampant poverty and

Economic games that are rooted in trauma and create trauma

All over the country and the world. . .

And more.

Will you read this with an open  or closed mind? An open or closed heart?

In my home study course Violence: Finding and Healing the Roots from the Inside Out,***  I make a series of statements and ask a series of questions. These all apply to the chapter and blog at hand about who we truly are.

The “Violence in our World” . . .

I invite you to witness yourself as you read this next section . . . to witness yourself both as objectively as you can and as compassionately as you can.  What happens inside you as you read? What do you do on the outside? On the inside do you feel the pain? On the inside do you shut down your feelings and numb yourself? On the inside do you wish there were no such thing as violence in our world? Or that you could protect yourself from even the awareness of it? Or that you weren’t even reading this blog? Or do you transfer your feelings about violence onto me and feel angry at me that I included this section in the blog and in the book? Or on the inside do you normalize the violence you’re reading about as just something normal in our world today. Something we just have to accept, resign ourselves to?”

This Isn’t Who We Are: Oh, Yes It Is
“The Little Fascist”****

When I began my training as a depth psychotherapist, the first book assigned for reading included a profound section by Eric Berne about “The Little Fascist” in every one of us.

Before reading the assignment, when I thought of a “fascist,” I thought of someone who is aligned with the philosophy of a political party or government that puts the nation above individuals, the authoritarian leader above the members or citizens, and allows no opposition to its opinions, beliefs, or policies, with threat of punishment. Many today still think of a “fascist” in that light.

Berne’s understanding was very different – unique. It was not political or governmental as the common understanding was. His definition was filled with insight and meaning about the depths of the human psyche, and, as a consequence, the human community.

I felt such relief to read that someone else, Eric Berne, knew about this part of everyone’s psyche, had a name for it, and was telling the whole world about it in his book What Do You Say After You Say Hello?  I was so relieved because I had witnessed and experienced the pain of “the little fascist” in so many of those around me. And as a consequence, I had also experienced it in myself at times, which was, perhaps, even more painful. 

In putting his understanding out into the world, Berne gave words to what I had known without words, even before reading his book. I knew there is an aspect of each one of us that tortures others and enjoys it.  That this part not only enjoys the torturing, but most especially enjoys the vulnerability, the helplessness, the powerlessness of the one we torture. That there are plenty of people who don’t even use the guise of being civilized, who torture right out in the open with no pretenses and can’t wait for the opportunity.  And that there are others of us who, while claiming and pretending to be civilized, have this part of us buried beneath our civilized masks.  And we wait to rip off permission from those who already act out their “little fascist” in the open.  We wait to fantasize or actually act out those fantasies. Those of us who have no pretenses about our “little fascist,” actually have more control of this part of us than those of us who deny its existence to ourselves and others.  Once denied, it is our “little fascist” who is in control, and we remain its victim until our denial ends.

This is happening in the U.S. today and in other countries all over the world. There are those of us who act out the “little fascist” without any pretense or compunction. Those of us who have pretended to be civilized, who rip off permission from the ones who act it out openly and without cover. And still those of us who are completely unaware of or completely deny the “little fascist” in us, saying: “This isn’t who we are.” Oh, yes it is! And every time we say, “This isn’t who we are,”  we collude with and feed all the other “little fascists,” those who are denying and hiding it and those who are acting it out overtly, blatantly, even proudly. 

I understood all this conceptually right away. I knew awareness and  understanding made it possible for healing. And I utilized this understanding with people over time, helping them explore the “Little Fascist” in themselves, the “Little Nazi” in themselves, the “Little Terrorist” in themselves…as part of their healing themselves and as part of healing our world.  Yes, this healing is possible … but only if we include the healing of the destructive sides of ourselves.

 

© 2022, Judith Barr

*Barr, Judith. How Did We Get Here? Mysteries of Life Publishing, 2018.
**With thanks to Eddie Glaude, Jr. for having this conversation aloud and publicly so it can inform, inspire, and call to healing.
***Violence: Finding and Healing the Roots from the Inside Out,  Home study course, www.judithbarr.com, The Violence in our World.”
****Barr, Judith. How Did We Get Here? Mysteries of Life Publishing, 2018.  This Isn’t Who We Are: Oh, Yes It Is! “The Little Fascist” pp 8-10.

 

I Want to Go Back to My Womb

As with everything else, our relationships with our bodies and our reproductive selves are both deep and inner as well as active and outer.

In these challenging times, perhaps this poem, and those published with it, will help inspire countless people to take action both inner and outer to bring our rights back to life

I WANT TO GO BACK TO MY WOMB

I want to go back to the womb.
I want to go back to the womb.
But not the womb you think.
Not my mother’s womb, not your womb.
I want to go back to my own womb …

There’s power there
I’m only beginning to know.
There’s life there I’m just beginning to dream.
There’s comfort there I can never find outside.
There’s Wisdom there to be touched, tapped by a willing soul.
There’s Knowledge there to be heard.
Knowledge waiting to be seen.
Knowledge wanting to be felt.
Knowledge longing to be loved.

I want to go back to my womb.
It’s where I belong.
It’s where I belong with myself.
Where I belong to myself.
It’s where I birth myself with goddess as midwife.
I want to go back to my womb.

 

© 1990, Judith Barr; edited 2022.
The Call of My Blood Mysteries
2nd MP3, Track 3
“I Want to Go Back to My Womb.”

 

THE CALL OF MY BLOOD MYSTERIES

The Call of My Blood Mysteries

  was my first publicly published writing.
Birthed in 1990, it became the first cassette and
eventually the first mp3 in the series
The Spoken Word on Behalf of the Feminine.

 Its purpose –
to help heal the individual and collective trauma caused
to women and society by the patriarchy.
To help heal the individual and collective trauma
– physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual –
created by those who were or became part of the patriarchy …
in their inner worlds and the world outside.

Since then, I have written, spoken, and taught often
about this same theme,
including in my most recent book, How Did We Get Here?

But …
it is clear to me that what is occurring in our country right now
makes it necessary to bring out to you once again,
The Call of My Blood Mysteries.

 Side One:

 The Red Moon
I Hear the Voice Within
A Menstrual Journey: The Old and the Dark
I’m Just a Teenager
My Period
Cycles of Death and Birth

 Side Two: 

I Live in the House of My Father
Mama
I Want to go Back to My Womb
A Menstrual Journey: The New, The Light, and the Possibility
I am the Flame, Mother of Truth

 

To learn more, to be inspired and empowered,
to make sure you have a copy for yourself and your own healing –
inner and outer…
and to be sure you have a way to gift copies
t
o others who need to do their own healing –
inner and outer…

 https://judithbarr.com/audio-tapes/spoken-word-on-behalf-of-the-feminine/

 

 

 Doing what I love – helping people heal –
together we work to heal past trauma
and prevent future trauma …
individually and communally.

 

© Judith Barr, 2022.

WHO’S ACCOUNTABLE?

As I’ve been helping people more and more with their relationships with money, leading webinars and training for financial and therapy professionals, I have more and more seen, felt, and known – that Money Is A Window to Our Ancient Traumas. And I have more and more seen, felt, and known the layers and layers of accountability that are sorely lacking and still need to be acknowledged.

Most of the people who work with me have heard me say more than once:
You are not responsible for having been traumatized as a child, but you are responsible for doing the healing needed as a result of that trauma. Most of them understand this and are committed to doing that healing. At the same time … they long to have those who traumatized them – not always, but often parents – take responsibility for the trauma they created.

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Most of the people with whom I work have parents who have never been accountable, and likely never would be accountable.  But the little child still alive within has been trying for years and years, even decades and decades to get the traumatizer to take responsibility. That little child would be thrilled if the parent would just acknowledge the harm done; the child would be elated if mommy or daddy, big brother, or grandma would apologize; and the youngster would be ecstatic if the family member would commit to heal themselves so they would never cause that kind of trauma again.

This longing and the feelings they imagine feeling if the longing were fulfilled have driven that child within to turn their life inside-out and upside-down … all in an attempt to fulfill their longing.  While doing that – and without realizing it – they have re-enacted their childhood trauma again and again and again.

Often that longing has been their secret goal and that re-enactment has been their recurring experience … until they began their therapy with me, discovered what they were doing, and began to allow their real goal to be their own healing.

The lack of accountability by those who traumatize children is tragic. To pretend it is less than tragic is a sign of normalizing, denying, clinging to unconsciousness, refusing to be in reality. And why would someone display those signs?  Because they also, in youth, had been traumatized by someone who did not hold themselves accountable, and perhaps also by someone who nobody else held accountable. The result: they defend against their own trauma by traumatizing others.

This is no excuse. This is no permission. But it is the truth.
Even with that truth … these people need to be held accountable.
There is real value in someone taking responsibility for the harm they’ve done, but the value is distorted when it’s been created through a warped process. They need to be held accountable not by the child still alive within, but by the person, who, having done enough of the work of healing, can now hold the one who traumatizes accountable in an undistorted, healthy, life-giving way.

We have seen this kind of refusal to be held accountable all over the world … for years and decades and centuries. We have seen the trauma that results all over the world for just as long. And we can come back and talk about that another time.

For right now … What we have seen in the United States is particularly revealing. What I’ve described above about trauma, lack of accountability, and more trauma is out-pictured in what has been going on in our country.  (If you’re from another country, you can look at ours and then also try applying it to yours.) In other words, what we have seen on the “national stage” is a picture of what I’ve described as occurring within families.

In summary:

One part of the out-picturing:

People who were traumatized as children, whose traumatizers were not accountable, often become people who refuse to be accountable themselves, and in so doing, end up traumatizing others, both individually and collectively.

Another part of the out-picturing:

People who were traumatized as children, whose traumatizers were not accountable, often become people who take responsibility for everything, including trying to get the traumatizers to change and become accountable. But because they do it from the place of the unhealed child within, their efforts are somehow distorted and unsuccessful. And because the traumatizers they are trying to change absolutely refuse to change … their efforts are unsuccessful.

On both levels – the family level and the collective national level – we need to understand what is really occurring …
not only on the surface, but also way beneath to the inner depths of our beings as the result of our trauma from childhood; and also to the distance of our familial and even cultural past – the traumas caused and experienced in the last generation and generations before that.

On both levels we need to become accountable
each of us for our own healing to the root;
each of us for the trauma we have caused;
each of us for our part in the out-picturing of trauma into our country and our world.

If we don’t hold ourselves accountable, how can we hold others accountable?
If we don’t hold ourselves accountable, how can we hold our culture accountable?
If we don’t hold ourselves accountable, how can we heal ourselves?
If we don’t hold ourselves accountable, how can we heal our culture … our world?

© Judith Barr, 2021

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

THE POISON IS THE MEDICINE
Healing the world from the damage we’ve done:
This is profoundly relevant all over the world –
And poignantly, painfully relevant right now in the U.S.

Many healing traditions – spiritual and otherwise – have their own version of “the poison is the medicine.”
It is the heartbeat of homeopathy.
It is the transformation in numerous natural healing traditions.
The healing crisis that brings us through a healing passageway.
It’s inherent in the depth psychotherapy and spiritual midwifery I practice.

The poison is the medicine says:  that the effects created by our own experiences – first the ancient traumas, then later the re-enacted ones – may be very painful.

The poison is the medicine says: that the effects we create through our own actions and inactions, defending against the pain may themselves be very painful.

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It says that…
Those painful consequences or effects are the poison.
They are the pain that can be used well to help us learn, grow, and heal.

And that is what we are called to do
in our individual lives and in our communal lives as a world.
We are called to use the pain to learn, grow, and heal…
not just on surface levels, but
on the deepest levels of our being,
to the very roots.

The poison is the medicine says that:
If we don’t utilize that poison for healing,
we start down a road that is a vicious cycle –
a maze that escalates the pain and the trauma.
A maze from which we cannot escape until …
we choose to use the pain for healing.

It is our choice to use the poison as medicine.
It is our choice to use the poison to heal the pain.

May we come to see and know and feel that the pain and trauma
coming to the surface for healing
Is not only the poison but also the hope.

May we choose to use the poison to heal the poison
at its very roots. 

Many blessings . . .

Judith

© Judith Barr, 2021

THE LIGHT IS BORN AND THEN …

On winter solstice the light is born.
Maybe you’d like to think we can leap
straight from the darkest dark
to the lightest light.
A leap of light!

Perhaps here’s where you’d like that quick fix –
the one that’s been promised by
too many who knew better,
or could have known better
if they weren’t buried by their own
greed, their own personal agendas,
their own false hopes,
their own fears of the darkness,
their own denial of their traumas,
or the ice of their own illusions.
The illusions of how things work
going from darkness to light.

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Even in the outer world
there are no harmless, sustainable quick fixes.
We don’t go straight from
the winter to the summer solstice.
There are six l-o-n-g months between them.
And freezing or even below-freezing cold.
Feet of snow you have to shovel
or it will turn to ice.
Ack! The hard, back-breaking work of shoveling.
And inches of ice –
hard, hardened, ever so slippery ice –
you have to chip away at or find a way to melt,
or you will slide, fall, crash.

Even though it’s getting a little bit lighter
day by day by day,
this can go on for at least two or three of those
six long months.
And beneath the snow and ice
there is hard frozen ground.
Nothing can penetrate it
from the outside in
or the inside out. . .
until it thaws in its own timing.

Meanwhile,
deep in the heart of the earth,
our plants are keeping warm,
nourished by the life energy
that returned down, down, down to their roots
from blossoms, leaves, and stalks,
right before the light was born.

And there they will stay,
protected,
replenishing
until ice and snow
are dissolved and melted,
hardened ground softens once again,
and they innately know it is safe
to slowly, slowly grow up and out into the world again.

This is all true in our inner worlds, too.
Starting to birth the light from within out into the world,
we’d like to believe there are quick fixes
that aren’t harmful and are sustainable.
But it isn’t true. . .
and it is harmful to believe it is true.
It is harmful to you as an individual person and soul,
and it is harmful to our world.

For deep in your own underground labyrinths
at the heart of your Self,
is life that you have wanted to protect for years,
since your earliest storms in life,
the ones in which you were hurt and scared,
angry and sad, resigned and hopeless.
The ones you buried deep and covered over with
layers and layers of defense . . .
defense that froze – became harder and harder,
more and more brittle,
and eventually broke off and took on a life of its own.
Hardened life, no matter how it appeared on the surface.
Broken off, hardened life, so very different from the real
life of who you are.

You can’t just trust defense that broke off and took on a life
of its own.
You can’t just throw salt on a frozen heart.
You can’t just chip away at it.
It’s too delicate for that.
You have to melt your frozen heart with
Commitment, compassion, purpose, truth, and the fire of feeling safely.
Feeling all that you have frozen that froze your heart, too.

And when your heart is thawed,
the work will not be over.
It will take place in the warm breeze of summertime,
when the light is full and then . . .

As we enter the new year,
May you continue your journey with the darkness . . .
and the growing light . . .
and the snowy, frozen winter . . .
melting whatever is frozen within you . . .
bringing it out with commitment, love, and truth,
and for the sole purpose of healing.

And if I can be of service to you in the process . . .
Feel free to let me know.

Many blessings,
Judith

 

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP MAKE YOUR WORLD SAFE . . . FROM THE INSIDE OUT

In your outer world . . .
As I have said many times before . . . abuse of power in our world has been coming out into the light of day more and more and more. It is so far out in the world now . . . you would think it would be undeniable. Yet, there are countless people denying it still.
By the reality of this denial alone, it is clear . . .
Within and all around us are opportunities for healing!

****

In your inner world . . .
During this time of longer nights and shorter days, remember that the darkness often holds the clues to the path toward our deepest healing . . .

In this “dark” time, explore your relationship with your own darkness. Use this time as a mirror of your own soul . . . reflecting your own need to go into and through the darkness within to reach the light.

As feelings arise in you while you contemplate the darkness, trace them back to your early experiences with darkness, both literally and metaphorically. Explore how your own experience of the dark has affected how you view the darkness within and the feelings you have about exploring this darkness.

If you are able, explore the dark within . . . finding both hidden strengths ready to be utilized, and hidden weaknesses waiting to be healed and transformed. If you need help, reach out and find the help you need, someone who can help you explore safely and with integrity.

And remember: “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” (Carl Jung)

If we can all find the strength to do the inner work in our own dark places . . . imagine what our world would be like!

 

Someone who first connected with me through this article before I even began my blog, recently sent it back to me in honor of our connection and the Solstice. When I read it again, it felt even more true and even more needed in our world today than it was way back then. I give thanks for the connection. I give thanks for the reminder about this article. And I give thanks for the opportunity to update it and share it with our world again.

NOTE: I know the Winter Solstice is manifest differently in different parts of our earth. I chose to utilize this version of the Solstice — the one with which I am most familiar in the outer world – because of the deeper meaning it offers for our inner worlds. Wherever you are, I hope you will allow it to touch you, inform you, inspire you.

© Judith Barr 2010; edited 2020.

Everybody Hurts*

When your day is long
And the night is yours alone
When you’re sure you’ve had enough
well hang on
Don’t let yourself go
‘Cause everybody cries
Everybody hurts sometimes
Sometimes everything is wrong
If you feel like you’re alone
No, no, no, you are not alone
Hold on …

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These are some of the touching lyrics from the R.E.M. song, “Everybody Hurts.”
Touching lyrics for any time of year, most especially those when the nights are long.
Touching lyrics for any time in the evolutionary cycle, most especially those
when there are societal crises right out in the light of day – among others, a pandemic,
economic crisis, racial injustice, abuse and violence in countless forms and under countless guises.
Touching lyrics that will hopefully move us to open our hearts wider and deeper than ever before.
Touching lyrics that will – even beneath our consciousness – call us to true healing from the inside out,
individually and collectively.

R. D. Laing wrote: There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided
is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.

So when you, like everybody, hurt …
what do you do with your hurt?

Do you try to avoid it, causing yourself and others even more pain?
Do you hurt yourself even more, pretending it’s better if you’re in control of it?

Do you try to avoid it by hurting others directly?
Do you try to avoid it by getting revenge on others?
Do you try to avoid it by running away from it, in all versions of escape?
Do you try to avoid it by building an arsenal of defenses, both obvious
and in the form of guises?

There is, for example, the guise of being civilized.
  And as Laing also wrote:  “We are effectively destroying ourselves by
violence masquerading as love.”

Do you try to avoid it by sublimating your hurt into activities, even causes?

Or, knowing that everyone hurts …
Do you purposefully, consciously, for growth and transformation…
Utilize the hurt you feel for your healing?

My prayer at this time in our year …
At this time in our lives …
At this time in our world …
At this time in our evolution …
May we stop avoiding our pain …
May we stop acting out our pain …
May we utilize our pain with care and truly good intention
For the sake of healing …
Our own healing to the root …
And through that
The healing of our world.

May it be so.

© Judith Barr, 2020.

 

*R.E.M. Songwriters: Buck Peter Lawrence, Berry William Thomas.   

OUR BETTER ANGELS AND OUR WORSE ANGELS — WHAT NOW?

While this is about the United States right now, especially as the US nears its election day …
it is also, at the same time, about every country, every person in our world.

Many in the public sphere are and have been appealing to the “better angels of our nature.”* They’ve also been encouraging us to appeal to our own better angels.

To me, it seems that our better angels are urging people not to act out on the destructive impulses that are being enacted and re-enacted in our country and our world in these times.

Our Better Angels and Our Worse Angels - What Now?
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2020/11/02/our-better-angels-and-our-worse-angels-what-now/

There are destructive impulses within every one of us.
Some know about them. Some don’t. Some don’t want to know about them.
They bury them deep within.
Some don’t want to consider them destructive, but rather want to justify them.
Some don’t want it to be known that they have these destructive currents.
They create “nice” and “civilized” masks to hide the destructiveness from themselves and others.

This is at the heart of our looking at our better angels and our worse angels.
There are those of us who act upon our better angels’ nature.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t also have our own worse angels.
Often we keep them a secret, even from ourselves.

In recent years, more than for a long time before, and more publicly, too, leadership has given permission to the rest of us to act out the destructive angels part of us. It has given permission outright through its words and its actions. It has normalized this behavior, made it seem ok, and fed it from its own worse angels.

And many people have taken that permission . . . and have taken the free pass it offered them to act destructively and not take responsibility for it. And so the hidden worse angels have been invited, encouraged, and helped out of hiding … out into our current world. This hurts everyone.

It also hurts everyone that there is no public discussion at all that I’ve heard …
teaching people that we can and need to do much more than
standing back helpless in the face of the worse angels;
putting our masks back on to hide our worse angels;
burying our worse angels again to keep them under control;
getting others to bury their worse angels again to keep them and their destructiveness under control.

To my knowledge, there has been no public teaching that it is possible to heal and transform our worse angels.
Our worse angels come from the ancient trauma we have experienced.
They are our response to that trauma.
They are our defenses against the pain of that trauma.
They are our coping mechanisms to try to live with the consequences of that trauma.

I am not making them ok. I still hold our worse angels accountable.
I still hold us accountable for our worse angels.
I’m just saying that at the root of our beings,
our worse angels arise from our early trauma.

This doesn’t mean despondence and despair.
This means hope.
This is the hope . . .

We can heal our worse angels . . .
We can heal them to the root by healing from our own trauma.
By actually doing the deep inner healing therapy.

This is empowering.
This is hopeful.
It is possible to create healing and transformation.

We don’t have to keep holding our worse angels at bay.
We don’t have to keep acting them out.
There is real healing that can be done …

I do this with the people with whom I work every day.
I know from my own experience that this real healing can be done.

The election is Tuesday.
Whatever the outcome …
we absolutely need to ask “Now What?”
Because  . . .

Whatever the election brings,
we absolutely need to heal our worse angels to their roots —
the roots that are in the ground of our traumas from long, long ago.

Not healing them is what got us here today.
Healing them is what will help us de-escalate the destructiveness and trauma
and at long last heal the trauma that created them.

© Judith Barr, 2020.

*The phrase “better angels of our nature” came from Abraham Lincoln’s 1st Inaugural Address.

DARK NIGHT STILL …

There is so much to say.
And so much has been said already.
We are in the dark night of the soul …
still.

It is even darker than it was in April.
It is even more crucial than before
that we each take responsibility to do our own personal inner healing work.
It is still more crucial than before
that we each take responsibility to do our own personal soul work
within the cauldron of this dark night.
It is more crucial to us individually
and more crucial to us communally.

We can no longer just leave it to others to take care
of the traumas that got us here,
the traumas that are here in this moment, and
the traumas that we are now creating for our future
and that of generations to come.

We can no longer just act out our ancient traumas.
We can no longer just believe we’re entitled to impact others,
as we willfully act as we please,
insisting we are not responsible,
hoping we’ll escape the trauma we cause,
or deluding ourselves that we will benefit from it.
We can no longer just
not care, just numb ourselves, just turn our backs, just run away,
the consequences be damned …
all of which was done to us when we were traumatized long ago.

In addition …
We can no longer believe we’re doing enough by
taking action in the outer world.
We can no longer believe we’re doing enough by
praying, meditating, chanting.
We can no longer believe we’re doing enough by
responding superficially to our wounds –
by putting bandaids on them and trying to banish the symptoms.
The symptoms are not the real problem.
They are just the manifestation of the problem –
the traumas deep within that we are all being called to heal.

It is our responsibility to continue to do that healing.
Look outside at what’s taking place in our country and our world.
And then look inside to discover how your ancient traumas
are being triggered by what’s occurring.
And then look inside to discover how your ancient traumas
have contributed to what’s occurring.
And then look inside to discover what you need to heal now …
and now …
and now …

I have no more words to say right now.
I encourage you to read and listen to my article from this past April –
DARK NIGHT

https://judithbarr.com/2020/04/14/dark-night/

Safe passage through the dark night …
from my heart to yours …
Judith

© Judith Barr, 2020.