THE PRESIDENT REVEALS HIMSELF – AND SO DO WE.

A few nights ago, I saw the movie, Frost/Nixon. It was a profound movie at a crucial time in the life of our country. There were moments when the theater was absolutely silent and still – save the monologue or dialogue on the screen. More silent, more still than at any movie I’ve ever attended.

People told me afterward that many of those moments, they were thinking – Bush. The similarities were consistently in my awareness.

For me . . . I was moved by the humanness. For me . . . I was left in tears . . .
For the former president . . . who was so deeply wounded, he wreaked havoc in our country and our world. Richard Nixon, yes. But also George Bush. And who knows how many other presidents. And foreign leaders, too.
And for us, the citizens, who elect presidents who are so deeply wounded that, without doing their own healing work, will most assuredly wreak havoc in our country and our world.

My tears . . . our world would be so much healthier, so much safer, so much kinder, so much more life supporting and nourishing of our positive potential, if we would really find out about the candidates who plan to run for president – their childhoods, their wounds, their psyches, their hearts – before we vote for them . . . and cry for those who are wounded, cry for those who are too wounded to be president . . . instead of electing them.

This doesn’t mean someone who has seen a psychotherapist or been helped with depression is too wounded to be president. Actually, someone who has really deeply worked with a good psychotherapist may well be even more healthy and able to serve well as president than someone who has never acknowledged his/her wounds and done the work to heal them.

My tears . . . our world would be so much healthier, so much safer, so much kinder, so much more life supporting and nourishing of our positive potential, if we would truly find out about our own childhoods, our own wounds, our own psyches, our own hearts and cry for ourselves and our woundedness. . . instead of pushing ourselves into positions in which we act out our wounds and our defenses against our wounds, wreaking havoc in our own lives and the lives of those around us –
in our families, our neighborhoods, our churches and schools, our communities, our countries, and our world.

If we would do this for ourselves,
we would also do it in relation to our leaders.
We would insist on this as the fabric of our culture.

© Judith Barr, 2009

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