Freedom is not adults – people in big bodies –
acting out like children.
Freedom is not another word for
“I have a free pass to act as I wish,
regardless of its consequences on others.”
Freedom is not another word for
“I’ll do whatever I want the consequences be damned!”
Freedom is not another word for
“I can get away with anything without
myself suffering any impact of my actions.”
Freedom is not another word for
“I don’t have or have to follow any rules.”
Freedom - Simple and to the Point
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5:05
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2020/07/01/freedom-simple-and-to-the-point/
Freedom is not another word for
“You don’t have any authority over me.”
Or “You don’t have any power over me.”
Freedom is not a synonym for
“See if you can stop me!”
Freedom is not a synonym for
“I can justify my behavior with anything …
with anything I wish to use as a rationalization
or an excuse.”
Freedom is not a synonym for
“you can’t make me do anything!”
Freedom isn’t a synonym for anything you choose to do
under the guise of free will.
It doesn’t mean rebelling under the guise of free will.
it doesn’t mean damaging people, property, and systems
under the guise of free will.
It doesn’t mean causing harm for everyone else
under the guise of free will.
It doesn’t mean ignoring safety
under the guise of free will.
It doesn’t mean being destructive to society, the earth,
all beings here on earth …
under the guise of free will.
Freedom isn’t a license to act out our childhood traumas,
creating more trauma as we act out,
refusing to heal those wounds,
and that trauma, past, present, and future.
Supposedly, in a few days, we, in America, will be celebrating the anniversary of our freedom from Britain.
If we love and honor our country and want to work to help it become its best …
we will need to look under the guises and heal everything within us that pretends to be freedom.
If we celebrate something that is not really freedom . . .
we will increase and escalate everything within and without —
that is creating harm again and again and again in our country and abroad.
To celebrate real freedom means taking personal responsibility.
To celebrate real freedom means taking responsibility for your actions, words, thoughts, and feelings.
To celebrate real freedom means taking responsibility for healing your wounding, instead of acting it out on other people and the world, even under the guise of freedom.
To celebrate real freedom means taking responsibility for healing to the point of being a real Adult, not a child who pretends to be an adult.
To celebrate real freedom means being individuated.
To celebrate real freedom means being in your power, using your power well –
not over others.
To celebrate real freedom means using your gifts in service for you and others.
To celebrate real freedom means being and living in the spirit of Truth and Love.
Most of us, when we apply the word “pandemic” to these times in our lives and our world, think of the coronavirus health pandemic. This may be the only time in our lives we have heard the word “pandemic” applied to current experience.
As devastating as the health pandemic has been in these past months – and it has been devastating – when I think of pandemics, I think of many more pandemics than the coronavirus health pandemic alone.
I think of the financial pandemic. I think of the pandemic of prejudice and racial injustice. I think of the pandemic of abuse and violence. And I think of the underlying pandemic that no one is naming, the one that connects all of them: the pandemic of trauma.
Reflections on Pandemics
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14:15
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2020/06/11/reflections-on-pandemics/
They all need our attention. They all require our responsiveness. They all necessitate our action. They all necessitate our action, not only in the outer world but also in our inner worlds.
The action in the outer world may appear to be the most immediate and the most important, and in many ways it is important. But … if we don’t answer the call to do the healing in the inner world, then we become or continue to be part of the problem. Then we become or continue to be part of the driving force spreading the pandemics.
For years I have been working with people and teaching people that if we don’t heal the core inner trauma, we will not only contribute to the outer trauma, but will also be part of creating and escalating the outer trauma to unprecedented, excruciating proportions.
That remains true today. It is heart-breaking. We are seeing that today. It is heart-breaking.
We are hearing that today. It is heart-breaking.
We are feeling that today. It is heart-breaking beyond words.
We are being called louder than ever to take responsibility for our own inner healing!
We are being called louder than ever to do that healing and experience its
positive effects on us – within – and on our world outside – near and far.
Every one of us who does our own work contributes to the healing not only for him- or herself, but also for all of us.
THE HEALTH PANDEMIC
However the Coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic began … too many people allowed it to spread by denying it, by refusing to take actions that needed to be taken, by colluding with the denial and refusal. This was not only people in government – all over the world – but citizens, too. Places not closed; places opened too soon; people being careless and reckless with their own lives and the lives of others.
Through the work I’ve done, it is clear that complicity in the spread of the pandemic is rooted in people’s defenses against knowing, remembering and feeling the “unsafety” they lived through and survived early in their lives.
This doesn’t mean we should condone their dangerous behavior. It reveals the trauma underlying the trauma they are acting out and escalating today.
This trauma needs to be healed if we are to resolve the health pandemic and others like it.
THE FINANCIAL PANDEMIC
No matter how many claim that this financial crisis is the result of the health pandemic, the reality is that this financial crisis brings out into the light of day the real roots of financial traumas. Very few people realize that our personal relationships with money are rooted in early trauma; that our collective relationships with money are rooted in our individual relationships and traumas; that these traumas are inter-generational; and that the traumas, at their root, aren’t themselves about money. Very few people realize that the relationships with money of both wealthy and poor are rooted in trauma.
Over decades, I’ve worked with many people to help them heal their relationships with money. Again and again, I’ve witnessed the revelation of trauma at the root. The trauma may or may not have been tangentially related to money, but the trauma itself was related to abuse, violation and violence, neglect, grief, and more.
In these times, this opening to our traumas has become so important … I have begun offering a virtual introductory workshop, “Money Is Not the Root of All Evil – Money Is A Window to Our Early Traumas.”
This trauma needs to be discovered and healed if we are to resolve the financial pandemic and others like it.
THE PANDEMIC OF PREJUDICE AND RACIAL INJUSTICE
AND
THE PANDEMIC OF ABUSE AND VIOLENCE
My heart is filled with the pain of both individual and systemic racial injustice …
and the trauma it causes. The trauma it is causing now. The trauma it has caused for centuries all over the world … and right here in the U.S.
I cannot possibly do justice to this subject, but I will try to, in a nutshell, open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts. Black Americans who are suffering every day in the U.S. have their trauma rooted in their ancestors’ having been captured and abducted in their original homes and brought here as slaves. Enslavement was also the barbaric and dehumanizing practice of many other countries including Great Britain, Portugal, and Spain.
As someone who looks for the roots of traumas, this is what I see: To the slave traders and holders, these people were not people. They were objects. They were property. They were belongings to be used and treated at the will of the owners. They were bought and sold, and thereby this trauma was connected with money. But the deeper root was this: To the others who trafficked them, black people were not people. They were not human. They were objects and possessions. And the possessors did whatever they wanted to and with their possessions.
When we explore misogyny, we see this attitude in relation to women. When we explore child abuse, we see this attitude in relation to children. Both … still happening today. Some aspects of this are called “human trafficking.” The attitude itself begins in families where children are treated as objects. It begins in families where one or more of the parents were treated as objects in childhood. It begins in families in cultures that teach that kind of objectification, preach it, practice it, and normalize it. Alice Miller wrote about this phenomenon at length in her writings, particularly her book, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence. (1983)
There is more of this cruelty held, felt, and acted out from one person to another than we want to realize, acknowledge, and feel. And there is a current of this cruelty somewhere within each of us. Right here for each of us to heal. (See How Did We Get Here? Judith Barr, 2018.)
So if we are truly going to help heal the racism and injustice in our country and our world today, this current in each of us and the root trauma beneath it will need to be healed within us.
If we don’t do this deeper healing, we will go another cycle and yet another cycle of working to heal racism, only to find that we still have to face ourselves.
This trauma needs to be discovered and healed if we are to resolve the prejudice and racial injustice pandemic in our country and in our world.
This trauma needs to be discovered and healed if we are to resolve the abuse and violence pandemic in our country and in our world.
THE PANDEMIC OF TRAUMA
Trauma is at the root. The trauma pandemic is at the root of all these pandemics.
Every time trauma is repressed the virus grows. Every time trauma is denied the virus breeds. Every time trauma is normalized the virus multiplies. Every time trauma is acted out the virus reproduces. Every time the acted-out trauma is responded to with trauma the virus spreads … and spreads … and spreads. Every time the trauma is responded to with outer action alone, even if the outer action is useful, the virus creeps and creeps and creeps. Every time the trauma that is still alive within us is ignored, left where it is, neglected, the virus grows silently
and under the cover of the outer action.
We are certainly witness to this in our time. We are certainly participants in this at this time in history.
This pandemic of trauma needs to be discovered and healed if we are to resolve the pandemics that are grown and spread in the ground of trauma … the ground of trauma within us, between us, amongst us, and all around us.
This is true today. It will remain true until we respond.
If we do not say ‘yes’ to the call to heal our early traumas, still alive within us today … It will be heart-breaking. If we do not say ‘yes’ to ending our complicity with our collective traumas, still alive within and all around us today … It will be heart-breaking.
If we continue to feed the pandemic of trauma instead of resolving and healing it … It will be heart-breaking.
Aren’t we broken-hearted enough from the cycles and cycles of trauma?
Come join me to end the trauma pandemic and those that arise and grow from it!
_____
Some resources to help you:
* Two home study courses (for professionals and lay people) can help with the healing of the abuse and violence pandemic:
** For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence Alice Miller, 1983.
*** How Did We Get Here? Our Refusal to Know the Truth About Ourselves; Blowing the Whistle on Us – For the Trauma We’ve Experienced and the Trauma We Create, Judith Barr, 2018.
****Contact me to arrange a virtual workshop: “Money Is Not the Root of All Evil – Money Is A Window to Our Early Traumas.”
*****This video clip, “Ask Yourself,” can pierce the objectification of black people … if we let it open our eyes, ears, and hearts to their humanity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDqwacSe7O0
This is a dark night for us …
individually and communally.
Life, as we knew it, has changed.
The world around us, as we knew it, has changed. We, as we knew ourselves, have changed.
We’d like to believe we will go back to the way we were.
That’s not really possible. We’d like to know what will become … of life, the world around us, and of us.
We don’t know.
We can’t know.
Dark Night
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2020/04/14/dark-night/
This is a dark night.
We cannot go around it.
We cannot rise above it.
We need to go through it.
We need to go deep within ourselves,
through the dark, unknown, scary places within ourselves,
if we are to come out the other side of the dark night.
If we quit in the middle …
all that we are running away from will haunt us.
All the thoughts, the feelings, the ways of being in our underground currents
will stagnate within and haunt us …
forever until …
we go back within to meet them, name them, feel them.
Until we go back within to resolve them at last.
This is true in our spiritual journeys.
This is true in our journeys in depth psychotherapy.
And now this is true in our lives in the midst of a pandemic.
There is no shortcut through the dark night.
Although many would like there to be.
Trying to take a shortcut only brings us back to the dark night once more.
Making the full journey brings us out into life –
into the life of who we are –
into life within and without –
in a way we’ve not known before.
DARK NIGHTS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
We have just passed or are passing through the holy days of two of our many world religions: Holy Week in Christianity and the Holy Week of Passover in Judaism. We know the stories connected with each of these holidays. So we know the outcomes. But those who lived through them didn’t know the outcomes ahead of time. They had to go through them to the end. They lived in and through the dark nights of those times.
We don’t know dark nights from the outside in. We know them from the inside out. This pandemic in our time is calling us to journey with and through the dark night … our individual and our communal dark nights.
It is important to know we each have a choice in relation to the dark night.
Whatever choice we make, it will have an impact on not only singular us, but on all of us here on earth. We each have a choice. Whatever choice we make will be our part in re-creating our world. Be filled with care as you participate in co-creating our world anew.
For inspiration, included below is a poem from a dark night that I passed through long ago.
OUT OF MY DYING FRAGMENTS
Out of my dying
fragments
emerge some of
my sweetest and truest songs.
As I lay grieving,
gently holding my broken heart,
rivers of sobs and tears
part of the mending,
shedding my used defenses
as a snake sloughs her skin …
my heart’s desire
calls through the freshly opened
wires
to invite me out again
into Life —
new Life,
a life I’ve not known before,
a life in which I no longer
know who I am,
thank heavens!
and so can live each
moment new
from inside my Self —
undefined, unlabeled
by even my own impositions.
We are living in the midst of trauma.
We are experiencing many layers of traumas, right here in our lives today.
We are in the midst of global trauma,
national trauma, state trauma, city trauma,
family trauma,
and individual trauma.
It has changed our lives forever,
just as any trauma does.
We have so much to do to take care of ourselves and each other
in the very present, very current trauma.
And we need to do that!
We need to take every precaution that
we come through the trauma as safely as possible.
Layers and Layers of Trauma
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2020/03/28/layers-and-layers-of-trauma/
At the same time …
we need to know
that without a doubt,
each time we, as individuals
go through a trauma in the present moment,
it triggers and reawakens – consciously or unconsciously –
all previous traumas we have experienced.
All the way back to the beginning
of our lives
and even further …
So although we already have so much to do
to take care of ourselves and each other
in today’s trauma …
if we fail to also become aware of
and work to heal the past traumas that are triggered …
we will end up creating more trauma in the midst of this trauma.
We will act out in ways that are painful not only for us,
but also for others around us,
near and far.
We might lash out at others, blaming them for what we are feeling —
perhaps fear or helplessness (among many other feelings)
instead of feeling our own feelings about today’s trauma,
and the feelings from our childhood triggered by today’s trauma.
We might crawl in a corner, literally or figuratively,
paralyzed by today’s trauma
and the feelings from our youth triggered by today’s trauma.
We might refuse to help people
or get in the way of their receiving help,
instead of feeling what’s triggered –
how we were deprived of help when we were little.
We might lie about the dangers in today’s trauma,
or be horribly susceptible to the lies of others …
just as we were when we were tiny children,
being lied to and either not knowing it or
having no choice but to believe the lies.
We may expose others to the dangers of the virus,
refusing to take responsibility for our harmful impact on each other …
just as people in our childhoods refused to take responsibility
for their destructive impact on us.
Once again …
although we have so much to do
to take care of ourselves and each other in the layers
of today’s trauma …
we will make even today’s trauma worse
if we fail to also become aware of
and work to heal the layers and layers of
past traumas that are triggered.
We will end up creating more trauma in the midst of this trauma,
and more trauma still in the days, weeks, months, years,
and generations to come.
This is both a trauma and an opportunity . . .
an opportunity to learn;
an opportunity to grow;
an opportunity to heal;
an opportunity to transform
ourselves and our society …
what we do in the midst of this trauma
and those traumas to come;
an opportunity through healing to the root
to co-create ourselves and our world anew.
It is, in the beginning, the middle, and the end …
up to each of us and all of us together.
There is so much going on in our country and our world at this time
that stirs up a cauldron of feelings within each of us!
There’s … the changes to our climate,
the chaos in our politics and election process,
the spread of the corona virus,
the stock market crashing …
and more.
It helps to remember:
some of those feelings are here and now feelings
in response to the outer events of today.
And although those feelings are real feelings about
real crises in the world around us …
This is the tip of the iceberg.
Most of those feelings in the cauldron, however –
perhaps the deepest, most intense, most raw ones –
are already in us …
still living within us from long, long ago in our lives as children.
It is those early feelings deep beneath the tip of the iceberg
that have been triggered by the current events.
The Triggers
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2020/03/04/the-triggers/
But they don’t always have a direct correlation to the here and now trigger.
For example, the young feeling of not having enoughlove can be triggered by
the current feeling of not having enough rain,
not having enough votes,
not having enough supplies for a possible quarantine,
and not having enough money in a market crash.
When this happens, we can believe we are responding as an adult,
while really we have regressed, and
it is the young child we were long, long ago
who is actually driving our thoughts, feelings, behavior –
our efforts to respond to the crisis today.
This means our current day responses are distorted,
since they are the responses of a child, not a true adult.
If we are to respond to the here and now events
in the best way possible, in the healthiest way possible …
we need to find which earlier feelings have been triggered,
work with them and work through them,
utilizing them for growth and healing to the root.
This will help us to better respond today
from a truly matured place,
from the inside out.
If you need help finding, exploring and working with your triggered feelings,
contact me. This is part of what I am honored and blessed to help people do …
every day.
Thanks and many blessings . . .
Judith
Doing what I love – helping people heal – together we work to heal past trauma and prevent future trauma … individually and communally.
It’s not safe to have parents who lie.
It’s not safe to believe parents who lie.
But if you’re a child with parents who lie,
It’s unbearable to know they are lying
and perhaps dangerous, too.
It’s unbearable to live with parents like that.
It’s not safe to have parents who bully and threaten, even subtly.
But if you’re a child with parents who bully and threaten,
it’s unbearable to experience that cruelty,
and dangerous, too.
It’s unbearable to live with parents like that.
It's Not Safe To...
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2020/02/05/its-not-safe-to/
It’s not safe to have parents who do what they want
the consequences be damned,
believe they can get away with it,
and actually get away with it again and again.
It’s unbearable to have parents like that.
It’s unbearable for a child to know s/he has parents like that.
It’s unbearable for a child to live with parents like that.
It’s not safe to live with parents like these
and then grow up without healing from your experience.
Without the conscious, purposeful healing,
you will become like your parent,
or the opposite of your parent,
or something in between …
each with a cauldron of intense, painful feelings deep inside you.
And … you will unconsciously create situations in the world around you
just like the one you grew up with.
You might be the child/victim of the bullying in the re-enactment;
you might be the bullying parent;
you might try to be the rescuing extended family member.
You might collude with the bully, enable the bully, encourage the bully;
you might try to protect yourself against the bully by joining with him.
But whatever role you enact,
without the conscious, purposeful healing,
it will not be resolvable.
And … you will have to live with the situations you create.
And so will everyone around you.
And all the other children who grow up without healing from their
childhood experiences …
will also unconsciously create situations in the world just like the ones
they grew up with.
You will have to live with their situations, just as they have to live with
yours.
Without the conscious, purposeful healing …
We will all have to live with the re-creations or re-enactments of each
others’ childhood traumas.
It’s not safe to have leaders who lie.
It’s not safe to have leaders who bully and threaten, even subtly.
It’s not safe to have leaders who do what they want
the consequences be damned,
believe they can get away with it,
and actually get away with it again and again.
Without conscious, purposeful healing …
We will all have to live with the re-enactments of each other’s
childhood traumas.
That is exactly what is occurring right now in these United States …
and all over the world.
We all keep creating more trauma from the buried, unhealed trauma we
experienced as children.
It isn’t safe.
It won’t be, no matter what we do in the outer world …
until we heal our inner worlds.
Please listen.
Please take this seriously.
Please take this to heart.
Please spread this truth.
Please do your own inner healing.
That is what will help us all most …
To create real safety.
She walks into the halls of Congress …
looking straight ahead …
right down the aisle to the podium high above the legislators’ seats.
The same podium at which the President will soon stand.
She stands at the podium …
grounded in herself …
grounded in Truth …
grounded in Love.
She takes the time to look in the eyes
of every single senator and every single congressional representative.
She begins …
Senators, Representatives, leaders of our country …
Wake up!
The state of our union is not good.
State of the Union -- She Who Speaks to Congress
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2020/01/01/state-of-the-union/
No, don’t turn away.
No, don’t shake your head.
Don’t close your eyes and go to sleep again.
Don’t go deaf.
No, don’t go numb.
No, don’t boo me for saying the truth.
There’s lots of real truth to be said and this is the perfect time.
Not only are you all gathered here together, but …
so are all the media hosts gathered, in a sense, watching us.
So also are the citizens of our country.
And in addition, both the leaders and the citizens of countries all over our world.
All waiting for real truth to be spoken.
The state of the union is not good.
We all have played a part.
You, the leaders, right out in the open for everyone to see.
People are acting out.
You, the leaders, are acting out.
Some of you, not just the man at the top,
are acting out the part of the one who flaunts: I can do whatever I want,
have whatever I want,
get away with anything I want, and not be caught.
I can do it in hiding or even in the light of day, and not be caught.
And if I happen to be caught, I can still get away with it.
Some will admire me.
Some will try to imitate me …
ripping off permission to do what they’ve always wanted to do.
Some will make excuses for me.
Some will be afraid of me.
Yes, and some of those who fear you will run away –
physically, in their minds, from their hearts.
Some will numb themselves – on all levels of their being.
And some will be frozen with fear …
by what you are acting out,
by the scenario that is being acted out.
Some are acting out the part of the one who flaunts.
And … some are acting out the part of the one who: Tries like hell to catch you;
tries like the devil to stop you.
Tries to gather others to help in the “dangerous” venture.
Some think those of you who get away with anything are the good guys.
Many think those who try like the devil to stop you are the good guys.
Each of you thinks you’re the good guys and the others are the bad guys.
The truth is: None of you is right!
None of you is right!
You are all caught …
caught up in a maze …
a vicious cycle in which you’re acting out
yet again
the same scenario played in your families
when you were children long ago.
In your life as a child there was
a version of what’s going on today.
There was someone who thought they could get away with anything;
perhaps someone who ran away,
someone who numbed themselves,
and someone who was frozen with fear.
There was also someone who tried like the devil to stop the one
who thought they could get away with anything.
What did he or she think they could get away with?
There were limitless possibilities.
Among them ….
drinking, drugging, gambling;
cheating, stealing;
yelling, beating, sexually abusing;
lying, manipulating, brainwashing, gaslighting,
grabbing all the power.
What did he or she think they could get away with?
In essence, passing on in your family
the trauma they experienced growing up in theirs …
all in an attempt to defend themselves against the pain
of their trauma.
But if you pass on your trauma without doing the inner work to heal it …
you not only pass it on to your family,
you also pass it on to your society and to the world society.
And what about all the spouses, family members, and children
who didn’t believe they could ever stop you, the “flaunter”?
Without doing their inner healing work …
they pass down the trauma of their hopelessness to their families and their society.
And …. what about all the family members, particularly the children,
who believed and hanged onto the hope that they could one day stop you
from all that you’ve been trying to get away with?
Attempting to stop you only in the outer world …
failing to do their own inner healing work …
they, too, pass down their trauma to generations of families to come
and generations of society to come.
You are the leaders of our country –
and mirrors of leaders in countries all over the world –
and mirrors of citizens in countries all over the world!
Get a grip!
Whatever “role” you are playing in this societal scenario
is merely a re-creation of the scenario of your childhood
(and generations before).
Whatever you do in the outer world to
keep flaunting,
keep running in hopelessness,
keep trying like the devil to stop this …
will only escalate it further if …
you don’t heal it on the inside,
if you don’t heal it from the inside out.
You are the leaders!
Get a grip!
I can see through your act, your ploy, your defenses.
I can see through your big, adult bodies …
to the little children within you who are driving this mess,
escalating it from whatever your “role” in the re-enactment.
There is a television commercial for Haribo gummy bears.*
In it, the brilliant creators of the commercial have members of
a board of directors eating the gummy bears and talking like children.
This is what I see and hear when I witness you, our leaders,
creating havoc in our government, our country, and our world.
Just like children cannot see that their parents are
re-enacting what happened to them when they were children …
unless we can see our own part in the trauma that is being
re-created and repeated amongst us today,
and unless we do our own work to heal it within ourselves,
we won’t be able to see and hear you, our leaders,
acting like the children you are inside.
You are the leaders.
Get a grip!
For once, act like leaders!
For once, be truly good role models!
Don’t tell me you are telling the truth …
while refusing to do the healing deep within that would bring real truth.
Don’t tell me you love your country …
while refusing to heal the experience of trauma and
your defenses against the trauma,
all of which close your heart to love.
Yes, you went through trauma.
We all have in one way or another.
Yes, I have compassion for your trauma.
Yes, I would gladly help you heal from your trauma.
But I still hold you accountable for the trauma you continue to create …
in an attempt to hold your past trauma at bay.
You are the leaders.
For once, for the sake of us all, act like leaders!
Look for and find the original childhood role you are acting out in this destructive scenario.
Get help healing the trauma experienced by the child you were long ago.
Get help healing the trauma that still lives within you,
and that you experience over and over beneath your awareness.
Get the help to do real inner healing so that you stop creating trauma in our world in order to not feel the trauma from your past.
Until you do this, senators and congresspeople …
you are not my leaders!
you are not my role models!
And honestly, you are not really our leaders or role models.
Neither are the citizens who are following your lead.
We need leaders and citizens, who will do their inner healing
so they have the capacity and potential
to truly help stop destructive, escalating, trauma.
We need leaders and citizens, who will do inner healing to the root –
not just seek quick fixes,
not just put on band aids so they will feel better or function.
We need leaders and citizens who will commit themselves to healing to the core and follow through on that commitment …
so the trauma perpetuated and driven by the children in adult bodies
will slow down, de-escalate, transform, and eventually end.
We need leaders and citizens who hear those traumatized children within
not only acting out destructive traumas,
not only creating trauma by defending against past trauma,
but also crying out for help to heal.
You may think this is depressing.
You may want to dismiss it and turn away.
You may want to discredit it.
The truth is …
this understanding and the possibility that follows
brings hope –
real hope.
In reality, without this, there is no real hope.
She stops speaking.
She looks every single member of Congress in the eye
and steps down from the podium.
She walks down the aisle and back out into the world,
knowing she has just been
the presence
of grounded, real love
and
of grounded, rarified truth.
Knowing what she has just given to the world is true hope.
When I was a little girl, I knew people had really distorted relationships with money. I couldn’t have put it into those words then …
but I knew it in my bones, my heart, and my soul.
It became obvious at certain times, in certain ways. One of the most obvious was the holidays. It was like people went berserk with their money and their gifts. They went out of control in ways they didn’t seem to ordinarily.
As I grew up and then became a therapist,
I saw this behavior more and more, including with clients.
They would ask me to help them with their holiday spending, and then they would fight against my help with all their might.
We're in a Trance About Money -- During the Holidays and Every Day
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2019/12/06/were-in-a-trance-about-money/
Out of this was birthed my work to help people
heal their relationships with money to the root.
This year as I witness people going through their holiday “journeys,”
I’m seeing an additional perspective through an additional lens.
Individually, it seems that people are in a trance
they don’t even know they’re in. A trance they don’t seem to want to have pierced
A trance they don’t seem to want to have revealed to them.
For example, a woman wants to come work on the fights she
and her partner are having about money.
They are wealthy people and have just become richer still. They buy holiday gifts for people that most people would consider extravagant.
But they don’t see it that way. And … she doesn’t want to do therapy unless their insurance will pay for it.
She can’t even see the reality of her distorted relationship with
money through the example I’ve just given.
The distortion that she would pay limitless amounts of money
for things, but little or nothing for healing. She is in such a disconnected trance!
People who aren’t wealthy have their own distorted relationships with money … and their own trances, as well.
The trance exists individually, in couples, in families, and …
communally, too. Greta Thunberg named the communal/global version publicly
at the UN Climate Summit … in her own way:
“People are suffering. People are dying.
Entire ecosystems are collapsing.
We’re in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money! And fairy tales of eternal economic growth!”
A 16-year old young woman is telling world leaders that
they are in a trance and it is causing disaster beyond what they
are willing to admit, or even know.
She poignantly tells them:
“You are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.”
I don’t know exactly what she had in mind and heart
when she said the truth of that. I know that the roots of our relationships with money
are found in our childhoods. In hidden places, unimaginable experiences and memories, and
are acted out in distorted ways. These roots need to be brought
out of unmatured trance states and into grown up, here-and-now
grounded awareness for healing.
What about you? Are you in a trance state in relationship to money? A trance that you don’t want to know, see, pierce? A trance state that you’re resisting healing? A trance state that affects your personal life and the life of our world, as well?
Are you in a trance state in relation to money? A trance your unmatured self does not want to heal? A trance your soul longs for you to heal?
It’s time to wake up. Come out of that trance. Get the help to heal your relationship with money and its impact to the root… It’s time to respond to your soul’s calling.
I know we have to go through this. This is the consequence of not just one man, not just one party, not just one government, not just a tribal citizenry. This is the consequence of society as a whole and the members of society.
Who is this man who’s acting out his earliest traumas on our country and our world, creating trauma for all of us, and giving some a free pass to act out their earliest traumas in their own destructive ways?
Who are the members of the government who are held hostage to their own earliest traumas, their families filled with denial, lies, and secrecy, and, as a result, are held hostage to the man at the top? The father figure?
To Impeach or Not To Impeach -- What exactly is the question?
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2019/11/17/to-impeach-or-not-to-impeach/
Who are the members of the tribal citizenry who are acting and reacting to the authority in just the ways they’ve always reacted to or in the ways they’ve always wanted to react to their own authoritarian parents?
This is not simply tribalism. This is dangerous ground that is becoming more and more dangerous. Is this the way the people of Germany were right before Germany became Nazi Germany?
George Santayana’s famous statement “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” is a mirror to our eyes, our hearts, and our souls. This is true in our individual and our collective lives.
If a child is traumatized and does not have the help to consciously remember, feel, and work through the trauma – as a child, teen, or adult – that child will continuously re-enact that early trauma in one way or another throughout life. For example, if a child is abused and represses or in some way denies that abuse, he will somehow have abuse in his life until the end. He may be drawn to people who abuse him; she may abuse others; he may abuse himself – openly or hidden within; she may collude with abuse of others, overtly or subtly.
The same thing happening from one person’s life to another’s creates a society that continuously re-enacts the early traumas of its people and the early traumas of the society as a whole.
This happens in every child’s life. It happens in the life of every society. What’s happening in the United States of America is just one current example. But it is right out in the open for all to see … or discount, ignore, or forget, as we choose.
The history of impeachment related to Presidents of the United States includes four re-enactments: In 1868, Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives. 106 years later, in 1974, Richard Nixon resigned, rather than risk impeachment and removal from office. 24 years later, in 1998, Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives. And today, in 2019, only 21 years after the Clinton impeachment, the House of Representatives has announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
Just as with any re-enactment, the instances get closer together in time and escalate in severity and impact.
According to our constitution and in an effort to curtail the dangerous consequences, the impeachment process needs to take place. However … taking outer action alone will not resolve the true problem. The true problem is not the person of the President alone. He or she is simply one in a cast of many players who are acting out forgotten, denied, or ignored early traumas.
Recently, as part of her healing work, one of my clients was on her way into feelings triggered by the current situation in our country. As one step in the process, she said: “I don’t wanna feel my feelings about what’s going on in our country. I want somebody to stop it.” She continued, “And I don’t wanna feel my feelings about what went on in my childhood. I wanted somebody to stop it.”*
What she was willing to say out loud … on her way deeper into the healing journey … is what most people are thinking and feeling, as they blame today’s situation on others while refusing to do their own healing exploration and journey. While refusing to acknowledge their own part in today’s re-enactment. While refusing to be conscious of the connection between their individual past traumas and their current day traumas; between their individual past traumas and our collective traumas; between our collective past traumas and our current day collective traumas. And while refusing to enter or enter more deeply into their journey to heal their contribution to the national re-enactment of trauma.
As children, we were not responsible for the traumas we experienced at the hands of others and in the face of life. But as adults, we are responsible for both the traumas we keep creating and co-creating and for healing the traumas we experienced long, long ago.
What makes us think we can react to the here-and-now behaviors of our leaders by ignoring the truth, by twisting the truth, by denying the truth – current and past – and escape the consequences of our own histories and re-enactment escalation?
What makes us believe we can escape the acting out and re-enacting cycles of abuse on every level of society by hiding that truth under the guise of politics? By escalating the guise of politics as a cover for our deep inner traumas? By refusing to acknowledge to ourselves and each other, our responsibility in creating this chaos, pain, and trauma in our country and our world? And along this train of questioning … why aren’t the media and political leaders doing their own work and modeling for us to do ours?
What makes us think we are so powerful that we can simply focus on our “better angels” or only take action according to our “better angels” … and by doing so keep our “worst angels” or “demons” from having an impact? Ignoring our “demons” – meaning the whole complex of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors related to our early traumas – only gives them more power to haunt us and to create more trauma in our lives from deep beneath our conscious awareness.
What makes us think we can simply pray away the painful impact we have from our past traumas – conscious and unconscious – without having to do the conscious, purposeful, real work of healing within ourselves?
What makes us think we can let someone “move our energy” and all our trauma will simply disappear? What makes us think we can let someone “move our energy” and the consequences of our trauma will disappear … without our having to become conscious of our trauma and its consequences? Without our having to become conscious of the impact we have? Without our having to work through that trauma consciously?
What makes us think we can ignore what is going on deep within us and its impact on our lives, our country, and our world?
Do we believe we are so special we can get away with it?
Do we believe we are so entitled, we can escape it?
Have we created such impenetrable denial, that we cannot pierce it? …. yet?
Are we being deluded? seduced? brainwashed? by our family’s beliefs? by mainstream society’s beliefs, attitudes and perceptions?
Are we just plain so afraid to face ourselves … our traumas … our feelings … that we could give a damn about the consequences on our lives and those of others all over our country and world?
Or … Are we just so afraid to face our own past traumas that we need to reach out for help … for our sake and the sake of our world?
These are the real questions.
This is a mirror for us.
This is a call for us.
This is a summons of real Truth to us to see, hear, feel and take responsibility for our part of the problem and our part of the healing.
This is an urgent appeal of true Love to us to acknowledge our responsibility and repair our part.
If we don’t respond to the call, whatever the results of the impeachment inquiry and process … this chaos and trauma will continue and escalate in our lives and the life of our country and world.
If we do respond to the call, whatever the results of the impeachment inquiry and process … we will help heal, from the root, what keeps recreating trauma in our lives and the life of our country and world.
The real questions above are crucial questions for us to ask and answer.
The real questions below are just as, if not even more important.
What will you do?
Will you say ‘no’ to the call and be part of creating future trauma in order to avoid your own personal past trauma?
Or will you say ‘yes’ to the call and be part of healing your past trauma in order to help prevent your future trauma and our future communal trauma?
_____
*Shared with permission of my client.
** For further and deeper understanding, also see How Did We Get Here? Our Refusal to Know the Truth about Ourselves, Judith Barr, 2018, Mysteries of Life. Available through Amazon or www.JudithBarr.com .
*** Many thanks to those of you who are doing your inner healing work in these challenging times and as part of your way of life. I invite you to acknowledge this truth to others. If it helps you to do that, certainly pass this article on.
She cries herself to sleep every night … knowing what’s coming, trying to warn people, nobody listening, or if they do … nobody believing her, nobody willing to help, nobody willing to do their part.
She cries herself awake every morning … Remembering the trauma with Apollo, the patriarchal god. Apollo, who tried to seduce her with his gift of prophecy, and then cursed her when she spit in his mouth, refusing him as he tried to have his way with her. Or did he spit in her mouth and then curse her, determined to demonstrate the power he held over her?
Cassandra Weeps Endlessly, And Then ...
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2019/10/01/cassandra-weeps-endlessly-and-then/
Either way, blaming and punishing her or proving his power over her … Apollo left her with the gift of prophecy to see what was coming, but left her also with the curse: no one would believe what she saw! No one would believe what she knew to be true!
Her father, the King of Troy, didn’t believe her.
Her family didn’t believe her. Neither did the citizens of Troy. She warned there were people coming to destroy them. She warned they would sneak in without the people of Troy knowing. She warned the citizens needed to be aware, awake, conscious, and work purposefully to protect themselves and each other.
For centuries Cassandra has cried herself to sleep. For centuries Cassandra has cried herself awake. For centuries Cassandra has seen.
For centuries Cassandra has known.
For centuries Cassandra has warned. For centuries Cassandra has not been believed.
For centuries Cassandra has not been helped to spread the word
and protect the village.
It’s happened over and over again. The patriarchal trauma. The trauma it caused Cassandra. The trauma it caused the village. And then the trauma itself – untended, unhealed – creating and recreating more trauma.
Century after century after century … the people avoiding their own trauma. the village avoiding its own trauma. person after person creating trauma for self and others, as a result. village after village creating trauma for itself and others, as a result.
Even today, when national security bigwigs can write a book about cassandras… they ignore or refuse to believe
Cassandra’s warnings about the traumas that create
from the inside out.
They refuse to acknowledge what she knows – that it’s an inside job. Even today when songs have been written about Cassandra … those songs are the least well known, unknown by many.
Still today, hardly anybody believes Cassandra. Still today she weeps herself to sleep and awake.
But now she has come to a crossroads. Now she is making a change. Now she is, with one strong, inevitable, powerful burst of
“Enough is Enough!” … breaking Apollo’s curse, dissolving the blanket of disbelief, shattering the blindness, deafness, and numbness that has resulted.
Now Cassandra breaks the curse. Now she will be believed. Now she and her village will not be attacked and taken.
Now our unconscious selves will not be mined from the outside. because now we will mine our own unconscious selves, healing trauma, and as a result, preventing the ongoing slaughter of
trauma being passed down from generation to generation.
Now we will believe Cassandra. Now we will see what she sees, what she’s showing us. Now we will know what she knows, what she’s telling us. Now we will each do our own inner healing work to heal our trauma – within and amongst us. Individually and communally.
The curse is broken. Apollo’s patriarchal power is shattered. Cassandra will now be believed.
Healing is now possible. The healing of trauma will now take place.
Hope opens our hearts again.