ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! LET’S BE HONEST ABOUT THE POLITICS OF ABUSE IN OUR COUNTRY!

21Mar2011 By Judith Barr

Enough is enough! Let’s really deal with the politics of abuse in our country!

Plainly . . . and tragically . . . abuse is legal! I have worked with enough people who have either experienced or been close to abuse, where they should have been but were not protected!

Women were not protected. Elderly were not protected. Children were not protected. And at times men were not protected. When they needed to be and should have been!

The police “could” not protect them because . . .
The court “could” not protect them because . . .
The department that serves children and families “could” not protect them because . . .
Always an excuse given as a reason, a legal reason.

Enough is enough!

Last week I was required by law to make a report to the department that is supposed to protect children. I made the call and the report as mandated. Once made, I discovered something that brought pain and outrage! I discovered that most of the child abuse I had just reported was not something they would investigate, because the law in that particular state did not make it illegal for a parent to discipline his/her children with physical means or with an instrument. That means, an open hand can hit, a brush, spoon, or belt can hit . . . as long as somebody determines it’s not excessive force.

Incomprehensible! What century do we live in? What country do we live in? What a bizarre guise we offer that we are a civilized society! What absurd masks we wear that we are a loving people! What hypocrisy to bemoan the bullying that goes on among our children, when we adults are bullies in the home behind closed doors!

I know this may not all apply to every one of us. However . . . every one of us needs to look deep within ourselves to discover which parts of this does apply to us. And to heal those parts to the root! Without that exploration, we will continue to say good things about ourselves, while we normalize abuse and deny it.

I investigated in another state to see if the same was true. The department would not tell me, but rather said it “could not give any guidelines or information about this,” and referred me instead to its website, “where,” the person said, “it covers what’s reportable and what’s not.”

And then I found an article from a newspaper that said outright, “In Connecticut, in and of itself, striking your child as a form of discipline is not illegal. According to state statute, a parent or guardian may “use reasonable physical force … to the extent that he reasonably believes such to be necessary to maintain discipline or to promote the welfare of such minor.” (New Haven Register Friday, June 04, 2010, “New Haven man faces assault charges for ‘discipline’ of teen with belt.”)

It goes on to describe in the article what was said by a retired police officer who trains recruits at the police academy in domestic violence and child abuse: “If you’re driving 66 mph in a 65 mph zone, it’s clear-cut that you are breaking the law, he said.” And then it quoted him as saying, “This has a lot of gray areas.”

What is gray about physically abusing a child? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!

The journalist who wrote the article acknowledged, “Clearly, over the decades, society as a whole has shifted away from corporal punishment, but it still remains a common disciplinary tool in many households. For years, many child-rearing experts have said spanking is ineffective and may promote aggression in children.”

It also promotes great fear and the re-enactment of the very traumatic experiences the children had at home with others in the future . . . with their spouses, with their children, with the elderly to whom they are close. The original abuse goes on and on and on . . . from one generation to another, from one person to another. And it spreads like a wild fire from the individual level of society, to the communal . . . from families to communities, to states, to countries, and all over our world.

The laws of our country are still supporting abuse. The politics of our country are still supporting abuse. No matter how much we try to deny it, it is undeniable! Among others, it is the parents who abuse their children who vote for the Mayor or Town Select Person, the State Senator, the Governor, the US Senator, and the President. This is screaming out to be healed in our time. The healing starts at home . . . within each of us. Each one of us needs to look at the ways in which we abuse children, others, ourselves, our power. Whatever we change in the outer world will not be sustained unless we take this step . . . each one of us!

Sex and The Media: Where’s The Accountability?

17Mar2011 By Judith Barr

In these times . . . when so much is going on in our world, not just in our country, but all over our world . . . when every media report has the potential to be heard or read by millions . . . our media needs to be more accountable than ever before.

But recently two media organizations ran stories that were anything but responsible or accountable!

The first was a NewYorkTimes.com story about about an 11-year old girl who was gang raped in Cleveland, Texas. The story was slanted in favor of everyone except the girl. The community that had been destroyed. The men and boys who raped her who would have to live with this for the rest of their lives. And the story was slanted against the little girl. It talked about a neighbor asking where her mother was and others talking about how she dressed older than her age. What century do we live in that a little girl is blamed for being raped by 18 men and boys? What country do we live in that this has occurred? And what has happened to the New York Times that it would publish a story like this? Many have said it reflects the rape culture we live in. Perhaps that is so. Regardless, I hold the New York Times accountable for its story. We all need to!

The second was a CBS.com story about a 24-year old woman who has concocted a misuse and abuse of sexuality under the guise of therapy. She calls herself “The Naked Therapist.” She calls what she does “naked therapy.” She promises “power through arousal.” She is not trained or licensed as a psychotherapist. She calls her clients “patients” and charges them $150 an hour to seduce, titillate, and manipulate them into watching her undress, under the guise – the absurd, bizarre, unbelievable guise – of healing.

To add insult to injury, what is CBSnews.com doing publishing an article that doesn’t expose this for what it is – abuse! Not only do they not censure what this woman does, they mention she is not licensed, they mention that professional therapy organizations would not approve of what she does, but they go on and talk about what she does . . . as though it’s okay. Really, their article titillates, which unfortunately in our world, sells stories. How very wounded a society is in which a story like this can be used to titillate and sell a product! I hold CBS.com accountable for its story. We all need to.

This brings us right back to the beginning . . . if the media isn’t accountable for the stories it publishes, we need to hold them accountable.

If we don’t hold them accountable . . . what does that say about us? What does it say about what we need to heal in ourselves? What does it say about what we need to heal personally, individually, for our own lives and for the sake of our society?

EARTHQUAKES AND TSUNAMIS . . . OUTER AND INNER

14Mar2011 By Judith Barr

The severity of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan . . . is real. It is truly a disaster with physical, emotional, and mental consequences. It is also a disaster that calls up for people whatever conscious spiritual connections they have.

This is one example of the outer physical disasters that have been occurring in our world. Physically … Katrina; Chile; Haiti; Christchurch, New Zealand; the drought in China; landslides in Uganda; and now Japan. The snow and ice storms this past winter. The rains and floods that have come of the thawing. But there are other outer disasters, too. For example, the recession of 2008 and its aftereffects, worldwide.

What people don’t often account for . . . there are people all over our world who are experiencing inner earthquakes and tsunamis everyday. The walls of their defenses falling in response to some stress in their lives. Some outer stress like losing their jobs, their homes in foreclosure, struggling to feed their children and themselves; losing their spouse because they lashed out, acting out in response to their inner turmoil, abusing their spouse and children; being unable to keep a job because they experience fear all the time. Some inner stress like long repressed memories beginning to surface into their awareness, nightmares that open the floodgates for feelings they had and buried as tiny children, vicious cycles of thoughts and feelings that are beginning to spiral out of control within.

Both the outer disasters and the inner disasters are real. They are painful. They have painful consequences. We need to take both of them seriously and work to resolve them thoroughly. We would never consider just leaving the outer devastation and moving someplace else. We would never consider just putting a tent over a nuclear power plant and hoping that would solve the problem. We would never consider not offering the best help we could give to people who were experiencing the devastating effects of a physical disaster like a tsunami. Yet we give people with inner disasters pills (sometimes) and tell them to just manage and control the disasters within . . . but not resolve them.

Since we are all connected, maybe we need to wonder about the effect they have on each other . . . the outer on the inner, the inner on the outer and both on all of us. I wonder about that . . . all the time! I send prayers to all who are experiencing inner and outer disasters . . . all the time!

A War Against Women . . .

06Feb2011 By Judith Barr

When is a political campaign (and I don’t mean an election) a guise for accomplishing something far more sinister and far more dangerous than is claimed?

When seeming attempts to save unborn lives in the name of something holy are really a war on women.

When apparent efforts to prevent abortion in the name of protecting the lives of the unborn are, in actuality, purposeful, planned moves to take away women’s power . . . a war against women.

When men, and most tragically of all, other women themselves, are so afraid of the power women have birthed and claimed in recent times, that they are bound and determined to turn back the times and make women powerless . . . a war against women.

When men, and even women, collude, under the guise of goodness, to make women possessions again . . . possessions of their fathers, possessions of their husbands, possessions of their religions, possessions of the Divine as they perceive the Divine, women making themselves the possessions of others, even women treating themselves like possessions . . . a war against women.

When men, afraid of the growing power women have claimed, and even women themselves are afraid of their own power and the power of other women, and instead of supporting that power and working through their own fears, want to squash that power forever . . . in a war against women.

Wherever else this is happening in our world, it is also happening right now in the United States of America in 2011.

It is rising to bizarre proportions! Last week, there was a bill in Congress that , under the guise of taking action to prevent abortions, would have redefined rape to include only forcible rape . . . and to leave women powerless when they are violated in other ways – by date rape, by rape that occurs when a perpetrator drugs his victim, by rape while a woman is intoxicated or asleep, by rape perpetrated on underage females,by rape when a woman withdraws her consent, or by rape when a woman is trying not to be injured further or is trying to stay alive.

Whatever this bill looked like it was doing, H.R.3, The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act was, in truth, a war on women’s power, a war on women’s protection, a war on women’s access to help . . . a war against women!

And this bill was one single action in millions that have been taking place and that will continue to take place.

A terrorizing war . . . against women!It’s like a daughter of an incest perpetrator who cuts her off from help in the family, isolates her from the outside world, threatens her loss of safety, threatens her daily survival — food, clothing, shelter, and medical help – squashes her voice, and most dangerous of all, puts on the face of kindness and goodness one minute, while stalking her silently and consistently, so that she is scared all the time.

I know that this is the backlash to the power women have been birthing, growing, and claiming. And I know a backlash was inevitable. We need to take this seriously now! This is a war against women.

If we are going to end this war against women, we – women and men alike – are going to need to do our own inner healing. All of us are part of this, whether we want to know it, acknowledge it, feel it . . . or not! This is no joke! I don’t mean just by reading self help books or going to support groups or even a workshop here and there. We are going to need to heal within us our own fears of being powerless, and also the places where we would take dangerous actions to crush someone else’s power because we are afraid.

There is much more that needs to be said, taught, and healed here than I can do in this short time and space. I hope, though, that I have opened your eyes to see what is really occurring, opened your mind to help you think about the truth of what is happening, and opened your heart to say ‘yes’ to the healing you, yourself, need to do. I also hope that you will pass this on to others . . . whose eyes, minds, and hearts need to open.

Thank you and many blessings,
Judith Barr

WHY DO WE HAVE TO DO THIS OVER AND OVER?: Exploring The Roots of Prejudice

01Feb2011 By Judith Barr

Whether we know it or not . . . whether we want to know it or not . . . we all have currents of prejudice within our psyches. Although many think of their prejudices as simply “the truth,” others realize that there are some major roots to our prejudice . . . roots that need to be named, known, and worked with.

One of the roots of our prejudices is . . . we are taught to be prejudiced by the active teachings of those with whom we grow up, and also by their modeling. This is poignantly expressed in the song “Carefully Taught” from the Broadway show and the movie, “South Pacific.”

“You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught”*

A less well known and understood root of prejudice is . . . most people are afraid of the dark. The literal dark in the outer world of night and winter – so easily seen by the number of lights we keep on 24 hours a day 365 days a year. But not just the literal dark or the dark in the outer world. We are afraid of the dark in our inner worlds – the dark unknown within where we are afraid we’ll discover terrible dark things about ourselves. And the dark in our inner worlds that we have come to symbolize as “evil.” This fear of the dark has caused all sorts of problems in our world, including transferring our fear and our symbolic meaning onto people with dark skin.

If we would only heal our fear of the darkness, particularly the darkness within, we could work through and heal our feelings about our own darkness and the destructive aspects of our own personalities, and clearly see people with dark skin as unique people rather than symbolic expressions of our own inner “darkness.”

And the root of prejudice of which people seem to be the least aware is based on the most primal experiences from our childhoods. Those experiences in our earliest years when we are hurt or frightened by ‘the other,’ meaning, in essence, anyone who is not us. Those first fears of ‘the other’ later get transferred onto many other people and things. So, for example, fear of mother or father can later be transferred onto someone of a different race, religion, sex, nationality . . . without our having any awareness whatsoever of that occurring.

There’s a wonderful line in the 2009 book, The Help, a book about “black maids” working for white women in Mississippi. It’s actually a line dear to the author, Kathryn Stockett, and one that speaks to the heart of the issue: “Wasn’t that the point of the book? For women to realize, we are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I’d thought.”**

These are three of the deep roots of prejudice in our psyches and our world.
We will be prejudiced, whether consciously or unconsciously, and somehow, whether ever-so-subtly or absolutely blatantly, we will act on our prejudices . . . until we each commit to explore and heal the prejudices that live within us.
We will do this over and over until each of us does our own individual inner work with prejudice.
Where does your fear of those who are different from you come from?
It is a deep choice: Are you willing to explore and heal your fear of “the other” and in doing so, help to heal prejudice in yourself and our world?

* © Oscar Hammerstein II, 1949
https://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/southpacific/youvegottobecarefullytaught.htm
** Kathryn Stockett, The Help, 2009, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, pp 418 and 451.

CRYING – IS IT A GAME? OR IS IT FOR REAL?

11Jan2011 By Judith Barr

As if there weren’t enough forces in our country and our world trying to get us to not feel . . .

Ourselves, utilizing our own defenses to keep from feeling pain from long, long ago, as well as pain from today or even experiencing anything today that might trigger the ancient pain.

Other people, who do the same thing to themselves, demeaning, ridiculing, attacking, abandoning us when we do feel. Our families, employers-employees-coworkers. Our doctors, lawyers, teachers, agents, coaches, spiritual representatives.

Alcohol, street drugs, and pharmaceutical drugs and the companies and people who manufacture and sell them. (If we were supported to feel our feelings and had built the capacity to do that, we wouldn’t believe we needed mind altering drugs to numb us against those feelings.) The military that wants its members to be strong and unemotional to the point of giving them propranalol to harden their defenses against the feelings that get stirred up in them by the horrors of war. (If they weren’t hardened against the feelings, they would feel the horror and perhaps we’d finally find an alternative to war!)

Politicians, who appeal to the very emotions, like fear, that we try to bury and hold at bay and then use those feelings they have stirred up to their own advantage. (If we were not afraid of feeling our feelings, and if we were taught to discern which ones are here and now feelings and which are feelings from our childhood that have been triggered by something or someone in the current time . . . we wouldn’t be so needlessly vulnerable to politicians, or anyone using our own vulnerability against us.) Scientific studies that can be skewed to prove anything.

And the media . . . in so many different ways.

Last week, on a well known television show, a show I often appreciate, they did a story on tears.

In the story, under the guise of humor, under the guise of “science,” with a demeaning story title – The Crying Game – and under the guise of scientific backup – they did a story on “male aversion to female tears.”

A study in Israel asserts that the impact on men exposed to the imperceptible scent of women’s tears is that the exposure lowers men’s testosterone levels and causes the parts of their brain that register sexual arousal to be less active. In short, the study found that imperceptible signals given off by our bodies are perceived unconsciously by others . . . something proven time and again. Perhaps if we truly knew ourselves and our natures, we would understand that upon witnessing the woman he loves crying, and unconsciously perceiving the natural chemical signals she’s giving off, not only a man’s feeling self, but also his physical self receives the signal that she needs him to care, comfort, and communicate with her, not to be sexual with her, and responds accordingly.

Rather than emphasizing the actual findings of the study . . . the media report of this study instead chose to make a conclusion not even remotely asserted by the study: that a women’s tears “annoy” men.

Thank goodness for a famous sex therapist, who talked with the reporter and told him that when his wife cries, she (the sex therapist) wanted him to ask ‘what’s the matter?’ And ‘can I help?’ and not to worry if his penis was erect! She didn’t want men to draw the wrong conclusion, using the study to prove that there’s science backing up why men are annoyed when their wives cry.

But the damage had already been done . . . The supposed lightness and humor with which the story was told was easy, ‘comfort’ food for those men who don’t take responsibility for themselves and their own feelings: that the reason they’re annoyed is not from a drop in testosterone, but rather because of their discomfort with their own vulnerable feelings, or that some wound from long ago is triggered when their wife cries.

And it was easy food for those women who are “trained” to please their husbands and so will try to keep from crying in the future . . . or who will use their husbands’ so-called “natural annoyance” as an excuse to keep defending against their own painful feelings.

And not only did the show degrade women’s tears, but at the very end, it degraded men’s tears, too, asking ‘What impact does it have on women when men cry?’ and saying it’s particularly relevant with our ‘weepy’ new Speaker of the House.

Look at this just one example of what we do to each other and ourselves …. Degrading women’s tears and degrading men’s tears. Degrading our vulnerability! Our real vulnerability . . . something I, as a depth psychotherapist, spend many hours, many weeks, many years working to help people rediscover and reclaim!

Look around us ….

People numbing themselves, unable to feel, unable to connect with themselves behind their walls and beneath their masks.

Without our feelings, and without allowing them and exploring them, we become automatons. And then we raise our children from those robotic modes. And we criticize and demean them for their feelings . . . for crying as babies, for expressing hurt and fear and even anger. And we never help them build their capacity to feel. So they grow up, not treasuring their real vulnerability, in fact afraid of it. So they grow up unnecessarily vulnerable to all the forces trying to get us not to feel.

Here’s the vicious cycle!

What have we done to our world?

How are we going to save our world?

By healing and safely feeling so we can rediscover and reclaim our true needed vulnerability.

ARE WE GOING TO PUT OUT ANOTHER BRUSHFIRE? OR . . .

03Dec2010 By Judith Barr

TSA screenings and pat downs.
Our civil rights.
Wikileaks leaks.
North Korean nukes.
The economy.
Jobs – no jobs.
Houses.
Big Pharma.
Drug firms paying doctors.
Food safety.
What to do about Iran?
Social security.
Medicare.
Taxing whom?
Cutting taxes for whom?
Who gets the next bail out?
One election begins right after the previous one takes place.
Republicans or Democrats?
Right or Left?
Far left or Tea Partyers?
Women forced to wear red bracelets when menstruating!

One after another, we put out brushfires, trying to make everything better in our world.
We ask . . .
our doctors to do this for us
our teachers to do this for us
our clergy people to do this for us
our congress people to do this for us
our governors to do this for us
our presidents to do this for us
our media to do this for us
our military to do this for us
our money to do this for us . . .
and on and on and on.

When are we going to realize that at this level of our evolution, the only thing we can do in the outer world is put out brush fires . . .
and that we will be putting out brush fires forever, if we don’t take a leap of faith in our development …
if we don’t deal with the real cause of the forest fire that lives within each of us.
The forest fire of our own fear of our feelings, our own defenses against our feelings, our own denial of our feelings,
and our own wounds, both conscious and unconscious, burning to be healed.

ELECTIONS – YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW

14Nov2010 By Judith Barr

Why did the elections turn out the way they did? Not only this election season, but also . . . why do elections in general turn out the way they do?
Race? Incapability? Wrong direction? Lies and mudslinging? Corruption? Greed? Hunger for power? Change? Plain ole human nature?
Whatever you think . . . there is a deeper reason than most people know.

It is called transference.
In psychology – the psych part of PoliPsych – there is a dynamic called transference.
Boiled down to its essence, Transference is when you transfer onto someone or something in your life today a thought/belief/decision, feeling, sense, experience/memory, perception/interpretation based on an experience you had long, long ago in your childhood. . . particularly with people in your childhood who you experienced as authority figures. That could include your parents, the adults in your extended family, older siblings, adult or older neighbors, teachers, clergy people, etc.

People often think of transference as happening only in the therapy room. But the truth is . . .
we transfer onto others unconsciously and so very frequently, that we would be amazed to become conscious of when.

What in the world does this have to do with elections?

Just this:
We also transfer onto our leaders. Not just our educational and spiritual leaders, but also our political and governmental leaders.
We may transfer onto them negatively . . . thinking they are horrible people and leaders and not wanting them to lead us ever, let alone anymore.
Thinking they’re going to do terrible things that will hurt us, while pretending they’re doing things for our own good . . . like Mom or Dad did when we were little. We may be seeing them as Mom, who coddled us but didn’t teach us how to function in the world. We may perceive them like Dad, who pretended he and Mom were doing without and they were being generous with us, while he was really being stingy with us and hoarding things for Mom and him. We may feel they are like Grandpa, who lied to us and got our family into trouble; or Uncle Jim who was mean to the children but nice to the grown ups; or our older sister, who bullied us and lied to our parents to get us in trouble; or the teacher who punished us unfairly and played favorites with others. All of these early experiences may be transferred onto our leaders . . . and limitless others, too!

We may transfer onto them positively, or in an idealized fashion … thinking they are wonderful and can do no wrong, and will always take care of us well . . . blind to who they really are and what they are really doing, just like we were as tiny children with our parents.

In this past election . . . at the root of the situation was a deep, unconscious transference. The people elected in 2008 were seen, transferentially, as the good parents who would get us out of trouble . . . quickly . . . like with the wave of a magic wand. Since that wasn’t possible, and wouldn’t have been for any leader . . . on the young, transferential level, those same people are now experienced as the bad parents who didn’t do it right. And now the children are looking for new parents to take care of them.

How do we tell the difference between when we’re in transference with a leader and when our assessment of him or her is accurate?
To tell the difference to the core and in truth . . . we need to do our inner work with our own transference.
We need to find out if we’re transferring onto the specific leader and if so, who and what we’re transferring.
And then we need to do the work to resolve, dissolve, and heal the transference and the wound beneath it that drives it.
Only with the transference healed, will we be able to see clearly to choose and vote for leaders with clear seeing and knowing.
And only with the transference healed, will we be able to heal the whole process we have set up for choosing and electing our leaders.

We have a lot of work to do.
But it is so worthwhile to do it – for ourselves individually, for everyone in our lives that we affect, for our country, and for our world!*

© Judith Barr, 2010

*If you’d like help to explore your own transference, please feel free to email me at JudithBarr@PowerAbusedPowerHealed.com to explore the possibility of a consultation…and if you know others who would also like to explore theirs, I would gladly explore creating a workshop or group in which to do that.

AFTER THE ELECTION: TAKE TWO

10Nov2010 By Judith Barr

The election itself may be over, but the effects of the election and how it was carried out will not be over for a long time to come.
The awareness of this cycle of cause and effect continues to be with me.
And the feelings in response to the damage revealed and the damage caused are palpable.

The degree of lying in this election was mind-boggling. Heart-boggling!
How can so many candidates simply make up facts and stories and present them as if they were the truth . . . just to get what they want?
What does that say about them?
What does that say about their childhoods…
about what they did and didn’t have as children?
about what they felt they had to do to get what they needed?
about what their parents did to get what they needed . . . or simply wanted?

If the candidates lied to get into office, doesn’t that mean they would lie in office,
in the course of their carrying out their job . . .
or their own agenda?
How could it mean anything else?

What does it mean that we let it happen?
That we let the lies go on, knowing they were lies.
That some of us didn’t even know they were lies.
That some of us believed the lies.
What does it say about us and our childhoods and our wounds . . .
the lies we were told, the lies we told ourselves, the lies we thought we had to tell others?

And what does it mean for our country and our world?

TO SPEND OR NOT TO SPEND – AND ON WHAT?

08Nov2010 By Judith Barr

Among many things that are in my mind and heart after this past week’s election . . .
I keep coming back to the issue of money.

According to NPR’s Morning Edition, literally billions of dollars were spent on the election nationwide!*
Let’s look at some specifics.
Candidate for California governor, Meg Whitman, spent $71 million dollars of her own money on her campaign.*
Rick Scott, Florida gubernatorial candidate, spent about $73 million of his own money to win.**
Linda McMahon – spent at least 50 million dollars, mostly her own money, on her campaign in Connecticut . . . more than any other Senate candidate this year. **
Candidate for New York governor, Carl Paladino, spent $3 million of his own money in the last week of the election alone.*

Extraordinary amounts of money . . . spent on political contests and governmental seats.

Think of all that money.
With that amount of money . . .
Imagine how many people’s houses could be saved from foreclosure!
Imagine how many people could be helped to move from the streets into safe households.
Imagine how many people could be fed.
Imagine how many people could be given good medical care.
Imagine how many children could receive wonderful educations.
Imagine how many people could participate in psychotherapy to heal the wounds of their childhood to the root … so as not to perpetuate them onto another generation!
And imagine the impact on our country and our world if we all had access to the deep inner healing we all need!
Imagine!

What are we doing?
Where are our values?
How distorted our values have become!
Look at all we spend for things outside us!
What about investing in finding the distortions at the roots of our relationships with money?
What about investing in healing the wounds we live with that would cause us to spend all that money on a government position that lasts for just a few years!

* https://www.pressconnects.com/article/20101102/VIEWPOINTS03/11020338/Over-the-Top-Election-Spending

**
https://topnews360.tmcnet.com/topics/associated-press/articles/2010/11/07/114854-wealthy-self-funded-candidates-found-wins-elusive.htm