REFLECTIONS ON PANDEMICS

MORE PANDEMICS THAN YOU KNOW

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
Runtime
14:15
Description
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:

Healing Bullying to the Root:  A Unique Approach to a Painful Epidemic
https://judithbarr.com/portfolio/healing-bullying-to-the-root-a-unique-approach-to-a-painful-epidemic/

and

Violence: Finding and Healing the Roots from the Inside Out
https://judithbarr.com/portfolio/violencefinding-and-healing-the-roots-from-the-inside-out/

** 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  

© Judith Barr, 2020.

 

LAYERS AND LAYERS OF TRAUMA

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
Runtime
4:30
Description
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.

© Judith Barr, 2020

NO MORE TRAUMA!

UTILIZE THE TRAUMA TO HEAL THE TRAUMA …

NOT TO CREATE MORE TRAUMA

There is so much trauma in our world.
We’re having trouble facing the truth
of the causes and the consequences.
We need help to face the truth.
We need help to heal the trauma …
not just bandage it.
We need help to heal the trauma
to the roots and from the inside out.

Utilize the Trauma To Heal the Trauma... Not To Create More Trauma
Runtime
8:13
Description
This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2019/09/21/no-more-trauma/

NO MORE IGNORANCE; NO MORE DENIAL; NO MORE DELUSION!

The leaders in our country and world are acting out their childhood traumas on their countries, on our world, on our planet.

Impeaching them, electing someone else, a revolution … none of these is going to solve the problem. The next leaders will also act out their childhood traumas on the national and global stages.

And the leaders aren’t the only ones.  We, the citizens, act out our childhood traumas in our lives, in our families, in our schools, in our businesses, in our communities, in our countries, and in our world. 

Not only that, but also … we are connected to the leaders whose traumas somehow reflect or intersect with our own. This is unconscious and ends up causing us to decide and act in ways that aren’t really free, that certainly aren’t healthy, and that are often destructive. 

And as I’ve indicated in previous blog posts, this ends up causing us to abuse our children, abuse each other, abuse ourselves, and abuse our planet … either outright and directly, hidden and secretly, or perhaps more subtly, through enabling and collusion.

This will continue until we do our own inner healing to consciously and purposefully work through our young traumas.  

Here’s a step you can take:


Until we heal from our early traumas …
we are held captive –
by our own traumas …
by our leaders’ traumas …
by the traumas we’re trying to forget and bury,
while at the same time acting them out without awareness.

Until we heal from our ancient traumas …
we consciously and unconsciously try to
keep our traumas hidden and buried.
Yet they remain alive and active within us …
like volcanos waiting to erupt.

Until we heal from our long-ago traumas …
we are held hostage –
by the traumas we are creating and re-creating
in our lives,
in the lives of our children,
in the lives of our families,
in the lives of our countries and our world.

Have the courage to wake up …

Have the courage to understand this …
Have the courage to explore and find the roots of your own trauma …
and to heal it.

Here’s another step you can take:


Be aware that you are being triggered by what’s going on in our country and world today.
There are here and now situations that need to be addressed in the here and now.

But your unhealed childhood traumas interfere with your successfully contributing to real, sustained resolution of today’s problems for the long-term.

Be aware that those triggers are rooted in your childhood traumas.
Be aware that the feelings that are triggered are connected to your childhood traumas. 

Don’t act out on those feelings
and don’t bury them.
Have the courage to safely feel the feelings
the child you once were felt in the midst of your trauma.
Know that the child you once were is still alive inside you,
driving you without your realizing it …
until you heal his or her trauma.
 

NO MORE BLINDNESS; NO MORE DEAFNESS; NO MORE NUMBNESS

Here’s still another step you can take:

 

Get the help to end your blindness to what’s going on.
Get the help to end your deafness to what’s going on.
Get the help to end your numbness to what’s going on.
What’s going on within you …
What’s coming from you …
and what’s happening on our planet.

 Climate activist Greta Thunberg has said to the adults of our planet:

Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope.
But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful.
I want you to panic.
I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.
I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis.
I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.” *

What needs to be melted is our numbness.
I have been writing, teaching, urging, and working with people for years …
to feel their panic.
If people had felt the panic from their childhood traumas,
we wouldn’t be in such danger today in so many ways …
individually, communally, and globally.

So it may seem strange to hear a depth psychotherapist who is filled with love and compassion for people in pain to say something similar to what Greta Thunburg is saying:

 I want you to feel your panic from long, long ago …
I want you to find a safe way to feel that panic from your ancient traumas
so you will stop re-creating your trauma and panic in your life and in ours …
today, tomorrow, and in our future.
That, in fact, is the deepest hope!

Find a good therapist to help you safely feel your panic and safely utilize your traumas to heal your traumas. In that way you will collaborate with us all in healing our past traumas and saying ‘no’ to creating new traumas.

This is the work I do with people, day by day by day.
If I can help you, let me know.

Thank you and Many blessings to each of you … and to our planet . . .

Judith

*‘I want you to panic’: Climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, lays it on the line for world leaders

NOTE: To understand more about trauma and its course, read  https://judithbarr.com/2018/10/28/haunted-now-what/ from this time last year.

© Judith Barr, 2019

YOU MIGHT THINK IT’S OK* …

You might think it’s ok …
to yell at your children.
You might think it’s ok …
to hit your children.
You might think it’s ok …
to tease, ridicule, or humiliate your children.
I don’t think it’s ok.

You might think it’s ok …
to push your children to grow up,
before they’ve even been children.
Before they’ve even had a chance to develop.

You Might Think It's OK
Runtime
10:08
Description
This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2019/03/31/you-might-think-its-ok/

You might think it’s ok …
to believe thinking is more important
than any real feeling at all.
You might think it’s ok …
to disregard or forget the truth –
that in the first stages of their lives,
children cannot think at all;
they can only feel – physical, sensory, and emotional feelings.
You might think it’s ok …
to teach your children to ignore their feelings.
I don’t think it’s ok.

You may think it’s ok …
to enslave your children under any guise at all.
You may think it’s ok …
to brainwash your children under whatever pretense you choose.
I don’t think it’s ok.

You might think it’s ok …
to sexually abuse your children.
You might think it’s ok …
to force them.
You might think it’s ok …
to threaten them.
You might think it’s ok …
to seduce them.
I don’t think any of those things are ok.
I don’t think it’s ok to sexually molest, abuse, engage with children …
under any circumstance whatsoever.

You might think it’s ok …
to deny the abuse you experienced as a child.
You might think it’s ok …
to pretend it’s over and not affecting you.
You might think it’s ok …
to imagine or pretend the trauma you experienced as a child
is not impacting anyone at all today.
I don’t think it’s ok.
I don’t think it’s the truth.

You might think it’s ok …
to make-believe your taking things out on
children in your life today
has nothing to do with your having been abused as a child.
I don’t think it’s ok.

You might think it’s ok …
to justify all the reasons you think you have a right
to abuse the children in your life,
instead of taking responsibility for acting out your childhood traumas
on children in your life today.
I don’t.

You might think it’s ok …
to champion your excuses for abusing the adults in your life today, too,
instead of taking responsibility for acting out your early traumas on the adults
in your everyday current life.
I don’t.

You might think it’s ok …
to create trauma in someone else’s life today,
instead of owning and healing from the trauma in your own life –
today and long, long ago.
I don’t think it’s ok.

You might think it’s ok …
for you to be unconscious about trauma.
I don’t think it’s ok.

You might think it’s ok …
to normalize abuse and trauma.
I don’t.
You might think it’s ok …
to be blind to abuse and trauma.
I don’t.
You might think it’s ok …
to be deaf to abuse and trauma.
I don’t.
You might think it’s ok…
to be numb to abuse and trauma.
I don’t.
You might think it’s ok …
to refuse to do anything at all to help yourself
see, hear, and feel trauma.
I don’t think that’s ok.

I don’t think it’s ok to shut yourself off to your own trauma.
I don’t think it’s ok to disregard the trauma you create for others
when you ignore your own trauma.
I don’t think it’s ok for you to cause trauma for others near and far,
as a defense against recognizing, acknowledging, remembering,
feeling, and healing your own trauma.

You might think it’s ok …
for you to deny, discount and denigrate everything I’m saying.
I don’t.
I think your denigration is itself a red flag showing
everyone how you hide from your past trauma
and its consequences in our world – past and present.

I’m simply holding a mirror to you of yourself,
your culture,
and most of our world’s cultures.
A mirror of how we corrupt our power.
A mirror of how we perpetuate that misuse and abuse of our power …
up close and personally, as well as way out in the public arena and view.

You may think you’re entitled to do so …
because you have money, because you are bigger, because you’re well known, because you have power.
But I don’t think you’re entitled to do so.

You may think it’s ok …
for you to be a parent without doing your own inner healing.
I don’t.
You may think it’s ok …
for you to be a coach without doing your own inner healing.
I don’t.
You may think it’s ok …
for you to be a teacher without doing your own inner healing.
I don’t.
You may think it’s ok …
for you to be a spiritual teacher without doing your own inner healing.
I don’t.
You may think it’s ok …
for you to be a psychotherapist, counselor, or healer without doing your own inner healing.
I don’t.
You may think it’s ok …
for you to be a doctor without doing your own inner healing.
I don’t.
You may think it’s ok …
for you to be a business leader without doing your own inner healing.
I don’t.
You may think it’s ok …
for you to be a media guru without doing your own inner healing.
I don’t.
You may think it’s ok …
for you to be a celebrity without doing your own inner healing.
I don’t.
You may think it’s ok …
for you to be a government leader without doing your own inner healing.
But I don’t.

I don’t think it’s ok.
In each case you create more trauma for others –
for those who have already been traumatized and
for those who are being traumatized by you —
right now and in the future, short- and long-term future …
just because you were traumatized and refuse to tend to your own trauma.

You can make believe what you’re doing is ok.
But I know it isn’t ok.
You can make believe what you’re doing is the truth.
But I know it isn’t the truth.
You can make believe what I’m saying is fake.
But I know what I’m saying is the deep truth …
and is occurring throughout our land.**
You can make believe what you’re saying is love.
But I know it isn’t love.
Deep love and truth sees, hears, and feels the trauma you are causing
as a way to defend against the trauma you experienced as a child.

You might think it’s ok.
You might think it’s what you need to do to survive.
You might think it’s what you need to do to stay sane.
I think perhaps it was what you needed to do to survive and stay sane as a child.
But to do these things today ….
is irresponsible.
Cruel.
Harmful.
Destructive …
to you, to others, to our children, to our world, to our Earth.

The evidence of that is visible.
The proof of that is audible.
The verification of that is felt.
The confirmation of that is all around us.
The confirmation of that is within and all around us.

And every single day you think it’s okay for you …
to ignore, deny, and resist acknowledging this confirmation …
you perpetuate the problem,
you escalate the problem,
you increase the consequences for yourself and everyone else in our world.

You might think it’s ok.
I don’t.

 

*I thank Adam Schiff for the powerful words he used to convey his message. “You might think it’s ok.” These words resonated deeply to form the framework for my message. This is not political. It is, rather, about the trauma we’ve experienced and acted out on others.

Note:  I am a depth psychotherapist and midwife to the soul. In those capacities, I understand that we become more and more conscious as we open to it, as we develop the ability, readiness, and strength to safely remember, feel, deepen, heal, and grow. This is how I work with people.

But I also understand that there are people who have no intention whatsoever to do so. And that our cultures can become infected with that lack of intention, causing great harm to themselves and others.

Sometimes children run out into the street without looking – no awareness that they could cause their own harm or the harm of others. A caring adult will protect such children by pulling them out of the street. Sometimes adults in our world act in the same way. Someone needs to pull them out of the street … for their own sake and for the sake of others. And they need to alert others to the realization that there are adults acting like children, running out into the street and causing harm.

And someone needs to alert the others to look in a mirror and see how they, themselves, might be complicit in the harm.

**To learn more, read How Did We Get Here? Our Refusal to Know the Truth About Ourselves. Mysteries of Life, 2018.  https://judithbarr.com/how-did-we-get-here/  or Amazon: US | CA | UK | DE | ES | FR | IT

 

© Judith Barr, 2019.

AN OPEN LETTER TO CONGRESS

STOP! THIS ISN’T ABOUT POLITICS!

What’s going on in our country and our world is not about politics, although so many people think it is. It’s about our human defenses against feeling being acted out in the political arena day after day, hour after hour. People may insist it’s about politics and become addicted to politics as a new defense mechanism against what’s deep at the root.

An Open Letter to Congress - from Judith Barr
Runtime
11:59
Description
This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2019/03/07/an-open-letter-to-congress/
This isn’t about politics! It’s really about our fighting against remembering and feeling the traumas we’ve experienced – especially the ones from when we were children.  And it’s about that every time we defend against the past traumas that still live within us, we create new traumas that mirror the ancient ones.  And the new traumas we create have a traumatic impact on us, those around us, and even our world. And especially our children!

Sue Grafton, best-selling author of the alphabet mystery series, writes about this phenomenon in her book, O Is for Outlaw: “[When she built her current house,] was Laddie conscious of what she’d done or had she mimicked Duncan’s house inadvertently?  What is it that prompts us to reenact our unresolved issues? We revisit our wounds, constructing the past in hopes that this time we can make the ending turn out right.”

We, the people, do this all the time … individually, in our families, and communally on a larger scale … generation after generation after generation.  This is the true underlying cause of history repeating itself.

But instead of unconsciously and compulsively trying to make the ending turn out right, we need to heal the wound to its root. We need to become aware. We need the help to feel safely, our feelings from the trauma, and our other feelings, as well. We need the assistance to go through the feelings and come out the other side … without the need to hold those feelings at bay, without the resulting compulsion to act them out in our lives and our world, and without the blocks to our utilizing our minds, hearts, bodies and souls for healing, health, and well-being for all … that is now beyond our imagination. Only then can we help our children and generations to come with their feelings, with healing trauma, and with preventing future trauma.

Fred Rogers knew about feelings and their crucial place in our lives many decades ago, when he created his show, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and when he testified before Congress in 1969 in an appeal for public television funding.

Mister Rogers created a relationship with each child who watched his show. He helped children know they were unique and liked just the way they are. He wanted Congress to experience and know the importance of a child’s being safe and able to express feelings in healthy ways – for self and with others. He knew the connection between that safe expression of feeling and mental health. And he was very clear that “it’s much more dramatic that two men could be working out their feelings of anger – much more dramatic than showing something of gunfire.”

To give an example to the Congress people, Mister Rogers told them the words to a song:

“What do you do with the mad that you feel? When you feel so mad you could bite. When the whole wide world seems oh so wrong, and nothing you do seems very right. What do you do? Do you punch a bag? Do you pound some clay or some dough? Do you round up friends for a game of tag or see how fast you go? It’s great to be able to stop when you’ve planned a thing that’s wrong. And be able to do something else instead, and think this song —

“I can stop when I want to. Can stop when I wish. Can stop, stop, stop anytime…. And what a good feeling to feel like this! And know that the feeling is really mine. Know that there’s something deep inside that helps us become what we can.”

In our world today, our healthy relationship with our feelings is desperately needed. Just as desperately as when Mister Rogers was working to help us with our feelings, and maybe even more.

I help adults create a healthy relationship with their feelings on a daily basis …
to help them heal from past trauma …
to help them prevent re-enactments of those past traumas …
to help prevent trauma to their children,
and to help them live healthy, full and fulfilling lives.

It is my honor and privilege to do so.
And it is my deep intention to continue to do so.

In addition, now I have a dream …
I am sitting in Congress, speaking to those who are considered leaders in government.
I am telling these men and women:

Each one of us was somehow wounded long, long ago when we were young.
The wound was too painful for a child to bear.
So we buried it and our feelings, too.
And then we invented ways to keep it all buried,
without even realizing we were doing that.

We didn’t have people to help us with those wounds and that pain.
Either our parents hadn’t learned how from their own experience
or maybe they were the ones who wounded us.

Left buried beneath our awareness, those wounds and traumas happened again and again –
at different ages, with different people, in different forms.
At some point, without realizing it, we were creating or re-enacting them over and over again.
Some say, “in an attempt to make it turn out right.”
Some say, “in an attempt to bring it into our consciousness so undeniably that we would finally work to heal it.”
And some say “both.”

I say “both.”

Unless we understand this, we cannot change it.
Unless we say “yes” to learning about it –
both in our minds and experientially in our lives –
we cannot change it.

The acting out in our country as a defense against ancient wounds
has escalated and escalated and escalated.
The degree of escalation is immeasurable.
But all we need to do is look, and we can see it …
yes, we can see it.
It is all around us.

You are leaders in our country.
Just like everyone else, you are reenacting painful experiences from your childhood … without even being aware of it.
Just like everyone else, you are trying to hold the memories and the feelings at bay.
Just like everyone else, you are acting out to defend against the pain of your own “once upon a time.”
It is destructive beyond measure.

Just like everyone else, you have the opportunity to explore, discover, and heal –
both from the trauma long ago and the impact of your reenactments on yourself, our country, and our whole world.
You are leaders in our country.
You have the responsibility to do this healing.
You have the ethical, moral, humanitarian, and soul responsibility to do your part of the healing …
and while doing so to help set our country and our government in alignment again;
and while doing so to model something new, something courageous, something life- and world-changing for our citizens.

I know it is painful to face and feel the trauma from the past,
but better that than create more trauma in order to avoid the past trauma.

Our citizens need to do this same work.
We each have that responsibility.
 But if you are our leaders …
your responsibility is even greater!

Our people are counting on you.
Our children are counting on you.
Our whole world is counting on you.
I am counting on you.

I waken and know this dream is reality.
I waken and I am still holding you accountable.
I waken and I am still counting on you.

With many prayers that you will take this responsibility seriously
and do your healing work.

Judith Barr

© Judith Barr, 2019

 

 

KAVANAUGH – FORD: A WINDOW TO THE SOUL OF THE CULTURE

U.S. CULTURE TODAY, ANY OTHER CULTURE TOMORROW

Thomas – Hill. Kavanaugh – Ford. Republicans – Democrats. Men – Women.
And more …

This isn’t just a Supreme Court nomination. Most people realize that.
This isn’t just a political conflict. Many people realize that.
This isn’t just the fight of many women and some men to end misogyny and bring about healthy, respectful, human, heartful treatment of women by men. Many more people are realizing that.
And this isn’t just the insistence that women who were sexually abused be heard, believed and not blamed. Some are coming to that.
More are coming to that.

If you open your eyes more …
if you open your ears more …
if you open your mind more …
if you open your heart more …
you will know …
this is a window to the soul of our culture.

A window that has been closed and locked.
A window that has been boarded up –
as if to keep a storm in the outer world from blowing it in.
But truly, it has been boarded up to keep what is inside
hidden on the inside, kept secret, and buried deep within.
This window is now being blown from the inside out.

This is a window to the soul of our culture.
Where we have been hiding the trauma that lives deep within our culture.
Where we have built on top of that trauma layers and layers of defenses.
Where we have been hiding the trauma that lives –
not only in our government and government processes;
not only in our businesses and their day-to-day transactions;
not only in our religious organizations and houses of worship;
not only in our institutions of learning and their daily activities;
but also where we have been hiding the trauma that lives in our everyday families in our everyday homes –
where our children are born, live, and develop in trauma.

To an eye and a heart of someone who works with men and women who have been abused, neglected, and sexually abused as children, this whole process of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination and hearings, is a clear out-picturing of what goes on in a family in our country where one or more of the children have been sexually abused by an ”authority” in the family, and where even one of those children tries to tell the truth.

Tell the truth about having been sexually abused? Almost never as a child. Too scary. Too dangerous. But even as an adult … the family authority and very often the whole family – even extended family – circles the wagons to protect the abuser. That occurs in many ways. Two of the strongest are to enlist everyone to not believe the one who has been abused and to blame the abused one for what has happened. The child – now adult – victim of the sexual abuse is attacked, scapegoated, eliminated from the family. Or there may be a fight within the family, with some supporting and some attacking the person who was hurt. Often in either case the truth-teller is accused of having “ruined the family.”

To the eye and heart of someone who has for decades worked with the early trauma of men and women, I can see how that trauma is out-pictured in their own lives. And I can see how that trauma is out-pictured in the life of our country and our world. In the recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, I could see the early trauma of many of those who spoke. Some might not have seen angry outbursts and defenses as signs of early trauma. They might cover the real explanations and understandings with justifications and normalizations. But I know what I saw. And I saw the trauma beneath the boarded-up windows and doors.

The steps that have been taken to listen with respect to Dr. Ford and others who have been sexually abused … are, indeed, important steps. But they are not enough. They are not nearly enough.

We need to see the trauma that is showing itself in this process …
the trauma to Dr. Ford and any others sexually abused by the nominee.
the trauma to others who have come forth and may come forth about the sexual assaults they have experienced.
the traumas to children in our country who experience sexual assault –
and other assaults – every day in their homes.

And the trauma to the others in the picture.
The trauma to those who witness the assaults.
The trauma to those who react to the assaults.
The trauma to the family in which the assaults originally happen.
The trauma to those who commit the assaults.
For although some of us may wish to blame the abuser …
that person also has been traumatized in his/her life at some point
in development …
or the assaults would not have been committed by that person.

If we do not look at the trauma that is out-picturing itself in this process…
if we do not see the trauma that is out-picturing itself in this process …
if we do not hear the trauma that is out-picturing itself in this process …
if we do not feel the trauma palpable in this out-picturing that is occurring in the
context of our government …
we ourselves will help to continue such out-picturings,
while believing they are something else.
And we ourselves will help to continue such out-picturings,
while being unaware of our complicity.

This article describes just the tip of the iceberg of the depth exploration revealed In my recent book – How Did We Get Here?* – on the heart of where we are in the life of our nation and our world, and what is here for us to see and heal in our country … and in countries all over the world. The relationship between trauma and accountability is woven throughout the book.

© Judith Barr, 2018.

*Barr, Judith. How Did We Get Here? (Brookfield, CT: Mysteries of Life, 2018). Available through Amazon or JudithBarr.com.

 

SUMMER SOLSTICE: SHINING A LIGHT ON TRAUMA

It is not enough to respond to the trauma on the outer level.
It will not be enough until we respond to it and heal it deep within ourselves.

Today is the day of the Summer Solstice – the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere of the earth. The day that shines the most light on everything we need most to see and feel.  At this time in our world, we need to shine the light on trauma.

The United States is shining a light on trauma right now as a result of the heart-breaking, tragic, traumatic separation of children from their parents at the border … and the caging of children who have been taken away from their parents. Children, toddlers, babies, infants pulled away from their parents under a guise. Under the guise of bathing them. Under the guise of a law. Under the guise of an immigration policy. Under the guise of protecting our country. Under the guise of politics.

No guise at all can really hide the truth of what is causing this cruel travesty!  This is the out-picturing of the trauma experienced in childhood in the U.S. The trauma experienced in childhood that is still alive in people as they grow into “big people” … but not really adults … just big people defending against their childhood trauma, while acting it out in some way today.

This is the result of trauma: the trauma in those declaring, directing, supporting, justifying, and carrying out these excruciating, traumatizing acts. It is the result of trauma in those witnessing these monstrous things. It is the result of trauma in those who get pleasure out of watching it – up close and from afar via the media. It is the result of trauma in those who do nothing about it. It is the result of trauma in those who protest it, too.

Let’s go through these one by one.

What’s being done to the children and their parents at the border is traumatic to both.

*It is the result of trauma in those declaring, supporting, justifying, and carrying out these excruciating, traumatizing acts.

No one could declare and direct that children be taken from their parents and caged, unless they had themselves been traumatized as children. For example, taken from their parents’ arms; never able to truly bond with their parents; experienced some rupture to the attachment with their parents; or distorted efforts to achieve sought-after attachment with their parents that remained unsuccessful (like idealizing their parents or blaming themselves).  That kind of childhood trauma, unhealed, would very likely result in people acting out the trauma that they experienced on someone else – another child, a pet, or some one vulnerable and powerless at their hands once they became a “big person” (like they once were at someone else’s).

*It is the result of trauma in those declaring, supporting, justifying, and carrying out these excruciating, traumatizing acts.

No one could cage children (or cause them to be caged) unless they themselves had been literally or figuratively caged as children, or witnessed that happening to others.  Many people . . . more than most of us want to realize … grow up in homes where they experience abuse, neglect, some form of trauma, and as a result of how young and powerless they are, they feel caged, trapped, imprisoned.  They spend their young psyche’s energy trying to get out, trying to never get caged again, trying to trap someone else instead of their being trapped, or maybe even trying to help others get free from their own emotional cages.

*It is the result of trauma in those witnessing these excruciating, traumatizing things.

Many of those witnessing the trauma to children and parents at the border today also witnessed children in their families, extended families, and neighborhoods being traumatized long ago in their youth. That is traumatic to a child in its own way, different from experiencing the separation or caging directly themselves, but traumatic nevertheless. They may well respond the same ways today that they did as children long ago when they first witnessed the trauma.

*It is the result of trauma in those who get pleasure out of watching it – up close and also afar, via the media.

No one could get pleasure out of watching children being ripped from their parents’ arms or put in cages, unless they had experienced the same literally or figuratively when they were children.  And perhaps experienced the sadistic pleasure of the one who had done the ripping or caging with them.

The justification for the abuse: “if you didn’t cross the border into our country we wouldn’t have to take your children away.” This is the catch phrase of the abuser. “If you didn’t x, I wouldn’t have to y.” Or “if you did x, I wouldn’t have to do y.” And those giving these justifications are not only exposing their abusiveness, they are also revealing the abuse in their childhood by acting it out on others today.

*It is the result of trauma in those who do nothing about it.

No one could refuse to do anything at all about children being ripped from their parents’ arms or put in cages, unless they had somehow experienced abuse themselves as children, and were afraid to do anything from a child place within, or were numbed out by today’s mirror of what went on in their own young lives.

*It is the result of trauma in those who protest it, too.

Thank heavens there are people protesting the policy and actions today, in 2018. Thank heavens there are people who are in the process of working to stop these traumatizing practices at the border.

Perhaps those people are protesting today as they wish someone had protested for them when they were children being traumatized.  Perhaps those people are protesting today as someone did protest for them when they were abused as children.  And … perhaps those people are doing something in the outer world,  but are not doing the underlying inner work they need to do about their own experiences of childhood trauma.

In other words … whatever is occurring in the outer world today in 2018, even people trying to help these children and parents at the border, there is a dearth of people looking at, owning, taking responsibility for, working to heal and transform from their own early trauma. The result … the trauma that lies suppressed or repressed deep within haunts us forever till we do our own healing work. And the result … the trauma that lies within ends up – with or without our awareness – erupting and creating more trauma in the outer world.

Everybody has a stake in things staying this way. Everybody has a stake – hidden or out in the open – in the abuse continuing. The abuse in all halls of government. The abuse at the borders. The abuse in the home. The abuse in the family. There may be many variations of the stake, but they center around this:

* If the abuse continues today, people can continue to use the coping mechanisms and defenses they developed as children, in an effort to protect themselves when they were first abused.

*And if the abuse continues today, people can continue to hold at bay the feelings they experienced when they were going through the early trauma that was so much a part of their early development and their early lives.

If they hold the ancient trauma at bay, they can pretend they don’t feel it, even though they do, beneath their awareness.
If they hold the ancient trauma at bay, they can function as though it doesn’t haunt them every day.
If they hold the ancient trauma at bay, they can pretend – even to themselves – that they didn’t have any part at all in creating the traumas that are right here in our world today.
And they can continue creating and recreating the cycles for themselves and others to be traumatized today and tomorrow by the traumas each of them felt once upon a time long, long ago.

There is so much more I have to say, but for right now the essence is this . . .
The trauma we are increasingly experiencing in our country and our world today is not caused by some single leader or some handful of leaders – although they are certainly doing their part in creating the trauma today and tomorrow.
The trauma we are increasingly experiencing is caused by us . . .
you and you and you and you and you …
All of us, each of us.
And we all need to do our own inner work with healing the trauma we have experienced …
or know that we will continue to create more and more trauma in our country and our world.

Wake up.
Look in the mirror.
Look at the out-picturing we are being given of the children and parents at the border.
Find someone – a committed, integritous, depth psychotherapist – who does their own work healing their own trauma and engage them to help you with yours.

Wake up.
The time is now.
Do your own healing work.

© Judith Barr, 2018

Tornados: Trauma Experienced … A Preview

Tornados: Trauma Experienced, Witnessed, and Then What?
A Preview

A month ago, on a Tuesday late afternoon, much of Connecticut and parts of New York were hit by tornados and other storms. The physical damage was mind- and heart-boggling – to people, homes, businesses, property, trees, all utilities, and other physical damage I can’t name right now. The emotional trauma was also mind- and heart-boggling.

Everyone who was affected in any way experienced trauma … even people who had to drive home during or after and experience all the damage. Drives that were usually 10 minutes, took over 2 hours. Drives that normally took 20 – 30 minutes, took 5 ½ hours. The repair people experienced trauma, too. My heart has always been open to people who have experienced trauma – childhood, current, that caused by people, and that caused by nature … My heart opens even wider now.

I was in the middle of leading a 6-day intensive here when the tornado struck. Everyone is safe, thank goodness! I am in the process of working with the individuals and the group to help heal the current day impact of the tornado trauma, as well as the ancient traumas the tornado triggered in people. What a difference this is making – and will make – for these people. And what a difference this would make for our world … if we all worked with our ancient trauma.

Untended, unhealed, our ancient traumas create more trauma in our current day world. We can see and feel that in the world today.  Too many of us just try to get back to some illusory “normal,” try to get back to functioning, try to keep ourselves numbed and anesthetized … so as not to feel the pain of the trauma. But that is exactly what causes the trauma to haunt us. And that is precisely what causes our trauma to create more trauma in our world today.

It is up to us – the adults, the parents, the teachers, the healers, the leaders – to tend to and truly heal our own ancient traumas; to make sure we don’t cause trauma to our children (or anyone else) with our unhealed trauma; and to help our children truly heal from any trauma they experience at home with us, at school, or elsewhere in our world.

As you go into your summer months, take this call with you. Take this consciousness with you. And please … for your sake, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of our world … do your own inner healing work related to your trauma.

This is what I do with people every day … help them heal their trauma and its impact on their lives, other people, and our world.  I hope this article preview is at least one way I can help you as you heal your trauma.

Many blessings from my heart to yours …

Judith