emotional trauma

IN LIGHT OF THE SANDY HOOK TRAGEDY . . .

By Judith Barr

Below is a copy of an email I have sent out to media all over our country. For years I have been working to help heal the misuse and abuse of power and the violence that accompanies it – both blatant and subtle.

Some wonderful people in the media have been interested in helping and have interviewed me. A few have talked with me on air again and again. But as we’ve witnessed and experienced more and more public violence, it seems the media – as a mirror to society – has wanted to know less and less what is at the root of violence and how to heal it.

I will continue to put the truth out there. Perhaps what I’ve written below will call to you to send to media in your area. Or perhaps it will call you to learn and explore more yourself.

May we take real and deep steps to heal violence to the root in our country and our world.

Timely Interview Offering: UPDATE: Violence Now in Connecticut – Why Don’t We Want to Know?

Hello . . .

Individually and as a nation, we have just begun to deal with our grief over the recent mall shooting in Oregon…when yet again we are faced with another shocking and tragic event: an elementary school shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut…in my own “backyard.”

As we begin to feel another wave of grief over this most recent tragedy, we must ask ourselves: Why does it seem like people don’t want to discover the roots of violence and truly heal it? How close to home does it have to get before we open our minds and hearts to look, learn, and heal?

My name is Judith Barr, and I am a Brookfield, CT psychotherapist and author of Power Abused, Power Healed. In addition to contributing to HuffingtonPost.com, I have been interviewed in a variety of radio, TV, and print media, including, the nationally syndicated The Joey Reynolds Show, Culture Shocks With Barry Lynn, America Tonight with Kate Delaney, One On One With Steve Adubato, Financial Crisis Talk Center with Ken Gross and David Einstandig, The NAPFA Advisor, Leadership Excellence, and The Fenton Report.

If you want to take a step toward truly helping in the healing, one way would be for us to do an interview together. In that interview, I would explore with you for your audience or readers:

· What we don’t want to know about the roots of violence in any of its many forms.

· How our not knowing and exploring those roots helps to feed the violence and keep it going and growing.

· How we can help ourselves and each other turn the tides of violence around, not in a shallow, surface way, but to the root.

· That violence is not just an individual or community issue, but rather a national, multi-national, and global issue.

I look forward to hearing from you, to exploring the possibilities, and to arranging an interview.

Thank you,
Judith Barr, author, Power Abused, Power Healed
JudithBarr@PowerAbusedPowerHealed.com
https://judithbarr.com/power-abused-power-healed/

Beneath The Violence in Aurora, Colorado…

By Judith Barr

The tragedy yesterday in Aurora, Colorado, is heartbreaking. The cauldron of feelings it must have stirred in people in the theater, those left in grief, and those watching and hearing about it . . . also heartbreaking. But the cauldron of feelings in the ones who commit the acts of violence and destruction are also necessary to consider. We need to let those feelings break our hearts, too.

How many times are we going to have violent, destructive attacks – in our country and our world – and not look for the deepest root? How many times are we going to just look at why the shooter did what he did? How many times are we only going to look at computer games, television shows, movies  – or other superficial things – as possible causes? How many times are we going to call them “bad” and that’s it? How many times are we going to split hairs about who is mentally ill and who is just looking for revenge? Revenge is a sign of something unhealed.

Any person (male or female) who commits an act of violence and destruction is deeply wounded and needs help. No one is born destructive. Nobody is born violent. Not even Hitler. We are born and wounded by our families, communities, society. And we all need to look at this, to understand this.

Any person who commits an act of violence and destruction is deeply wounded and needs help. He needs help with feelings he has never had the help to build the capacity to feel and know what to do with. And how is he going to get that help in a family where the parents don’t have that capacity – were never helped, themselves, to be able to feel and use their feelings well. And how is he going to get that help in a society that doesn’t have that capacity to feel and use feelings well. A society in fact, that is complicit in numbing feelings, burying feelings, moving away from feelings any way possible. A society, for example, that supports taking medication to stop the emotional pain, instead of working to find the root of the pain and heal it. A society that allows its insurance companies to limit the kinds of therapy and the number of sessions for someone to do their healing. Limits that are bizarre in terms of any real healing being done. And therapies that can only possibly, perhaps, help the symptoms temporarily – like bandaids – never truly resolve the wound and its inner and outer consequences.

How is he going to get that help in a society that calls certain people ‘mentally ill,’ and refuses to look at the wounding in us all and in our society?

If we want this violence to stop, we’re going to need to find a way to look at our own wounding – individual and societal – build our capacity to feel our feelings healthily and tell which feelings we need to safely explore for healing and which feelings we need to act on safely, and do the deep inner work to heal our wounds that caused us suffering, continue to cause us suffering, and will continue to cause us unnecessary suffering until we heal them.

NOTE: If you have read this and think I’m making excuses for those who are violent and destructive, or not holding them accountable, you have completely misunderstood or distorted the purpose and meaning of my words. I hope you will read it again and open your mind and your heart, so that you can see and feel my efforts to help us go beneath the surface to the levels from which we can truly help ourselves heal this kind of destructiveness in our world.

© Judith Barr, 2012

SANDUSKY – MORE THAN A SCANDAL

By Judith Barr

The striking statement from former FBI director Louis Freeh caught the media and the public on Friday, July 13:

“Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State. The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.” *

The report, thank goodness, supports truth and justice. But if we only look at this report, this act of justice, this scandal . . . we miss what’s really going on deeper than this one scandal and broader than this one scandal. In fact, deeper than any single scandal or even the series of scandals that have been coming out into public awareness.

The root of the problem is this: sexual abuse is occurring far more than most of us can imagine – certainly in our culture here in the US, and I would venture to say all over the world. And the consequences of sexual abuse are far worse for the individuals who are sexually abused and for society as well . . . especially when the enormity of the occurrence is hidden. Especially when the severity of the experience and its effects are denied. Especially when the destructiveness of the abuse and its aftermath is covered up. Especially when the horror of the domino process of the event and its repercussions is normalized. And all of this occurs not only in the Sandusky scandal, not only in the many recent public scandals – the Sandusky scandal, the Horace Mann scandal, the Chabad rabbi sexual scandal in Australia, the sexual abuse scandals worldwide in the Catholic Church, to name only a few – but in the individual cases of sexual abuse that are never reported, never investigated, and that never come to truth and justice.

Keep reading . . . this is vitally important for all of us to know and understand.**

Freeh said there was a “cloistered culture at Penn State where doing what was right crumbled under the weight of fear at all levels.” This doesn’t only happen at institutions like Penn State. This occurs in families where children are sexually abused every single day and everyone is afraid to know or tell.  And the family is a “cloistered culture where doing what is right crumbles under the weight of fear at all levels.”

At the top, Freeh said, Paterno, Curley, Schultz and president Graham Spanier cowered at the notion of bad publicity for the university and its heralded football program. At the bottom, Freeh said, the janitors who witnessed Sandusky abusing a boy in a campus shower in November 2000 feared being fired if they alerted authorities. This doesn’t occur in institutions alone. This exists in every family where sexual abuse is occurring and some of those at the top – whether they be a parent, an older sibling, a grandparent, an aunt or uncle – “cower at the notion of bad publicity [and humiliation and other consequences] for the family.”  And in every family where at the bottom those who witness or overhear the sexual abuse . . . fear being threatened, attacked, or abandoned.

“They were afraid to take on the football program,” Freeh said. “They said the university would circle around them. It was like going against the president of the United States. If that’s the culture at the bottom, then God help the culture at the top.” Yes, tragically this happens in institutions – universities, private schools, coaching academies, religious institutions, and more.  But just as tragically, perhaps even more tragically since it can be so much more hidden, this exists in families. I have worked with many who have been sexually abused in their childhoods. The very real fear of revealing what happened to them, even if they weren’t threatened by the abuser, includes a foreground terror of “taking on the family.” They knew and know the family will circle around the abuser and the parts of the family that are in denial. And unfortunately, that happens more often than not. One person, the one who has been abused and decides to expose the truth, is too often attacked – emotionally and verbally if not physically – made out to be the “bad one” or the “crazy one,” and exiled from the family. In a family, the abuser usually has so much power – emotionally, the family members are so often in thrall to the abuser as though they were all children — that going against the abuser is to family members similar to going against the president of the U.S.

Are you getting the gravity of the situation? The breadth and depth of the situation? We are seeing scandals in institutions because of the enormity of the sexual abuse that’s occurring in families. The enormity of the sexual abuse that’s occurring in families and not being stopped. Not being brought out into the open for truth and justice. And definitely not being healed. 

Unhealed sexual abuse can cause many problems. Two major problems among them . . . the ones who were abused repeat the sexual abuse, acting it out upon others as it was acted out on them; or the ones who were abused are frozen in the face of sexual abuse around them and participate in the collusion when the next cycle of sexual abuse occurs – perhaps a generation down the line or in some other context they are part of.

In a recent panel discussion on the American porn industry, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry acknowledged something I’ve rarely heard in the media. The essence of what she said was that there are “bad things happening in porn in terms of sex trafficking and vulnerability” . . . and “the fact is that all of us are complicit.”*** A fellow panelist responded, “That’s a great point,” and went on to something else. The whole panel needed to stay on that note of complicity. We needed the panel to go deeper with that acknowledgment. We all need to go deeper with the issue of complicity.

If we have more sexual abuse in our world than we can imagine, then it is more than likely that more than we can imagine of what we live with in our society is rooted in sexual abuse. Pornography. Sexual harassment. Sexual Addiction. Prostitution. Rape. Sex Slavery. How many of the victims of these things were sexually abused as children? How many of the perpetrators and providers of these things were sexually abused as children? How many of the consumers of these things were sexually abused as children? My instinct and experience tells me . . . far far far more than we could imagine. Far far far more than we are, perhaps, willing to imagine.

And what do we do about all this sexual abuse? We help keep it hidden, we deny it, we cover it up, we turn away from it, we normalize it. We let insurance companies interfere with the healing that could actually occur – both individually and societally. We let insurance companies have personal information that will be accessible forever about people who have already been deeply exposed, wounded, and taken advantage of. We let insurance companies limit the depth of healing and the extent of healing by paying for only short term therapy that treats the symptoms and makes people “functional” . . . but leaves the memories and feelings deep inside the abused person to haunt them and drive them in ways that aren’t good for them or the world. 

By allowing this, we let more and more new forms of quick-fix bandaid therapy be developed so that their originators and followers can do the new therapies and be paid by the insurance companies. I’m not saying that all insurance companies always interfere and never help. Just like with everything else, the insurance companies can misuse and abuse their power, or they can utilize their power for magnificent good. And I’m not saying all therapists gravitate to the quick fixes in order to get paid by the insurance companies. Thank goodness there are some integritous therapists who are truly committed to helping people heal to the root.

And what do we do about all this sexual abuse? We allow the pharmaceutical companies to buy their way into the business of healing and the insurance industry so that one of the quick-fix bandaids is pharmaceutical drugs. I’m not saying medicine is never an aid to someone’s journey toward healing. It is just not always needed; it always has consequences; and it is definitely not the vehicle that accomplishes the underlying healing. 

In other words . . . what we do about all this sexual abuse is to collude – whether knowingly or not – in preventing the healing of sexual abuse. We are complicit in preventing the real healing of individuals. And in preventing the healing of sexual abuse in our world.  We may not want to see this. We may not want to know this. We may not want to acknowledge our part in this. That in itself makes us part of the problem. Anyone of us who interferes with the healing is part of the problem. Anyone of us who allows interference with the healing is part of the problem.

I have been a depth psychotherapist for 37 years. Included in my practice for most of that time have been people who were abused sexually as children. I know it is possible to do the depth root healing. It takes deep commitment. It takes a trustworthy therapist with deep integrity, with solid boundaries, with an ongoing commitment to his or her own inner healing to the root . . . that is what’s needed to be able to go with someone who has been sexually abused in childhood all the way to the core healing. (A therapist cannot guide or even go with a client to depths the therapist has not gone him/herself.)

And every time one person does his/her own depth healing, that person has a huge impact on society. The healing needs to be done one person at a time. But the individuals who are healing from their own experiences of sexual abuse cannot accomplish this alone. Every single one of us can help both with the individual healing and the healing of society . . . if we do our own healing. If we stop allowing ourselves and others to interfere with the true healing that is possible. If we do our own healing, we will stop being complicit with the sexual abuse that exists not only in our families but also in our communities – in person and second-hand, like online.

Please! Look at yourself honestly. Please do what you need to for your own deep healing. Please take a stand to stop others from interfering with real healing . . . individually and communally. The health of many people depends upon you. . . many more people than you can imagine. The health of our society depends upon you. . . as well as every single one of us.  And not just sexually but on all levels of our being. The health of our world depends upon you. . . as well as every single one of us.

We are not powerless. We need to do the healing to find and claim our power and use it well . . . not only in behalf of ourselves but also in behalf of us all.

© 2012, Judith Barr

*https://articles.philly.com/2012-07-13/news/32664511_1_freeh-report-sandusky-schultz-and-curley
**Quote source: https://citizensvoice.com/news/freeh-s-scathing-report-details-cover-up-at-psu-1.1342879

***https://video.msnbc.msn.com/melissa-harris-perry/48105138#48105138 (4:11 TO 4:19)

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

This month, commit to truly become a part of the healing so needed in our world. You can start by helping to spread the word about how we can truly heal sexual abuse, truly and to the root . . .
If you’ve never commented on a blog before, comment on this one.
If you’ve never passed a blog post on to other people, pass this one on to everyone you know.

If you’ve never let an organization know about the link between individual and communal healing and the possibilities for assisting, let your favorite organization know.

If you’ve never looked at and worked to heal the roots of how you might be complicit, do that exploration and healing now.

We can heal sexual abuse – in its many forms – in our world . . . individually, communally, nationally and globally, if we are committed to healing to the root!

Why Did We Let S&P Scare Us?

By Judith Barr

Some may be done with the S&P downgrade of the United States’ credit rating.

But I’m not.

Although it was awhile ago linearly, it’s not over in its impact . . . and it’s still having an impact on me! Enough to write about. And I hope it’s still having an impact on you! Enough to read, think, feel, and talk about. So here goes . . .

Why did we let the downgrade of our country’s credit rating by S&P scare us so much? So much that our market dropped over 500 points the next day? And a couple days later? And a couple days after that? Why did we pay attention to this rating agency? Couldn’t we see they have no credibility?

Strike #1 against their credibility: S&P (along with other credit rating agencies) gave AAA ratings to subprime-backed securities . . . the ones that caused Ugly Monday, September 15, 2008.

Strike #2 against their credibility: S&P (and other credit rating agencies) gave Lehman Brothers a risk rating of ‘satisfactory’ a mere quarter before it collapsed.

Strike #3 against their credibility: S&P got their math wrong in their justification of their US downgrade . . . overstating the debt by approximately $2 trillion.

Three strikes, S&P, and you’re out!

Even the head of S&P, Deven Sharma, has stepped down as a result of too many strikes.

With three very obvious strikes, and likely many that aren’t so obvious, why would we be okay with their staying in the game for strike 4 . . . and beyond?

Why would we give the power to affect our investments, markets, country, lives, responses . . . to a group of people who’ve made repeated mistakes that caused such harm to our citizens, our country, and even our world already? Why would we allow such misuse, if not abuse, of power to continue?

This is a huge, crucial question for us, especially now. For us as individuals, as a nation . . . and as a world.

The question again: Why would we be okay with allowing a person or group to have a destructive impact on us? Especially when they’ve done the same thing a number of times before that we know about? And who knows how many times that we don’t know about?

Put another way: Why would we allow a person or a group to abuse their power with us? To abuse us? This is a question explored regularly with many people who come to work with me. It’s also a question we need to ask ourselves not only in our individual lives, but also in our communal lives – in our families, communities, houses of worship, schools, in our states, countries, and world. Our lives and our sanity may depend on our asking and answering this question.

Let’s begin to answer this question . . .

We could follow a round-about path, or we could go straight to the core. In this time when our deeply exploring and finding the truth about power is so crucial . . . are you open to going straight to the core with me?

Our relationship with power – its misuse and abuse and its magnificent use for true good – begins at conception and forms itself unconsciously within us from that moment through our childhoods. . . and into our adult lives.

Let’s take two imaginary people, a man and a woman, Janet and Nathan, and ask questions that could apply to both of them. How were they conceived? Consciously or unconsciously? In real love? In the mask of love? With clear intention or ulterior motive? In a situation where one person took advantage of the other? In a cycle of abuse – did the act of conception come during the abuse phase of the cycle or the remorse phase of the cycle?

However they were conceived, that was Janet’s and Nathan’s first experience of power. And that will drive them, perhaps haunt them, likely without their even being aware of it.

  • So driven, will they respond to themselves, each other, and others consciously? Unconsciously? With real love? With the mask of love? With clear or ulterior intention? With advantage-taking? In the cycle of abuse?
  • Will they treat others and allow others to treat them in these ways in their homes? In their schools? In their houses of worship? In their jobs? In their communities? In their states? In their country? In their world?

Lots of very important questions! We cannot become aware of our relationship with power without these questions. Today, let’s ponder and feel into these questions as a step in exploring this crucial theme. A theme that addresses how we deal with power as individuals and as groups – from our own family to our global community. Exploring this theme not only helps individuals heal by looking in the mirror of the larger more public events and world, but also helps our world heal by encouraging each citizen to explore and heal, one individual at a time. The cumulative effect is more powerful than you can imagine!

© Judith Barr, 2011

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

As we navigate these often turbulent times in our country and our world – economically, politically, environmentally, physically, mentally, emotionally, and more – we all need to explore the roots of our relationship with power . . . not only in relation to how we use our power through our own actions, but also in relation to ceding our power to those who may not hold our best interests in heart and mind . . . not only in relation to how we respond to being and feelingpowerless, but also in relation to any ways in which we may consciously and unconsciously contribute to our being and feeling powerless.

Every single step each of us can take to explore our relationship with power will help us and those we touch in our daily life as well as those all over our country and our world.

As you can see from this month’s article, this is a very deep journey…You may want to seek the help of a good, integritous therapist to help you navigatethis journey. If you need help to explore the deep roots of your relationship with power, please feel free to contact me.

RECESSIONS,REVOLUTIONS,TSUNAMIS,AND POWERLESSNESS – INSIDE AND OUT

By Judith Barr

There is so much occurring in our world today. So much that stirs up deep primal feelings in each of us. Shock. Anger. Anxiety. Fear. Lack of Control. Powerlessness.

What is it about powerlessness that makes us quake in our boots? How about . . . It’s the first thing we experienced when we began to move from womb-held and protected to birthed-on-earth baby. Tiny, helpless, totally unable to take care of ourselves. Waters broke and flowed over us. The ground beneath us opened up. We were pushed and pulled into and through a passageway that felt like it was swallowing us up, consuming us, trapping us. Shocked and terrified, perhaps we froze; perhaps we tried to escape; or maybe we found a way inside ourselves to resist and protest this movement that was much bigger than we were. Where once we had plenty – all that we needed – then we didn’t have enough of anything – nourishment, warmth, what we needed to breathe, connection.

No wonder we are in such a primal state right now! If reading this helps you understand and hold yourself better as you feel all your feelings, that’s wonderful. But this is an opportunity for much more than simply understanding. It is an opportunity to feel those primal feelings consciously and work through them from your own early life . . . so they won’t shake you to your core tomorrow, the next day, the month after, the following year.

It is my deep hope that this post will inspire you to do the deepest work you possibly can with these feelings. It will help you personally. It will help everyone with whom you come into contact. And it will help our suffering world.

© Judith Barr 2011

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

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!

© Judith Barr, 2011

IF WE ARE EVER GOING TO HAVE A CHANCE OF HEALING OUR SOCIETY FROM THIS KIND OF VIOLENCE. . .

By Judith Barr

People keep asking ….
How can this happen?
How can someone do such a thing?

People keep talking ….
For example, Angela Leach, a representative of the American Civic Association said . . . “Whatever drove this individual to do what he did I cannot possibly fathom.” 

People blame and have contempt . . .  “He must have been a coward; he decided to end his own life  when he heard police sirens” – Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski.

People feel and try to figure out what to do . . . “I am heartbroken for the families who survived this tragedy,” Obama said, “and it just underscores the degree to which in each of our countries we have to guard against the kind of senseless violence that the tragedy represents.”

But guarding against it won’t prevent it.

People don’t seem to want to look inside themselves and see how we each contribute and how we each need to be part of the healing.

It begins in our childhood…

Children are afraid to feel . . . their feelings in response to pain and trauma are too much for little children to feel; so they bury the feelings and find a way to escape from the pain. When they grow up they are still trying to keep their feelings buried and escape from the pain.

Other people doing the same thing don’t help! When you are trying to keep something in your own psyche buried, you often have contempt for someone else who is dealing with that same thing openly.  You may call a woman a “drama queen” if she expresses her feelings. You may call a man a “wuss” (or worse) if he openly expresses his feelings. If you are afraid to need, you might have contempt for someone else who shows their need openly…You may term them “needy”. Or if you are afraid to ask for help, you might be contemptuous of someone who asks for help (calling them “helpless” or “incompetent” when they do.)  With this additional layer … adults make children and other adults afraid to feel and express their feelings.

Our world is in such a state now. There is so much fear of feeling that even in the name of helping people many doctors and even therapists give people medication so they don’t have to feel  . . . and teach them ways to manage their thoughts and feelings, instead of working them through.

So … we aren’t taught how to be with our feelings, without either repressing them or acting out on them. We aren’t taught how to express them safely. We aren’t taught how to discern which feelings are those we need to act on and which feelings are those we need to follow into our own hearts for healing.  

Say you’re in your home and you smell smoke. You’re afraid. If that is here and now fear, you will act on it to find the source of the smoke and see if it’s a fire that needs to be put out. Or someone else has just started the wood stove for today, usually your daily task in the house.

But let’s say when you were a child, your house burned down. You smelled the smoke but were so young you didn’t know what it was. Now you smell smoke, and you panic, even the smell of someone having lighted a match to light a candle.  You may go find out if there is danger in the here and now, but the panic you feel is from long ago.

We escape from the pain and the fear . . . just like we did as children.   We probably have many ways to escape. We may know some of them, and we may not be aware of others.  Some everyday escapes:  using alcohol, drugs, work, sex, “tuning out,” exercise, watching TV, escaping into a book.  Even more serious escapes:  running away (when the going gets tough – from a relationship, from a job, from therapy), killing oneself, killing someone else, going crazy…

If we are not helped, held, comforted, and responded to when we feel our feelings as children, how can we be expected to be able to bear them as adults?

If we are not helped to learn how to feel and express our feelings as children, how can we be expected to be able to feel them and express them safely as adults?

If we are not helped to know which feelings are here and now, needing to be acted upon, and which feelings are from our childhood, needing to be healed, how can we be expected to know the difference as adults?

If we are not helped to build the capacity to stay with our feelings and not act out on them, how can we be expected to do that as adults?

There are a lot of outer things people may think of to do in situations like the Binghamton tragedy. There are a lot of people who may think prayer or action is the thing to do. I can tell you from experience . . . in addition to prayer and action, people need to learn to do their inner work with their own feelings – both from long ago in their childhoods and here and now . . . if we are ever going to have a chance of healing our society from this kind of violence.

My hope, my intention, my prayer…is to help reweave the fabric of our society, so the parents can teach their children something new because the parents are doing their own inner work of psyche and soul.

(c) Judith Barr, 2009