Pastor Terry Jones – One Person Can Affect The Entire World . . . Even If We Never Know How

17Apr2011 By Judith Barr

Since the beginning of my training as a psychotherapist, and maybe before, I’ve known that one person can change the world. One person’s actions, but also one person’s thoughts and feelings. That person’s own immediate world built in and around him or her. That person’s extended world of relatives, coworkers, and everyone he or she comes into contact with through a day or a week. And on and on and on into society and our world.

A clear, destructive, and dangerous example of this occurred on March 21, 2011, when Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Florida – the same Terry Jones who threatened to hold an International Burn A Koran Day on September 11, 2010, and then after the world response said he would not go through with it – carried out his threat to burn a copy of The Koran, the holy book of Islam. Jones held a mock trial, execution and burning of the Koran, with 30 people witnessing. He claimed the holy text of Islam was guilty of crimes.

Terry Jones’ took the action he took . . . “the consequences be damned.” His action has caused more damage than perhaps we will ever know. Certainly we do know that after he burned the Koran, 12 United Nations workers in Afghanistan were killed by demonstrators protesting Jones’ action. Nine other people were killed and 90 injured in a separate demonstration in Kabul.

Terry Jones’ behavior and all the rhetoric around it were filled with prejudice. Prejudice he learned and developed where in his early life? But it was also filled with more. What wounding in his own life was Pastor Jones acting out? Who hated Terry as a little one? Who declared him as just a tiny boy “guilty of crimes”? Who held a mock trial for little Terry Jones? Who threatened to burn him as a child? Literally or figuratively? Who gave him a chance to defend himself, but when he was unable did something violent to him . . . as violent as burning his sacred self? Who acted out the hate and fear and woundedness of their own childhood(s) on Terry Jones many long years ago? And what were the consequences on Terry and others in that person’s world? And now this is the consequence on the Koran, the world’s Muslims, our country, and our world!

We are all sacred. Wound one of us and that wounding gets passed on again and again, from generation to generation . . . until someone says ‘enough’ and does his or her own healing to the root. Until we all say ‘enough’ and do our own healing to the root!

Even A King Needs Help . . .

07Feb2011 By Judith Barr

Recently, I saw the movie The King’s Speech. A touching, powerful example of how politics and psychology are woven together! It’s also a beautiful portrayal of the hard work and the full commitment it takes in a healing venture – on both sides, that of the therapist and that of the client.

I don’t want to give anything in the movie away . . . and I don’t need to in order to offer what I have to say. The essence: the Duke of York, later King George VI, stammers; in order to fulfill his job, his potential, and his destiny, he needs the help of a speech therapist. The therapist knows you can’t heal stammering by mechanics alone; you have to go deeper.

You see . . . even a King needs help to work through the wounds of his childhood. And if a King needs help, so do we all. Even if the symptom in us that reveals the wound isn’t stammering. Even if the symptom in us that is the out-picturing of the wound is an addiction of any kind, one that is right out in the open for all to see, or one that is well hidden – drugs, alcohol, food, sex, gambling, work, exercise, television, the computer or something else. Even if the symptom in us that is the divining rod to the wound at the root is grief, heart break, fierce independence and competitiveness or, on the other side, intense dependence and inability to function the way our potential indicates we could. Even if the symptom in us that points to the wound is our endless hunger to fill the void within us, or the unquenchable thirst for power that hides a fear of powerlessness at our core.

No matter whether others can see your wound or not. No matter whether you yourself are aware of suffering from your wound or not. No matter whether you are even conscious of having been wounded or not, even you have wounds that need to be healed . . . in order to fulfill your job, your potential and your destiny.

One of the innumerable parts of the movie that I treasure, is when the therapist tells his client, that he, the client, is the bravest man the speech therapist knows. I feel that way about the people who work with me as their therapist. They are the most courageous people I know!

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.

IF YOU BELIEVE “THERE’S NO WAY FOR EVERYONE TO WIN” … READ THIS! UPDATED

11Jul2010 By Judith Barr

Recently I included the article below, If You Believe There’s No Way for Everyone to Win, in my newsletter. In response, someone who reads my newsletters sent me an email about this article. With her permission, in this post I share with you the heart of the interchanges she and I had. They expand and deepen the understandings in the article. You can find the update right below the article.

IF YOU BELIEVE “THERE’S NO WAY FOR EVERYONE TO WIN” … READ THIS!

AND IF YOU BELIEVE “THERE IS A WAY FOR EVERYONE TO WIN” … READ THIS!

Recently, a well-known news commentator* – remarking on a comment by Bill Clinton that the only way for us to go is to make sure everyone wins – emphatically stated, “THERE IS NO WAY FOR EVERYONE TO WIN!”

Would you, or do you, follow someone who made a decision that in life there’s no way for everyone to win?

And, whether or not you follow a commentator who believes this…do you wonder where a belief like this comes from…and how it can affect our lives and our world?

When I heard this comment from Glenn Beck,* it struck me so . . . as something so familiar. It sounded just like things I’ve heard from my clients so many times over the years. This statement – There is no way for everyone to win – is a classic example of what I call an “early decision.”

I’ll explain . . .
When we are children, and we suffer pain or trauma that’s too much for a child to bear, we bury the pain and defend against it by making unconscious decisions about ourselves, others, our world, and life in general. Now when we are children, an “early decision” may be a life-saver . . . it saves us from agonizing pain, perhaps emotionally, perhaps also physically. But as we grow, if we are unaware of this unconscious decision, and if we haven’t healed it, it can haunt us from our own underground, affecting our feelings, thoughts, attitudes, behavior, and choices. The important thing to remember is that this is unconscious. We are unaware this is happening inside us, and unaware that early decisions like this are driving our lives.

Here’s an example. . .
Let’s say you’re a child. Your father files for divorce because of your mother’s alcoholism. However it unfolds, you and your sister end up living with your mother. When you are 15, your mother commits suicide by drowning. Then your step brother commits suicide. You and your sister move to live with your father . . . the same father who divorced your mother and moved away. Without even realizing it, out of each of your traumas or out of the accumulation of your multiple traumatic experiences comes an early decision: There is no way for everyone to win!

Without even realizing it, you make that decision again and again at each painful incident. You also come to use that decision to defend against your pain. And you use everything you can . . . not only to defend against your pain, but also to hold onto that early decision for dear life!

You believe you are proving that decision every time you have a painful incident in your life. Your first daughter is born with cerebral palsy . . . and you prove it again. You struggle with substance abuse and ADHD . . . and you prove it again. As an adult you use your power to prove to yourself over and over that there is no way for everyone to win.**

And then you draw people to you who also decided as children in their families that there is no way for everyone to win. You use your power and your following to make choices and take actions based on that early decision. If you have decided there is no way for everyone to win . . . what kinds of choices will you make and what kinds of actions will you take? Likely those that will make you and your following win . . . and everyone else lose. And if your following is filled with people who also made that early decision, how much chance is there that anyone you would listen to can pierce that decision?

Can you see how this would affect all of us? And our world? If our leaders, politicians, celebrities, and media don’t become aware of and heal their early decisions? And if each of us doesn’t become aware of and heal our early decisions . . . we could end up following the cause of someone who decided as a little boy, just like we did, that there is no way for everyone to win.

Remember, you are fighting for dear life to hold onto that early decision, and so are all those around you . . . Because when you let go of that early decision, you will be right back at the scene of the very first trauma out of which you decided There is no way for everyone to win. And back at that first scene, you will be feeling all the feelings you have been defending against ever since . . . which is exactly what we all need to do purposefully, safely, for healing. For once we have gone through and felt the pain we were so relentlessly trying to avoid, we will never have to hold it at bay again, and we can free up our precious life energy for constructive, creative, life sustaining changes for ourselves and everybody else.

Can you see how this would affect all of us? And our world? If our leaders, politicians, celebrities, and media do become aware of and heal their early decisions? And if each of us does the same?

*The well known news commentator was Glenn Beck. My intention for choosing to talk with you about his comment is not a way to comment on his politics, per se, but rather to utilize a perfect example to help us really comprehend the relationship of a child’s painful experiences to not only his adult life, but also his politics, the politics of our nation, the politics of our world and the well being of all involved. And how many times do we get to hear such a public figure, who is a leader in his arena, say one of his/her early decisions aloud and so publicly?

**This example has been created from some of the events in Glenn Beck’s life, beginning with his childhood.

UPDATE

“Thank you, Judith. That was another enlightening essay. It made me think of my grandchildren, two of whom are boys who really like to “win” in games and who are learning, little by little, that it doesn’t have to mean something is wrong with them if they lose a game. But generally, that is what happens, there is some serious loss of self-esteem when there is a loss of a game, yes? . . . One time my grandson went into a huge crying fit when playing chess with his Dad, my son, and lost. He was mad at my son for playing too hard; he expected him to somehow let him win or at least have a better chance at winning.”

When someone loses a game, yes, there may be loss of self esteem. But I think it depends upon the person what the loss is.
And how young the experience.
It could feel like loss of self. There is no me.
It could feel like loss of sanity. Nothing makes sense . I feel crazy. Everthing’s getting bigger, I’m
getting smaller.
It could even feel like loss of life. I’m not going to survive this. I’m dying. I’m disappearing. I’m falling through the cracks into nowhere.
This is why people’s reactions can be so extreme when they lose.
When they lose a game. When they lose an argument. When they lose a job. When they lose a friend.
When they lose someone they love.
When they lose an early decision . . .

This is why people will fight tooth and nail to hold onto their early decisions . . .
both the leaders who have the early decision
and the followers who have the same early decision.
This is why the followers are so easily enlisted in the cause and kept enlisted.

When children respond this way . . . they have little choice.
The loss is too much for a little child to bear.
But when adults respond this way,
in effect, they are using their power to defend against the loss.
In the case of the people in this month’s article, the people who have an early decision
There is no way for everyone to win . . .
they are using their power en masse
to defend, each of them, against the losses they experienced in their respective childhoods –
the losses that led them to decide
There is no way for everyone to win.

How crucial it is for each of us adults to do the inner work
to discover, heal, dissolve, and transform our early decisions
and feel the pain of the losses from long, long ago.
That way we will no longer need to use our power to defend against those losses.
Instead, we can use our power creatively and fruitfully for living fully today and tomorrow.