ACKNOWLEDGING THE TRUTH WITH HEART
As we begin the new school year, with all our hopes and visions,
it seems crucial to acknowledge that …
we are living in challenging times,
we are having feelings triggered within us that are affecting us and our precious children –
both in and beneath our awareness,
we need to pay attention, tend to our triggers and the feelings at their roots …
in order to help our children, heal ourselves, and help to heal our country and our world.
If we try to rise above this truth …
if we try to get around it …
if we try to block it out …
If we try to close our eyes and our ears to it …
If we try to further close our hearts to it …
If we try to fool ourselves into believing our children are fine,
just because they behave the way we want them to,
function the way we think they should,
succeed the way we expect them to …
If we try to fool ourselves in the same ways
about ourselves …
If we refuse to take action to heal our own triggers and the feelings within,
Instead of helping ourselves, our children, our Mother Earth …
we will be feeding the patriarchy’s efforts to get us to not feel our feelings …
we will be responsible for the vicious cycle’s continuing and escalating even further …
personally, familially, and communally.
In her beautiful, conscious, heart-touching song “Open It Up,”* Canadian singer Jennifer Berezan reminds us of so much we need to work with and work through.
Her song begins so touchingly:
“In the day, see the children playing in the park.
In the night, see them dream alone in the dark,
of flashing lights and burning clouds.
They know the terror of us all –
the fears we learn to shut away, shut away
as we grow big and tall.
Filling in the valleys where the waters used to flow,
shutting down the places where the gentle feelings grow.
“We’ve got to open it up, open it up, open it up now.
Why don’t we open it, open it up, open it up now?
When will we open it up, open it up, open it up now?
And it so honestly continues:
“ . . .When our hearts are filled with hidden fear,
the cries they cannot reach our ear.
“If we cannot face the darkness,
we will not see the light.
There is beauty in the day,
but there is healing in the night.”
This is my passion and gift – the way I live and the work I do with people …
To find and safely open up our feelings both from today and times gone by …
to do the healing in the night …
so we and our children can experience the true beauty in the day.
© Judith Barr, 2017
*Jennifer Berezan, “Open It Up,” from the album “In the Eye of the Storm,” 1988. Jennifer sang and recorded these songs in the same times – the 1980’s – and about some of the same issues as those I talked about in my last blog post – “The Patriarchy’s Greatest Weapon Is to Get Us to Not Feel.”
NOTE: For a deep understanding of how we co-create and escalate the vicious cycle in our lives, our children’s lives, our world …
or truly help to heal it …
see the series in my PoliPsych blog: The Paris Trilogy