psychological healing

EARTHQUAKES AND TSUNAMIS . . . OUTER AND INNER

By Judith Barr

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

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

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

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

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

© Judith Barr, 2011

Even A King Needs Help . . .

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!

© Judith Barr, 2011

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

By Judith Barr

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(c) Judith Barr, 2011

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

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

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.

 

© Judith Barr 2011

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

By Judith Barr

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

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

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

© Judith Barr, 2010

AFTER THE ELECTION: TAKE TWO

By Judith Barr

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

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

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

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

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

© Judith Barr 2010

The Election Through The Lens of Powerlessness

By Judith Barr

Election time is again upon us. Many in our country are sad to find that the process has become distorted . . . characterized by mudslinging, lies, destructive behavior.  How did our election process get this way?

We have to understand that the election process did not get this way overnight, but has, almost since its inception in this country, had the seeds of distortion in it.  Our ancestors  came to America because they felt powerless in England. They tried to create a country in which they would not feel powerless. They even created an elections system in which they would not feel powerless.  One in which they, as citizens, could have some power in the selection of their leaders.

But look at what’s happened with elections.  Here are some examples earlier in our history.   In 1828, supporters of John Quincy Adams insinuated that Andrew Jackson’s mother was a prostitute and his wife an adulteress.  In 1884 there were anti-Catholic statements made by a minister . . . and there were chants against Grover Cleveland, who, it was discovered, fathered a child out of wedlock and had the child put in an orphanage.  These sound like something we could see or hear in the political arena today.

But the roots of distortions in the election process are the same, whether in 1810, in 1910, or in 2010. As humans we will go to extraordinary lengths to keep our feelings at bay. Our earliest pain, fear, rage, and powerlessness.  All to get away from those primal feelings . . . but especially the feelings of powerlessness.  The very feelings that brought us to America!

How does this priority of holding feelings at bay play itself out in our country in relation to elections?

If you were once powerless as a young child and it was not a good experience, you will do anything to keep from being powerless again . . . or even feeling powerless again . . . or even having the unconscious memory of your powerlessness be triggered again!

Losing an election would definitely trigger powerlessness, wouldn’t it? Being attacked during an election campaign would certainly trigger powerlessness, wouldn’t it?  Having skeletons in your closet that are discovered and revealed would, of course, trigger powerlessness, wouldn’t it? As a matter of fact, even just having skeletons hidden in your closet would trigger powerlessness, wouldn’t it?

So . . .
Would you spread rumors? Lie? Slander an opponent . . . to win an election? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you become an archaeologist seeking old news about your opponent . . . to win an election? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you seduce voters with charm, false promises, half truths . . . to win an election? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you cheat at the polls . . . to win an election? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you steal funds to support your campaign, or take funds anywhere you can get them, even from dubious sources . . . to win an election? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you prevent voters from voting . . . to win an election? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you numb yourself out during the election campaign? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you refuse to participate in an election in any way? To keep from feeling powerless?

How do we each contribute to these distortions? By defending against our own early feelings of powerlessness instead of exploring them, working with them, building the capacity to feel them, and then not having to defend against them anymore. And how are we each contributing to these distortions in relation to the elections?  By using the elections as a defense against our own feelings of powerlessness. Or by using the elections as a trigger to our own early feelings of powerlessness and just going with it instead of healing it.

Think how powerful everyone involved in an election feels . . . as they go campaigning all over the countryside; as they dig up “dirt” on the other side;  as they raise funds for negative campaign ads; as they “get off on”  getting even uglier than their opponents.  Or better still . . . think how much doing all those things keeps someone from feeling powerless!

So . . . how can we truly heal our relationship with our country’s election process . . . and change the process itself from the inside out?

By doing our own inner work related to our early feelings of powerlessness and how we are superimposing our early feelings and our defenses against those feelings onto our elections.  We may not heal the entire process this year! But you’d be surprised how much even working with this over the next days leading up to this year’s election can do.  And beginning right now can open the way to truly healing our elections in years to come.

Will you join us? 

© Judith Barr, 2010

HUMILIATION: AN OFTEN IGNORED, NORMALIZED, DENIED FORM OF ABUSE

By Judith Barr

It doesn’t take much to normalize humiliation in our families, in our country, and in our world. It doesn’t take much to normalize it as a way of being . . . without even calling it the abuse that it is.  It doesn’t take much to normalize it as a way of thinking and feeling, or as a way of interacting – with ourselves and with others.  The following steps are examples of how we’ve come to be part of a country and world in which humiliation is an all-too-common form of abuse.

Step 1:

On Monday, September 27, Michael Bolton dances to the song “Hound Dog” on Dancing with The Stars.
He is humiliated that night by judge Bruno Tonioli.

Step 2:

On Tuesday, September 28th, Michael Bolton has to leave the show. He doesn’t have enough points to stay…possibly in part because of the humiliation the night before.”   People are affected when they see someone humiliated. How depends upon their own experience with humiliation.

Step 3:

Michael Bolton’s wanting an apology from Bruno is discussed on Good Morning America. The hosts of the show seem to think Michael’s the one with the problem – as though humiliation is ‘normal’ and asking for an apology is ‘abnormal.’  Who once humiliated the hosts, making humiliation seem normal in the process?

Many of those commenting on the ABC blog (about half) joined in the humiliation of Bolton.

“Bolton is a cry baby loser.”
“Bolton ought to be apologizing for the way he talked after the show. He sounded like a spoilt brat…pleeze!!!”
“Guess what Michael? You can’t sing either.”

If this is what we say to Michael Bolton, this is what we say to our own children.
And this is probably what was said to us.

Step 4  . . . or is it really step 1?

Under “Bruno Tonioli” in Wikipedia,  Bruno acknowledges having been humiliated as a child for being gay.
What was done to us we do to others.
So what was done to Bruno – humiliation – he did to Michael Bolton . . . humiliate him.
No matter how much the producers of Dancing with the Stars claim Bruno was just doing his job as a judge and giving his honest opinion . . . Bruno was humiliating Michael Bolton. Who humiliated the producers when they were young, under the guise of giving their honest opinions?

Step 5:

Within the same week’s time . . . a suicide occurs in response to humiliation.
A young man’s roommate announces the secret, live streaming online of video of this young man’s sexual encounter with another student. The young man, humiliated beyond words, jumps off the George Washington Bridge.

Who humiliated the roommate – that he would humiliate this young man?
And how?
Why won’t we look at the truth?
Why won’t we see the roots of humiliation in our lives and the life of our country?

Step 6:

Members of the United States military humiliate prisoners of war at Abu Ghraib!
Who humiliated those members of the military in their childhoods that they would demean, steal the dignity of other human beings?

And how does the military itself humiliate those it trains and employs to protect US interests and fight our wars?

Step 7:

Anyone who runs as a candidate for election in the U.S. puts him/herself on the chopping block to be grossly humiliated.  Humiliated by misusing the truth. Dishonestly humiliated. Heartbreakingly humiliated. How did this become such a part of who we are as a country? Not that other countries don’t have this trait also, they do. But many of us think of ourselves as so civilized, while doing things that are so uncivilized . . .  like brutally humiliating people.  Our country. Your country. The important question is: How did this become such a part of who we are as a country? As a world?

Why won’t we look at the truth and heal it?

Because we would see a mammoth malignant growth larger than we can even imagine?
Because most people don’t want to know this?
Because most people don’t want to do the work to heal it, individually or communally?
Because most people don’t want to feel the pain of our own humiliation?
Because most people don’t want to feel the pain of our having humiliated others?

If we don’t look at this, own this, and heal it . . . Who have we become?
If we don’t?  What will we become . . . individually and communally?

© Judith Barr 2010

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

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.

© Judith Barr, 2010

WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN?*

By Judith Barr

Today is July 4th. Independence Day.
Yes, it celebrates our independence from Great Britain in 1776.

But we have a misunderstanding about independence . . . true independence.

And we don’t seem to learn. In fact, we don’t seem to want to learn.

We think as children we have to rebel against our parents to be independent. But how independent are we if we are rebelling against someone? No more free, really than if we are complying with someone . . . because there is that someone to whom we are reacting. This is true whether our parents support us to become ourselves or control our growth, imposing themselves upon us.  Either way, at some point we need to find our selves on the inside, not as a reaction to someone or something else.

When will we ever learn?

We think as a nation that we have to war against other nations to be independent, that we have to free ourselves from other nations. Our use of oil is a prime example.  If long ago, when we realized the damage our use of oil was doing to our earth, our home . . . if then, instead of denying it, instead of fighting it, instead of taking our slow time making changes, we had found a way to live healthier – healthier for us, each other, and our Mother Earth – we wouldn’t have had to turn the truth into a fight for freedom against other countries, other peoples, and even our own land and peoples.

When will we ever learn?

We do not have to become independent from other people, other countries. We need to become independent within ourselves … free to know and live the truth, and free to be in relationship with others (as different from isolated). Free to be the truth of who we are, with integrity and compassion within ourselves and with and for others.

When will we ever learn?

We cannot do this from the outside in. Our efforts to do so will not last. The only way to do this and sustain it as a way of life, is to do it from the inside out. To go back to the place we went awry – even as long ago as our early childhood – and do the inner healing to redevelop ourselves as Selves. Then we can be truly independent and inter-dependent. Then we can be truly free.

When will we ever learn?

May we use this Independence Day to make a commitment to real freedom, and take the next step toward fulfilling that commitment. 

May we find our way to real freedom . . . from the inside out.

May you find your way to real freedom . . . from the inside out.

©Judith Barr, 2010

* The title of this blog post is based upon a line from Where Have All The Flowers Gone  words and music by Pete Seeger performed by Pete Seeger and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger ©1961 (Renewed) Fall River Music Inc All Rights Reserved.