using world news to heal psychologically

JUSTICE?

By Judith Barr

Osama Bin Laden was killed by the U.S. Navy Seals in Pakistan Sunday night. Many see the responses of U.S. citizens as natural.
Celebrations. Relief. Hatred fulfilled. Claims of justice.

Political concerns aside. Safety concerns aside. . .
A mixture of many responses.
Most media people I’ve heard have claimed it was justice.
Some have acknowledged their rage.
Some have called him the most hated man on the face of the earth.

Although he needed to be stopped . . .
although there may have been no other way to stop him . . .
although there may have been no other way to capture him . . .
sometimes, sadly, killing is the only option for protecting ourselves.
When animals in the wild kill for protection,
they have no negative intention accompanying their action.

But . . . we humans too often do.

Even though sometimes people aren’t satisfied until a ‘wrong-doer” is killed,
killing is never a matter of justice.
What kind of justice is it to kill someone?
What does it say about us if we call “justice”?
what is really revenge, getting someone back, getting even, avenging?
What does it say about us individually and culturally?
What does it say about our need to grow and develop ourselves into something more?
Into something more matured?
What does it say about our need to discover what justice really means?

How did you feel when you heard the news?
And what can you learn about yourself from how you felt?

© Judith Barr, 2011

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

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!

© Judith Barr, 2011

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

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