Power Corrupts, and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely . . . But Is It Really the Power That Corrupts?

25Oct2013 By Judith Barr

The well-known statement “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is attributed to Lord Acton, an English Catholic politician, writer, and historian in the1800’s. This statement has been made again and again over time since then. The media of our century uses it quite frequently . . . especially nowadays. And many believe it. But actually, there’s much more under the surface we need to take into account.

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely” is a blanket statement that doesn’t give responsibility to anyone for misusing and abusing power. It is a statement that doesn’t hold anyone accountable for misusing and abusing power. It makes the power itself responsible and accountable. Not the person. No wonder we’re in the fix we’re in.

It is not power itself that corrupts. It is the people who use the power that corrupt . . . by misusing and abusing the power they have.

Whether they are the president of a country, the CEO of a business, the religious or spiritual leader in a house of worship, the teacher in a classroom, the doctor in a hospital, the parent in a family, the driver behind the wheel in a car on a road . . . people utilize their power – both consciously and unconsciously – in relation to how power was used with them when they were tiny, vulnerable children. How power was used with them often even before they had words to think about or talk about it with. How power was used perhaps so painfully, perhaps so brutally, that they buried the memory of it and the feeling of it, and then start acting it out when they become adults, if not sooner. They act it out without realizing they are perpetuating the abuse of power that they experienced, whether they remember it or not.

One example on the more subtle side might be Cindy’s experience as a child. Her parents, older siblings, and extended family members all ridiculed and humiliated her with their words, meaning, and intention, while using the guise of a loving tone to hide their abuse. Again, under the guise of fake lovingness, they would tell her things like:

“Your crying is the worst sound I’ve ever heard. Shut your mouth.”

“You’re a bad girl for keeping mommy and daddy awake all night.”

“You’re a little monster. You’d eat everything in sight if you could.”

“What an ugly little girl you are. Why can’t you have blond hair and blue eyes like me?”

All of the family members, without realizing it, did to Cindy what was done to them as children.

Or another example . . . Jimmy was a scared little baby. The doctor could see that every time she picked him up, put him down on the examining table, talked to him, touched him. But the doctor couldn’t understand why Jimmy was so scared. His parents, Jim Sr. and Molly, seemed so loving when they were in the office.

But what the doctor couldn’t see was this: At home, Jim Sr. was yelling at Jimmy every time he started crying. The father was yelling and handling Jimmy roughly. Jimmy couldn’t stop crying, and his father’s response to him made him cry all the more. In reaction to the increased volume, intensity and fear in his crying, Jim Sr. would leave the room, slam the door behind him, and start yelling at Molly: “Get your son to shut up!”

Jimmy was just a baby. He didn’t know what was happening. He was completely unable to understand that his father was triggered by his little baby crying. That Jim Sr. had had his own frightening experiences in his infancy, experiences that had been deeply buried and he didn’t even know were there. That his father’s father had been triggered by Jim Sr.’s little baby’s crying and had treated him just like Jimmy’s father was treating Jimmy. And what’s more . . . Jim Sr.’s father didn’t know what was happening either. He was completely unaware that his yelling, roughness, and slamming doors were his own efforts to defend himself from his own early memories and feelings.

In addition, the doctor couldn’t see that a similar thing was occurring with Jimmy’s mother. And Molly couldn’t see it either. Nor could baby Jimmy. Molly was triggered by Jimmy’s crying and by Jim Sr.’s response. Molly herself as a baby had cried and cried in fear because of her own father’s violent responses to her crying. And because her mother had shrunk in fear in response to the violent behavior of her husband. All of this was buried in Molly, even beneath her awareness.

But here they all were . . . baby Jimmy suffering from his parents’ acting out of what they had experienced as babies, without their remembering it, without their having any connection to the feelings they had at that young age. Yet inflicting all of their own wounding on their baby.

This is an explicit picture of people misusing and abusing their power…without even realizing it. It is also an explicit picture of impacting someone else – the next generation – in such a way that they will do the same. It occurs all the time in our world . . . all over our world . . . passed down from one generation to the next. Our relationship with power is passed down the generational line sometimes consciously, but mostly unconsciously.

Sometimes it gets normalized. Like in Joe Sr.’s and Molly’s families. Sometimes it gets confronted, but the power of the family gets misused and abused once again, and instead of allowing the confrontation to create an opening for healing, the group turns against the person confronting . . . just like the parents turned against the baby. At times the person, perhaps like Joe Sr., is asked to become aware and accountable. He will take in his impact on someone else, maybe even say ‘I’m sorry,’ and then go on about his way – without any intention to find out what was triggered in him that caused him to abuse his power with violence – only to continue to abuse his power again and again. He doesn’t realize it, but he is too afraid to explore the cause in him. He is too afraid to remember how he was treated as a baby. He is too afraid to feel once again what he felt as a helpless, frightened baby at the hands of his violent father and his fearful, shrinking mother – both forms of misuse of power.

This is why people continue to misuse and abuse their power. They are afraid of remembering what they have repressed deep within … the memory, the experience, the feelings from long, long ago when they were helpless. They are afraid to experience how power was used with them and what they learned, decided, and created in their own relationship with power. This fear, if not met and healed, will perpetuate the abuse of power in our world. And it will perpetuate people’s not taking responsibility for their misuse and abuse of power, and instead putting it on other people and things. On people – their children, their partners, their friends, and more. On things – on that toy a parent trips over, the milk the baby has an allergy to, even on power itself. As though it is power itself that corrupts . . . not the person’s own relationship with power.

The reason it appears to people that absolute power corrupts absolutely is that having power triggers and brings up for people a whole host of their wounds. Perhaps most of their wounds. Perhaps even all of their wounds. As you saw in the examples above, most of the time this occurs unconsciously. Too many times people are triggered, but one way or another normalize their state of mind, heart, and behavior. Because having power, and especially absolute power, brings up our wounds … it makes parenting a prime arena for our wounding and our defenses against that wounding to be evoked. After all, parenting is the situation in which absolute power occurs most naturally … so of course, it would be the most likely place for the most triggering and the most potential for abuse. This can explain why we don’t consciously give people absolute power. No one is completely aware. No one can be completely aware. And up till now, few have been completely committed to continuously looking for and finding the places they have wounds in their relationship with power … and healing them to the root.

What happens in the individual gets carried into the family. What happens in the family gets carried out into the world . . . into every arena including the government. If you look at the recent events in the US Congress, you see a painful example. Even the people in the media were saying things like: “Where are the grownups?” and “Why can’t they act like adults?” and “They’re acting like little children.”

My response: Yes, you’re right. They’re acting like little children because the little children they once were are still alive inside them. The members of Congress were revealing themselves, but they had no idea they were doing so. They were showing us how they were treated as children. Perhaps some were showing us how their parents would hold the family hostage to get their own way. Perhaps others were showing more specifically how their parents had a scorched earth policy, willing to destroy everything to have what they wanted. And maybe others were showing us how one or more of their parents wouldn’t protect the family, but instead would protect themselves . . . for fear of the hostage taker turning on them and punishing them.

I’m not a gambler, but from my experience with people and their psyches and souls . . . I would bet that if we could witness what happened in the childhoods of the congress people, even the parts of their childhoods that they don’t remember . . . we would see abuses of power just like the ones the congress people themselves just acted out.

It is so clear. It is right out in the light of day for all of us to see. If we don’t see it . . . what memories and feelings are we, ourselves, defending against? What memories and feelings that shaped our relationship with power are we hiding from ourselves? And how do we act out our misuse and abuse of power as a result?

It is not a simple, easy, quick process to heal our relationship with power. It is not simply a mental process, but includes our minds, our hearts, our bodies, and our souls. It is not a straight, linear process, but rather a serpentine path unique to our particular unfolding, our particular development, and the mystery of our particular healing journey. But if we are going to help heal the abuse of power in our world, that is what’s needed to make it possible . . . to one by one by one explore and heal our relationship with power – how it developed, what it felt like, how we’ve buried it, how we act it out, and how we could, with true healing, use our power exquisitely for magnificent good.

****

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

All of us have times in our lives when we have power of some kind…and in those times, it’s crucial for us to thoroughly explore our relationship with power.

As you go through your life, try to become aware of times when you have power in relation to a situation, thing, or person. How do you react when you have power? What feelings are triggered in you? Do you know when you first had feelings that were the same or similar? Try to trace that feeling as far back in your life as you can. It will enlighten you about your relationship with power and the roots of that relationship.

Now imagine you’ve been given absolute power…power over everything and everyone around you. What would you do? How do you feel at the thought of having that much power? What feelings come up in you and how intense are those feelings? Can you trace back those feelings too…back to the first time you ever felt that way?

Continue exploring . . . remember how power was used with you by everyone in your childhood — parents, other adult relatives, older siblings, other adults like doctors, clergy, teachers, coaches, babysitters, and more. This is a crucial key: how others used their power in relation to you, and how they treated you in relation to your power.

None of us is so completely aware of ourselves that we have a perfect relationship with power. Each of us has something evoked – however consciously or unconsciously – when we have power or when we have the choice to be in power. And all of us have power in some form or other, at some time or other. What you can do in order to actively do your part: Commit today to explore and heal your relationship with power…so you may use the power you have for magnificent good!

HOW MANY OF US HAVE DONE WHAT WE COULD?

23Sep2013 By Judith Barr

A TIMELY (AND EARLY) OCTOBER NEWSLETTER

Unlike most previous newsletters, which have had a single article about one theme,
this month’s newsletter will consist of notes from my heart related to
several things going on in our world today.

IT’S 5 YEARS LATER . . . AFTER THE ECONOMY CRASHED
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED IN THESE 5 YEARS?

We have recently passed through the 5-year anniversary of the economic crash on September 15, 2008, the day the recession began. What have we learned? What have we really done since then?

I am so deeply concerned about all that has been done in the outer world that may have helped only temporarily, and all that has been done in the outer world that hasn’t helped at all . . . by the government, by companies and corporations, by states, communities, families, and individuals. We need to take action in the outer world. Of course we do. But if we only take action outside us . . . what is inside us that unconsciously drives us in the outer world will remain unknown, untouched, untransformed, unhealed. And as a result, eventually, whatever action we have taken will be undone, undermined, turned upside down and inside out. The consequence of what lies within beneath our awareness, in the shadows of ourselves.

There are so very many possibilities of what could be driving us individually and communally that hasn’t been tended to. Here is just one.

What about all the people in our country and our world who made an early decision in their childhoods that affects our economies today? What about all the people who decided: I’ll never have enough?

Their early decision could have been about something physical like food or warmth. Imagine a baby who isn’t getting enough food because he can’t keep his food down. Or imagine a baby who needs to be swaddled more warmly, and is cold all the time. The early decision could also be about something emotional, which to a baby is actually very physical. Imagine a baby needing more connection with mother. Perhaps the bonding isn’t taking place because of something going on with the mother. Perhaps she is physically ill. Perhaps she’s triggered by something about her baby – maybe a reminder of her own frightening infancy.

The baby makes a decision, which then doesn’t have words, of course. But the inner experience of the baby is of not having enough, never having enough. And later, as a child, the words that connect with the experience come, either into consciousness and maybe even spoken; or maybe only unconsciously in mind.

Maybe one baby who has made that early decision will grow up and live the decision again and again, finding him- or herself never having enough. Maybe that baby will not have enough food, or warmth, or money to purchase them. Maybe another baby with that decision will grow up and push and push and push to get enough. Maybe that second baby, for reasons yet unknown to us, will make lots of money — money to purchase food and warmth and more. To us it would seem that person certainly has enough. But having made the early decision I’ll never have enough, that person will keep working to make more . . .

And more and more and more and more. People may write that person off as just “greedy,” but the truth is . . . that person is just as driven by an early decision as the person who is going without food and warmth.

Do you see the impact of the early decisions we make?

So, how many of us in the US and how many of us all over the world have done our inner exploration in these 5 years to find our early decisions relating to money and the economy and to heal them – the early decision itself, the consequences that have developed from the early decision, and the roots of the early decision in childhood?

Have you?

And if we haven’t done our own inner work with this . . . how can we possibly expect anything to really change in 5 years? Or 10? Or 20? Or more? And how can we possibly expect anything in the outer world to sustain?

*****

WE’VE HAD SO MUCH VIOLENCE OUT IN FULL VIEW IN OUR WORLD.
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

9/11. Columbine. Aurora, Colorado. Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The Boston Marathon. Washington, D.C. Navy Yard. Nairobi, Kenya mall attack. Unfortunately this names just a few of the incidents publicly known.

What have we learned? What have we done? We can’t even claim successful action in the outer world. We can’t even establish laws that would protect. And in the news as I write this, there was once again talk about mental health. People deem those who are violent “mentally ill” and talk about getting health care benefits for the mentally ill. There’s a controversy over health care benefits. Not that working for benefits for trauma isn’t important. But in addition to making sure those who need help can get it, we need to also address a larger question: what kind of treatment are they going to receive? Medication? Training on controlling their thoughts, feelings, and behavior. And nothing more? And what about the choice we need to make: whether we’re going to stay on the surface or go to the root?

Again, I am so deeply concerned about all that has been done in the outer world that may help only temporarily, and all that has been done in the outer world that hasn’t helped at all and won’t help at all, really . . . by the government, by companies and corporations, by states, communities, families, and individuals. We need to take action in the outer world. Of course we do. But if we only take action outside us . . . what is inside us that unconsciously drives us in the outer world will remain unknown, untouched, untransformed, unhealed. And as a result, eventually, whatever action we have taken will be undone, undermined, turned upside down and inside out. The consequence of what lies within beneath our awareness, in the shadows of ourselves.

There are so very many possibilities of what could be driving us individually and communally that hasn’t been tended to. Here is just one.

We need to concentrate on all violence, not just occurrences we consider public tragedies. We need to focus on bullying everywhere it occurs . . . at home in our families, at school, in religious institutions, in doctor’s offices, in companies, in the military, in the Congress, all over the world in war. And by everyone who bullies . . . even parents who bully their children.

We need to understand that this kind of pervasive violence in our societies begins in our homes, begins in our childhoods. We need to know that when a child has experienced violence, that child will somehow repeat that violence . . . whether visiting it upon someone else, upon him or herself, or just carrying the potential beneath consciousness until at some point there is an experience that is “the straw that breaks the camel’s back.” At that point, the violence is enacted. And the vicious cycle begins again. People suffer from the violence and then will carry that on with them to enact themselves at some point.

The truth is . . . we need to re-weave the fabric of our societies and help people heal their childhood wounds to the root. And we need to intervene where people are acting out their childhood wounds on others, so that the children of today and tomorrow don’t suffer wounds that they don’t heal . . . then passing them onto future generations.

There is far more violence going on in our world than we can even imagine. Than some of us are willing to know. It keeps coming out into the open, calling us to do the work to heal it. Not by fighting. Not by laws. But by healing, truly healing it.

There’s so much more to be said, so much more to be taught, so much more to be done. But the inner work of healing is the core. It’s the heart of the matter.

Do you see the impact of the wounding each of us has experienced?

So, how many of us in the US and how many of us all over the world have done our inner exploration even since 9/11 to find our own early wounds that may have been experiences of violence or could possibly cause violence?

Have you?

*****

WILLFULNESS – THIS NEEDS TO BE HEALED

There is so much willfulness out in the open in our world today. It cannot be hidden anymore. It is coming out into the light of day where we can notice it, see it, name it, and heal it.

Willfulness: planning, threatening, taking action without concern for potential harm to self or others, without concern for the feelings, needs, safety of self or others, the consequences be damned.

We have seen this with those who have been violent – individually, in groups, and as heads of state. We have seen this most recently in Syria, with the chemical weapons used against Syrian citizens . . . the consequences be damned. We have seen this with banks and corporations who set the economy up to crash and individuals to lose their life savings, their homes, their jobs, and more . . . the consequences be damned. We have seen this with people like Bernie Madoff who cheated people out of the means with which they were planning to take care of themselves and their families . . . the consequences be damned. And we are watching some members of government on the verge of creating a disaster with the US economy and the world economies . . . the consequences be damned.

Just as we need to let what’s happening in the outer world in relation to money and in relation to violence be a mirror of what we need to look at in ourselves . . . so also do we need to look at our own willfulness.

Do you see the impact of the willfulness each of us has experienced? And the impact of the willfulness each of us has enacted or may yet enact?

So, how many of us in the US and how many of us all over the world have done our inner exploration to find our own willfulness??

Have you?

So much is happening in our world today that shows that we need to make real sustainable change . . . from the inside out. But if we haven’t done our own inner work with willfulness . . . how can we possibly expect anything to really change in 5 years? Or 10? Or 20? Or more? And how can we possibly expect anything in the outer world to sustain?

On the other hand . . . imagine if, as part of making those changes, we all make the commitment to do the inner work we need to do to heal those wounds which are hampering our efforts at sustainable change . . . Imagine how different our world would be!

It begins with each one of us . . . one by one by one. It begins with you. Will you make the commitment to do your inner healing work with your relationship with money? With your relationship with violence? With your relationship with willfulness? Will you do your part in helping to heal both yourself and our world?

****

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

Many of us are working to help bring change to our world – seeking an end to poverty, violence, abuse of power. As you help to work toward those changes, you can help your own efforts by acknowledging your own wounds, how they impact your life and the lives of those around you, and by making a deep commitment to do the inner work needed to heal those wounds in the inner world so you can help create and sustain true and lasting change in our outer world.

A good start would be becoming aware of your feelings as you go through your day. How intense are your feelings? Are they more intense than the situation warrants? If so . . . can you trace those intense feelings back into your early life? When before have you felt this particular feeling? How far back in your life can you remember feeling this way? And what situations in your early life caused you to feel this same feeling?

You may find, as you go deeper and deeper into the roots of your feelings, that you need help to tease apart the here-and-now situation from those ancient roots. You may find you need the help of a caring, integritous therapist . . . and if you do, commit to finding the right therapist for you, and working with him or her to go deeper and deeper in your journey . . . all the way to the roots!

If you’re open to sharing what this article brought up for you, I welcome your emails.

We can help create sustainable change in all areas of our lives and the life of our world . . . if we are open and willing to devote our time and energy, our mind, body, heart, and soul, to exploring and healing our own inner worlds.

12 YEARS LATER . . .

31Aug2013 By Judith Barr

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
HOW HAVE WE GROWN?
HOW HAVE WE HEALED?

It’s almost a dozen years since the terror attacks of 9/11. And here we are in a painfully similar moment and stance as we were that day and then developing after that.

What have we learned? Are we still acting in the outer world without making any real changes in our inner world? Do we respond with kindness and compassion in tragedies like tornadoes, floods, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the Sandy Hook shooting, but fail to respond with kindness in our own back yards and at home? Do we respond with kindness and compassion in the aftermath of disasters, but find ourselves unable to sustain it? And in the absence of the sustaining, return to our prejudices and hatreds and fears of people who are different from us – people whose skin is different, whose religion is different, whose way of being is different? Do we take action against them? Speak out against them? Judge them aloud or silently? Are we aware we are judging them, or do we just believe we are saying, thinking, or feeling the truth about them? Or more subtle still, do we believe we are continuing to be kind and compassionate and yet have currents of thoughts and feelings deep within us – beneath our awareness – that are the opposite of that, or shades of cruelty and unfeeling?

Do we respond with kindness and compassion in the world outside our home, but at home act – however consciously or unconsciously – with cruelty, mean spiritedness, and closed heartedness? Do we demean our partners? Ridicule them? Shame them? Do we judge them? Do we yell at them? Do we strike out at them – mentally, emotionally, or physically? Are we so unconscious that we believe we are justified? Do we treat our children the same way – however blatantly or subtly – and again believe we are justified? Have the right?

Do we have any idea at all when we are being triggered? When our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are evoked by something in the current day … but our reactions are not current day. They are the reactions we had and developed long, long ago in childhood when we were hurt, wounded, or even traumatized.

Do we realize when that happens – when we are triggered – it is the child still alive deep within us that is reacting with the power of the body, the physical strength, the mind, the personality of an adult? Do we have any real understanding of what this means? Do we really comprehend that in crucial moments we are making decisions and acting on the thoughts, feelings, and early decisions of a child — not those of the adult we believe we are? That the child still alive within us is driving the show…in the most critical times in our life?

If you don’t realize this…
If you don’t take this seriously…
If you don’t find a way to understand this…
If you don’t explore this for yourself, within yourself, in your own life…
you will not only continue to feed what is getting repeated in your personal outer world…
you will also continue to re-create and re-enact it instead of resolving it.
And in addition…
You will also continue to feed what is getting repeated in our communal outer world…
You will also continue to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution in our outer world.

*****

To get a clearer sense of what I’m describing … read on. The example will be blatant to help make the impact more easily understandable. But the same dynamics apply however blatant or subtle.

Imagine you are a child. You live in a family with a mother and father and a couple siblings. Your mother yells at you and even hits you from your earliest years. Your father demeans you, ridicules you, and leaves you on your own to figure things out for yourself. You feel hurt, angry, and scared … but don’t know what to do to protect yourself. You bury your feelings. You disconnect your own awareness from the painful feelings. You start to find ways to react that you hope will keep you safe from more hurt and pain. Taking care of Mom and Dad. Trying to please them no matter what. Repressing your emotional self, becoming really “logical,” and using your mind to defend yourself. One of your siblings cries in response to your parents’ painful treatment. One of them becomes tough and angry and lashes out. You become very logical and have contempt for both of them for being unable to “control themselves.”

You grow up and “fall in love.” You go from partner to partner, then marriage to marriage … each time ending up with a partner who has some combination of the traits of your mother, father, and siblings. If your partner cries in response to being hurt, you react with contempt … as a way to defend yourself against your own hurt – not just your here and now hurt with your partner but also your deeply buried hurts in childhood. If your partner acts tough and angry and lashes out, you come back with contempt and logic. If your partner yells at or hits you … you use your logical mind to try to calm your partner down … or perhaps some of your deeply buried anger comes flying out, out of control, in spite of your efforts to keep it buried. But most of the anger that explodes is the anger from Mommy’s hitting you and Daddy’s demeaning you many years past … deeply buried and hidden anger that has been triggered by your partner’s hitting you.

When this happens, instead of reacting and firing your anger on your partner, you need to take this clue for healing and go find someone to help you do the therapy to heal this. Without the therapy to truly heal this – at its roots – you will continue to find partners like this … and have no idea why you are recreating the same thing over and over and over again. Without real depth therapy, you may stay with your partner and co-create the same scenario many times over. Or you may leave your current partner and find another, only to be shocked when you discover you’ve picked yet one more partner like Mom.

Again, if you do not resolve the pain at its source long ago, you will re-create it again and again in your life ahead.

If this is true for individuals, then it is also true for communities, countries, our world. That is why we keep coming back to the same places again and again.

That’s why, for example, we still have domestic violence, and it is normalized by many in the public and certainly by parts of the law. We can’t end domestic violence by only doing things on the outside; we have to do the inner healing work. That’s why we still have rape, and so much of it. We can’t legislate rape away. We can only create consequences for it. To end rape we have to do the inner healing work. That’s why we can’t end the inequities and tragedies in relation to money only on the outside, only with outer actions. We have to do the inner healing work. And that’s why we can’t end war only in the outer world. We also can’t end it only with our longing.

Ironically, John Kerry said something similar but unfortunately stopped there.

“We know that after a decade of conflict, the American people are tired of war – believe me, I am too. But fatigue does not absolve us of our responsibility. Just longing for peace does not necessarily bring it about.”
–Secretary of State John Kerry, calling for action against Syria

He is accurate. We can’t end war simply by longing for it. John Kerry would have us take action. And sometimes, in some circumstances, we do need to take action. But the truth is: We can’t end war simply by taking action. Simply by longing for it. We have to do the inner healing work to back up the longing, to make fulfilling the peace we long for truly possible – from the inside out.

We can’t end war simply by letting our longing lead us to praying for it. We can’t end war simply by pretending to ourselves (and others) we are at peace within. We can’t end war simply by once again pushing our own inner conflicts and wars back down into the underground, burying them once again. In order to truly end war … we absolutely must do the inner healing work. The inner work to discover and explore the conflicts and wars within us and to resolve them within … on the deepest levels of our being.

Otherwise we will find ourselves individually and communally creating the same circumstances over and over and over and over again … till at long last, after experiencing the painful consequences time after time, we will have no choice but to do the inner healing work.

****

WHAT YOU CAN DO
TO HELP MAKE YOUR AND OUR WORLD SAFE …
FROM THE INSIDE OUT

It has been 12 years since the tragedy of September 11, 2001… and we all, individually and communally, need to ask ourselves: what indeed have we learned?

You can greatly help heal all arenas of our world – from the national and world stage, down to your own individual life – by doing the inner exploration and healing we each need to do as we go about our day. Start by asking yourself:

What have I buried?
What have I become unconscious of?
What triggers me? And can I trace back the feelings I have when I’m triggered to some specific times in my early life?
What have I created over and over again in my life and in the lives of those around me?
What have I learned? How have I grown? How have I healed?

I invite you to share with me the fruits of your exploration at this crucial time in our lives and in our world.

Imagine what our lives would be like, if we all did this inner exploration! Imagine what our communities … our country … our world would be like!

If We Stay on The Surface . . . We End Up Suffering and Creating More Suffering

04Aug2013 By Judith Barr

Part 6:
It Is Time to Go Deeper Now!
What Are We Waiting For?

I have been writing about the consequences of our staying on the surface in the outer world and not doing the deep work in the inner world from which outer occurrences and events spring. It has been an ongoing part of my writing for years. I have been writing about it in this series for months. Usually I write about it in relation to a specific person, event or theme. This month, I offer a broader view, an overview that will hopefully catch your attention and move you into action deeper than you have known before.

If a family is dysfunctional, most of the members ignore it, rise above it, pretend it isn’t true, live in denial, or walk away from it. Some of the members sometimes try to fight against it, often without success, often being dismissed, ridiculed, shunned, as a result. It takes a lot for a dysfunctional family to truly get the help needed . . . for the family as a whole and for each impacted member of the family to get the help needed to heal the causative and consequent wounds to the root. We see this in all sorts of dysfunctional families – those with alcoholism, gambling, sexual, abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, domestic violence, religious intolerance or fanaticism, and more. And if the family does get help, it is often – all too often – only on the surface. Perhaps the most obvious behaviors change. Perhaps the family members try to stop themselves from acting out on their impulses and their feelings. Perhaps, just perhaps, they even get some insight into why they have been dysfunctional. But it is a rare person, and certainly a rare family that truly heals the dysfunction from the outward behavior to the very root of the dysfunction . . . to the very root of the wound.

This would mean feeling the pain of the wounds, which most people are totally against. Which most people are completely afraid of doing. Which most people haven’t had anyone help them with from the time they were very, very, tiny beings . . . when the pain began. This would mean putting down the defenses – dissolving the defenses – people have constructed and hardened since their youngest days to defend them against the pain. This would mean feeling finally that which people have worked so hard to avoid – hurt, fear, the anger experienced by young, vulnerable children being hurt or wounded or traumatized, the powerlessness we all feel, and more. And this would mean remembering who hurt us, who wounded us and how. It would mean exposing our parents and their parents before them and their parents before them. The piercing of the idealization of our parentage would bring its own consequences . . . probably very similar to the wounding experienced in the first place. The hurt, fear, anger, and powerlessness of family and family members, beneath their defenses, being revealed and exposed. And likely lashing out at those doing the exposing. Lashing out physically, verbally, emotionally – directly at those doing the revealing. Or lashing out behind their backs. Arguing with them, discrediting them, accusing them of being disloyal to the family, making them “bad,” punishing them, shunning or outright exiling them from the family.

It is a rare family that one-by-one and as a whole is willing to dive into the ocean of healing and committed to working all the way through to coming out the other side, healed and transformed to the core. It is a rare individual who is committed to this – fully and whole-heartedly committed.

But now is the time for individuals and families to come forth and do this work. For it is not just our individual selves that are dysfunctional. It is not just our families that are dysfunctional. It is our society that is dysfunctional . . . as a result. Our national society and our global society.

What occurs individually also occurs communally. Not just communally in our families, but communally in our communities, our states, our countries, our world. And if we ever were able to see the communal version, we are seeing it now. This is one thing the media and the internet are helping us do. See . . . if we are willing to take our blinders off. Hear . . . if we are willing to take our earplugs out.

People are actually calling the US government dysfunctional – which it most certainly is. And what a mirror for us all. The country and the family . . . both lashing out at those doing the exposing. Lashing out physically, verbally, emotionally – directly at those doing the revealing. Or lashing out behind their backs. Arguing with them, discrediting them, accusing them of being disloyal or unpatriotic to the family or country, making them “bad,” punishing them, shunning or outright exiling them.

There are people in our world working to help with the healing, each in his or her own unique way. There is, for example, Margaret Heffernan, teaching about “willful blindness,” teaching that we refuse to see and acknowledge what is right there in front of us, causing damage to ourselves and others. There is Josh Oppenheimer, who has directed a painful but revealing movie about death squads in Indonesia, with, it seems, the hope that people will realize we all have an underbelly, we’re all perpetrators . . . even if only by wearing the clothing made by victims of those terrors.

But there are also those who seem to be trying to help, yet are feeding people with distortions that end up making things worse. For example, the teachers – spiritual and otherwise – who teach that whatever you put out there comes back to you. Yet . . . they fail to teach people about what we human beings put out there beneath our own consciousness, without our own awareness, and how that creates things in the world that have a way of coming back to impact us painfully, individually and communally.

Whatever there is within us individually or communally – whatever is harmful or even distorted – that gets normalized, has a way of coming back to haunt us. Whether that’s an incomplete teaching like the one above, an outright lie, or even a destructive force that is right out there in the open . . . the normalization feeds it and makes it grow under a guise – the guise of being normal.

Alice Miller taught about this again and again. She is no longer alive on this earth, but her wisdom and compassion live on. I hope I can do justice to her in this summary. She taught that no one is “born evil,” not even Hitler. That we bury the memories and feelings related to painful, even unbearable personal childhood experiences and then act them out later in our lives, without even realizing it. We act them out within and all around us, and most particularly on our children. For Hitler this included merciless beatings by his father and an absence of protection by his mother.

Miller taught that when parents’ treatment of children is normalized – like the cruel treatment of children in Germany and other parts of Europe when Hitler was growing up was normalized under the tag “child rearing” – many act out their experiences communally as they grow up. So . . . those who joined with or served Hitler in his brutality in Germany were also acting out the brutality they grew up with and their defenses in response. And how about those who somehow colluded with his rule? How were they acting out their childhood experiences? This is true of any tyrant. And it is true of any society. What does that mean about our society now? What does that mean about our societies now?

It is not only true of families and societies led by tyrants. It is also true of families and societies led by seemingly benign people, who are nevertheless impacting those under and around them from their own wounds and defenses against their own wounds.

Finally, Alice Miller acknowledged that the acting out occurs unconsciously because the child was not allowed to know and remember what was actually going on. This part of her understanding reflects the family’s and society’s attempts to keep from being exposed. But it also reflects the individual’s own attempts to keep from having those memories and feelings exposed, remembered, and felt – not only by others, but most especially by their own self.

Yet . . . we deeply need to expose, reveal, remember, and feel what is in our past that creates our today and tomorrow. There is no way around this. Many have tried to go around it. Many keep trying. Even in my own field, many techniques are developed in an effort to go around it. It is all part of the dysfunction.

We must expose, reveal, remember and feel what is in our past, for it is still alive within us and is creating our today. It is still alive within us and will most certainly create our tomorrow. We must expose, reveal, remember and feel it for our individual selves and our own individual healing. We must expose, reveal, remember and feel it for our communal selves and our communal, even global healing.

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

We all have wounds . . . all of us. If we are unaware of those wounds, they will almost certainly create dysfunction in our lives.

Ask yourself and honestly answer . . . what are the wounds in my history? The history of my individual life, my family’s life, my country’s life? And how is that life dysfunctional as a result? How is my own life dysfunctional? How is my family dysfunctional? How is my country dysfunctional?

We all have wounds . . . all of us. If we are unaware of those wounds, they may lead us to knowingly or unwittingly commit, feed, or tolerate abuses of power in our lives, our society and our world.

As you go about your daily life…explore the ways in which your own wounding may lead you to be apathetic towards, or even collude with, abuses of power in all arenas in your life . . . your personal relationships, your professional relationships, your relationship with your clergy, your children’s teachers, your government, any authority figures, your relationship with your children or the children in your life.

When you hear about a questionable action taken by someone in your life, how do you feel? What feelings are evoked in you, for example, when you hear of the misuse of power by a corporation’s CEO or when you learn about a politician’s abuse of power? What feelings are evoked in you when you learn of the incident of domestic violence down the street, or the abuse of a child right next door? And, most importantly, when before in your life have you felt that way? When from your young adult years, your teen years, your childhood? How far back can you trace that feeling? Go back as far as you can in search of the root . . . and take a real look at how you may be acting out in a way that feeds the abuse of power.

Imagine what our lives, our societies, and our world would be like if we all became aware of, and committed to heal, the inner wounds that, untended and unhealed, create dysfunction and abuse! Both the most obvious and the most subtle. Both the most out-in-the-open and the most hidden.

Why Did We Let S&P Scare Us?

30Aug2011 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!

****

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.

Judith Barr

Mysteries of Life

why we tolerate abuse of power

Why Did We Let S&P Scare Us?