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“My brother asked the birds to forgive him: that sounds senseless, but it is right; for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth. It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but birds would be happier at your side –a little happier, anyway– and children and all animals, if you yourself were nobler than you are now. It’s all like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would pray to the birds too, consumed by an all-embracing love in a sort of transport, and pray that they too will forgive you your sin.” (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)

Bethany Webster suggests that we transform the self-defensive stance of “I’m not racist” into a widespread, activated stance of “I’m committed to undoing racism in myself and in my culture”

There are many forms of explicit racism and racist attitudes can manifest in different ways including xenophobia or stereotypical assumptions. However, aversive or implicit racism can also drive our behaviours and create lens through which we perceive others. Unconscious beliefs operate below our conscious awareness and influence our behaviour or thinking and without our being aware of the process most of the time. Most of us have absorbed societal and familial beliefs and attitudes at a very early age, which play out in childhood and adulthood and determine our views of the Other, or we may project on others our own negative experiences of being discriminated against. Therefore, it makes sense to take steps towards facing our blind spots and creating cultural competence and harmony during the early years. The booklet below contains ideas on how we can become aware of biases through self-reflection and learning about other cultures and ways of being and also how to create more harmonious, inclusive and cultural competent learning contexts for young children: Cultural Connection Booklet for pre-school and school services at: https://childaustralia.org.au/…/Cultural-Connections.pdf

Desmon Tutu refers to Ubuntu which says that ‘we cannot exist as a human being in isolation. We are interconnected. We are family. If you are not well, I am not well. When Ubuntu is your core value you recognize your shared humanity. You cannot live in Ubuntu and violate the dignity or humanity of another……

Ubuntu does not say that we will not have differences rather it says we will look at our differences from a framework of reconciliation and renewal. I have said before and will continue to say until my own last breath, there is no situation that is without hope, there is no conflict that cannot be resolved, and there is no person that is incapable of transformation. Ubuntu means that when we walk into a room full of people we immediately look at the ways we are similar, not the ways in which we are different…..

Article one of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” This is Ubuntu. We are bound together in our quest for freedom in all its forms, connection in all its possibilities, and in our basic need for our dignity to be inviolate……

We are only people through other people. We are more alike than not. We are truly interconnected, and as a global family there are no true or real boundaries among nations, among religions, among territories. Every man, woman, and child wants to live, to love, to be free, and to be happy. (From an article by Desmond Tutu: The Politics of Ubuntu at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/desmond-tutu/the-politics-of-ubuntu_b_5125854.html

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August 15th, 2017

An expansive blue

Back in 2005 – ’06 when I first decided to process trauma and try to understand the deeper reasons of recurring violations and injustices I initially began reading articles on the internet and buying my first trauma related books. It was mostly a trial and error procedure and the material varied in terms of usefulness, but what came up in most books was the need to heal spirituality or deal with spiritual traumas. It took me quite a while to fully grasp the significance of this. Today I firmly believe that deep release of trauma, fear, angst or awakening cannot occur without healing this aspect of experience, for in some sense it is one of the deepest and most debilitating wounds of all. This type of wounding keeps helplessness, hopelessness, a sense of aloneness and fear in place and it impacts our inherent sense of belonging. Soul wounding or spiritual abuse / conditioning is a powerful closed gate that prevents us from living wholeheartedly and moving beyond survival mode. It blurs our vision – we kind of go through life like a horse with blinkers – and prevents us from tapping into our own healing potential and protecting ourselves from toxicity. I have mentioned elsewhere that one powerful tool to disempower children is to deprive them of their sense of inherent worth and connectedness, not only with their immediate environment, but with the whole universe, and to dampen their natural curiosity. Severing their sense of interconnectedness with others and Source, whether that is called God or something else, and stamping out their curiosity, uniqueness and authenticity, creates a lot of room for fear and helplessness. Neither parents nor teachers or religious institutes have the right to interfere in ways that deprive children of their sense of belonging, worthiness and deserving a place in the world. This type of early conditioning or soul trauma contributes to our feeling boxed in, disconnected both from our authenticity and others, but also from all the knowledge and wisdom available in the world. We get locked in our fears, ignorance, prejudices, racist attitudes, superiority and inferiority traps; all mostly fear based and the result of conditioning and unhealthy learning. We further compromise our health and potential; view the world through distorted lens and we remain in our designated place or boxes. We experience reality through the chains of this early soul wounding as well as our emotional traumas and other experiences. So, processing trauma should ideally be a holistic experience, as expansive and multi-layered as our expansive being. Perhaps tackling the distorted lens and demolishing conditioning and learning early on could facilitate or accelerate overall healing and change.

You may like to read or listen to Niki Gratrix’s interview. It is packed with so much information: the link between trauma and chronic fatigue; how ACEs can increase the risk of early death and how trauma is inherited through generations; the silent ACEs; the impact of attachment trauma on health and the prevalence of compromised early attachment (50% of the population!); how our interaction with others impacts the development of our brain; the contradictory parenting advice out there; the link between narcissism and attachment trauma; how childhood biography can become adult biology; adaptations to trauma; how limbic kindling is affected by emotional trauma and how it reaks havoc on the body; first basic steps to healing trauma; the ACE questionnaire; self-awareness; reset rituals and self care; how early relational trauma impacts future relationships; the importance of surrounding oneself with the right people and ridding oneself of energy vampires; the inevitable changes that healing will bring; an integral approach to healing trauma and the importance of addressing biochemical issues, etc, at: https://www.theenergyblueprint.com/heal-trauma

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Synchronicities

I returned to journaling in 2005 as part of my intention to explore and process trauma. At the time I also read articles and chapters in various books on the power of journaling as both a therapeutic tool, but also a means of self knowing. I engaged in a variety of exercises, used free-association, wrote with the less dominant hand and also sketched. I wrote from a child and adult point of view. One exercise I sometimes did was to first write from a certain younger age perspective and then write a letter to that younger state from the adult perspective as a form of reparenting, soothing and integrating experience. Currently there are many more books on the benefits of writing and more research to support the benefits and effectiveness of this process. There are hundreds of guided writing exercises and activities available. Also, journaling or writing complement yoga, meditation / mindfulness practices, and so on. It is really good to see that more and more people not only engage and consider writing and journaling important, but also see its value as a therapeutic tool, because not that long ago in a Master’s Programme in Clinical Psychology I was doing, these processes and ideas were seriously frowned upon, but this story could be the theme of another post.

 

These last few weeks I have been looking at some old journals from a somewhat different perspective. Stories and adaptations, the whole curriculum of conditioning, injunctions and psychological defenses, the layered nature of experience and understanding, emotions and intentions, the gaps in the stories or the lack of data, all populate these pages. Yesterday, I listened to Elena Brower talk about Practice You, a workbook she has created based on her own experience. She includes a letter writing exercise in each chapter and talks about how this process was illuminatibng for her. Specifically, she invites readers to write a letter to themselves at a certain age. For instance, in one of her book chapters she asks readers to:

 

“Consider a moment when you felt challenged, afraid, or sad at the age of nine. See yourself hugging that child you were. Now, from your perspective today, write a song, a poem, a letter, or a story that gives that child insight into the ways in which you will soon learn to know yourself, believe in yourself, and to bestow dignity upon yourself by trusting yourself.” (Sounds True: Insights at the Edge)

So, in some sense through this process we acknowledge and validate the pain or confusion or fear, but we also reassure that young part that things will turn out fine. To say this differently, we can potentially, unfreeze and defuse landmines of fear, injunctions and unhealthy learning, reframe experience, increase continuity and integration, release outdated beliefs, broaden perspective and understanding of traumas or events, modulate emotions and practise self-compassion. It’s like going back in time and shedding light on events and emotional experiences, and also, paying our respects to the young parts that have held this difficult material. Elena Brower says ‘you can handle that person, you can heal that person, and you can help that person bring forth into right this moment more solace and more confidence’ and that it’s like going back and holding that person’s hand.