If We Ask Why

School shootings. I've written about this before. Everyone seeks to explain, discover a cause, so they know who or what to blame. But we created this. Are we mature enough yet to admit this?

Let's look at the environment we have raised the Millennials and Centennials in, those born after 1995:

They've grown up with horrific violent scenes on TV, movies, and video games and adults tell them this is entertainment.

Their parents were told institutions can take care of their babies while moms can go to work for fulfillment, leaving early forming brains to those who don't love them. The first 3 to 5 years of a baby's life their whole world view is shaped as either a scary place or a safe place. (When work is necessary it is best to place them with loving relatives.)

They are more and more separated from the natural world and the essential learning, problem solving, and wonder that comes with interacting with it.

They are often fed food lacking in nourishment; food that is so far from its natural state it's lost its life-giving properties.

They are often prescribed drugs with questionable benefits and disastrous side effects.

They learn its OK to live in virtual worlds of screen time; it is fine to reduce in person time with friends and communicate in short bits of messages, cutting out invaluable information from body language, voice fluctuations, facial expressions, and the sheer, palpable energy exuded by the other person. This is important information that teaches the child essential skills in interpersonal relationships.

And apparently, we ignore many warning signs of young people in deep distress; who need attention, treatment, and love.

We have a knee jerk response to look outside of ourselves for what the cause is, guns, laws, law enforcement, but we really need to look at our culture, too, of which we have all been a part. Hollywood has continually increased the graphic violence with a myriad of weaponry in the films marketed to children. The horrific, brutal games have desensitized our children. And these same groups are so quick to condemn gun laws when young people act out these violent acts.

We evolved over millions of years to grow up testing our physical bodies, exploring the natural world to discover the natural laws ourselves, and when we find danger to have that loving parent to run back to. We then learn how much we can do, how far we can push ourselves, which results in confidence,  

When I was growing up I was sometimes gone from the house for hours, exploring the world, climbing trees, building forts with the neighborhood kids in the woods, making up elaborate games where each child had a position or a job, getting lost and figuring how to get home, falling off my bike, falling off a horse, clumping through vast stretches of deep mud, seeing how far I could push my body, collecting bottles to take to the store to buy a piece of candy, building huge snow animals in my backyard, and so much more.

I learned we are part of this world, and that the world is an exciting, enormous place full of contrasts and surprises and that I could handle myself in it.

When my children grew up in the 70s and 80s, they peddled down the road into unknown territories, went up to the store on their own those few blocks, camped, explored caves and underwater reefs, also having diverse experiences in the world.

I worry our children now are growing up, for the first time, in an unnatural environment, void of exploration, of sinking their feet in the dirt and playing in lakes and streams, getting out in the sunshine, getting caught in the rain, seeing and hearing the sounds of animals, watching the wonder of nature play out in front of their astonished eyes.  

The experience of living and interacting in the natural world is an important component of what we call, wellbeing. I don't know how we find wellbeing without it. Being in nature heals the soul. It certainly isn't found in a screen. No wonder anxiety, depression, and suicide is rising to never before levels among the young today.

We can begin to help them by limiting screen time to an hour or less a day. Studies show this reduces depression and anxiety. And get them outside.

REACH

Another shooting and another round of whys, though they seem to be quieter now. We’re exhausted trying to figure it out. What can we do?

The ACLU sued the government in the 1970s to stop mentally ill and homeless from being institutionalized. The state-run mental hospitals, of which several had questionable practices, soon closed.

We have millions of all types of weapons out there. To the extreme, if we had a Gestapo force retrieve all the guns from all the homes in the country, would that solve this?

The entertainment industry has filled our airways, screens, and games with horrific, graphic violence while we just sit by.

The feelings of anxiety and powerlessness across the society produces outbursts of violence from those who are unstable, mentally ill and/or angry.

I’ve thought and written about this a few times since Sandy Hook, always coming to the conclusion that we have to look at ourselves. It is our society that is triggering these individuals.

I’ve come up with an acronym to give us a plan that we all can institute. REACH

Respond. Instead of waiting for our politicians, our police and law makers to do something, we need to have a response. We need to dig deep into the histories of these troubled individuals and their families to see what the source of the action was. We need to respond when individuals show signs of instability, high levels of anger, withdrawal or a sudden change in behavior.

Engage. Listen to these troubled souls. Get a feel for where they are coming from if you are working with someone or they are in your circle of acquaintances that is showing signs of distress. Engage with them, talk to them, offer kindness and friendship.

Action. Get involved in your local community’s plans for preventing such tragic occurrences. Study up on signs of mental health problems, arrange study groups with your friends and co-workers to problem solve for your community’s safety. If you are in the wellness profession go out and teach. Teach teenagers to meditate.

Lobby for sensible gun laws. Do something.

Communicate. Go to your city meetings, write letters, communicate ideas to your representatives locally and nationally. Get the entertainment industry to take this seriously, and create safer, more wholesome games and stories for our impressionable youth. Brain storm and come up with out of the box solutions that no one has thought of yet.

Help. Find out how to help our law enforcement, civil servants, teachers, health care providers, counselors, school boards, service clubs, etc. If you are a business owner, how can your business help?

If just 1% of us focuses on solving this, we would have an army of over 3 million helpers working to increase the wellbeing of our population.

On Our Rush to Condemn

What is behind our rush to condemn, criticize and hate others whose opinions run counter to our own? The answer is multiple, because there is a different answer on different levels. Here is a few:

• ·         There's the ancestral/anthropological answer; how we've evolved to distrust others who aren't like us because other groups of primitive humans represented risk of harm, competition for survival, and the risk losing of clan members. The reptilian, primitive part of the brain is triggered.
• ·         Psychological answer: We dislike change, our tribe throws out fearful scenarios of what would happen if the other tribe had power over us. Fear of losing power.
• ·         Spiritual answer: We are triggered by the ego always fearing extinction; i.e. we must keep control, must eradicate everything we don't like, we must be vigilant and distrusting. Spiritually our task is to connect to the deeper part of ourselves, beneath the ego ramblings, that still, peaceful presence. This connection will guide us to improve whatever it is we focus on justly and lovingly.
• ·         Evolving consciousness. The world holds a wide spectrum of levels of consciousness, from fear and survival to the enlightened. Through ideas such as Integral Theory by Ken Wilber and a Map of Levels of Consciousness by Dr. David Hawkins, we can measure on a scale where different ideas and thoughts fall. We can see the leading edge of consciousness in certain groups, and where the bulk of world view is in the population.  What is 'correct' and 'right' changes with each evolving level of consciousness.
• ·         We're frightened of finding out how small we are. What really scares us underneath is vulnerability. We see that as the most emotionally dangerous thing.  It is why don't we want to watch others who express different views than our own on that 'other' channel.
• ·         We fear we could be wrong. We don't want to admit there is a part of ourselves that believes what the 'other' side expresses, but we suppress it. So, instead of ferreting out that part of ourselves and examining it, we lambaste others who express it.  This is called projection.

Why don't we round out our knowledge of everything by hearing and learning about other views?

A sign of high intelligence is a heightened sense of curiosity and wonder. We are all born with it. Children go through asking why, why, why. But we get so entrenched in our bubbles, our learned thought ruts, what we are supposed to think and feel from our aligned 'group', that we lose that curiosity. We dive into the beat and condemn along with the rest repeating the memes we hear on 'our' viewpoints and 'our' channels that tell the story one way.

Let's stop for a minute and allow me to walk through the last 50 years of news and entertainment, because I think it is integral.  When I was a young child 60 years ago, TV was in its infancy. I remember our first television. Three channels, black and white, signed off each night with the National Anthem. It was easy for the stations to sell advertising; everyone wanted to watch what was on and we had three choices! As the years went by the competition grew, the number of channels grew, and it became harder to capture the audience the networks once did, so the shows got bawdier, more rough action, more sexual insinuation, always finding the new edge to grab eyeballs. Even cartoons showed more and more violence, guns, fights, pies in the face until today many are rude, disrespectful, and sarcastic—and this is supposed to be 'cool'.  Even some music now is violent, the constant news is soul crushing; kid's movies are graphic blood and guts; it is no wonder our discourse in politics is so hateful. If some alien visited Earth and watched any local channel on TV during an election, she would think each candidate was a crook, corrupt, dishonest, evil, and untrustworthy. My point is, this incivility has been growing for a long time. The entertainment and media industries continue to expand what is considered acceptable behavior.

This is interesting; upon going to any gathering in most small towns people are still kind and respectful to each other. It is as if when a camera or microphone is put in front of others, suddenly there are no limits to behavior.

I have lived in two worlds politically most of my life. In the business world, and the world of financial markets, most people I've worked with are conservative. In my personal life, with my interest in spiritual studies, meditation and world religions, most of the people I've met along this path are liberal. Moving back and forth is jolting at times. Hearing the terms my friends from one camp use to describe the other camp is more than disheartening. But I do understand these things are said without any real deep thought. They are knee-jerk reactions learned by the media and repeated as elections heat up to drive people's fear of the 'other' side's success.

We need to listen to each other, plain and simple. The more we really hear one another the more understanding can flourish, and with understanding a new respect will grow. I just listened to an author on the radio who, for her research on the controversy of abortion, interviewed women who believed abortion to be wrong. She, being on the liberal side of this argument, was surprised to discover how much she liked many of these women and could easily be friends with them.  From my perspective this is sad, because she must not have friends with different viewpoints from her own.  

So, there are many reasons for this climate of distrust and venom toward groups of people. But there is only one reason why we should, each one of us, correct this trajectory we're on. Love. We really underneath love everyone. You know this is true.

Women are Needed NOW

We Need to Step UP

•       Men have done a phenomenal job for the most part—moving us to a more comfortable, modern life, one of the highest accomplishments of civilization—creating a democracy based on an exquisite document, the US Constitution, which gives us the eternal task of fulfilling the sentiments in it.
•          Our country keeps falling into quagmires as life normally unfolds, and the women abide. They wish, they see other solutions, but have mostly expected the men to see a better way out up until now.
•           It is now time for women to stand up and help, not push men down, not blame, but add their assistance. Women are naturally nurturers, creative problem solvers and historically have expressed this behind the scenes.
•           It is time for balance, for equal responsibility, equal effort, equal input, equal output, equal planning, execution and design of our future.
•          Women must step up beside our brothers and help, influence and create a new world beside them.

We Have Become so Angry

The 7 Steps we can take to calm it down

In 2003 I wrote a column for the local paper about the growing lack of civility in politics and news media. Here we are 15 years later and culturally we are angrier, ruder, more quarrelsome, more anxious and stressed, and have a new outlet for nasty discourse: social media.

Technology has played a role in this. We can't get a break from news, rumors, crises, and notifications of tweets, 'likes', emails, texts, private messages, and Facebook telling us our fans haven't heard from us in a while!! Vivek Wadhwa, distinguished fellow at Harvard and Carnegie Mellon, just released a book, Your Happiness Was Hacked: Why Tech is Winning the Battle to Control Your Brain—and How to Fight Back. In an interview he said the tech industry knows full well how they got us hooked on answering those texts, worrying about likes, and responding to those little red bubbles on our phones. It throws us off balance, reducing our chances of having a sense of wellbeing and increasing the chance of irritation or feeling overwhelmed.

With the state of the world and politics in this modern life many of us are getting angrier and angrier. Let's look at this. Anger is a natural human emotion. It is neither right nor wrong. On a scale of emotions from negative to positive its near the bottom, but above apathy, hatred, fear and unworthiness. Certainly, fear plays a significant role in anger. Inherent in anger is a fearful feeling of powerlessness or a lack of control. If we had control, we would change what was making us angry!

We grew up in cultures where it was discouraged to show anger, as if anger is not allowed. Of course, if it is denied—doesn't get relieved—it's harbored within, expressing itself in destructive ways and eventually affecting our health. On top of that, many of us weren’t taught how to cope with strong emotions. Undigested anger comes out in so many ways.

 A few:

Sarcasm

Character assassination

Self-destructive behavior

Extreme judgmental behavior

Trolling (make a deliberately offensive or provocative online post with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.)

Revenge

Violence

Physical symptoms: constricted muscles, poor digestion, inflammation, tendency for skin rashes, or heart disease to name a few.

While we're angry, solutions are blocked, visions of higher possibilities vanish.

In its best function, anger is useful to move us through a bad situation.  It can give us the energy we need to make a needed change in our lives, to right wrongs, to stop others from doing something harmful, and to transition ourselves from lethargy to taking an active role in our lives, moving us to a higher state of being. Anger does make us feel more powerful temporarily. When it becomes destructive is when we don't have an outlet, don't take any action, and have not learned methods of moving through the anger to a better feeling place.

We could be on the edge of a spilling over of anger that we haven't seen since the 1960s, when people took to the streets to protest, even riot with the extreme anger over everything going on at that time.

What do we do when our irritation, anger, or frustration rises up? Understanding what is going on in your brain first can prepare you. Our higher brain functions are used logically and calmly, but when we get afraid, threatened, or angered, our reptilian brain—the primitive part that is designed for survival—gets engaged, high-jacking these higher functions. The fight or flight response takes over, instincts that prepare us to run or fight.

What can we do? I hear people talk about feeling so helpless as they learn about the atrocities going on in the world. The injustices, the suffering, the political vitriol, the violence, terrorism, the wars and battles going on day in and day out. When we lived in small farming communities we weren't exposed to daily and hourly news of horrific things.

The best way to deal with all this? I have a few ideas to help you re-frame the suffering going on living on planet earth and help you cope to regain some balance.

·         As always, first take care of yourself. If you are going to be of any help to anyone, you must build strength within.

o   Get a good night's sleep. Turn off the TV by 9:00. Read uplifting literature, articles, scripture or spiritual texts.

o   Spend some quiet time every day in prayer, meditation, or walking in nature.

o   Treat yourself to a massage regularly or/and give yourself a massage with scented oils before you shower.

o   Eat light, lots of natural vegetables, legumes, fruit, seeds, nuts, & limit your animal protein.

o   Journal. When your mind is stuck on judgements or the negatives around you, grab a pen and paper or get on your device and write all your thoughts down. Its a download of all the garbage you need to get out of your head. This is especially helpful before you go to sleep.

o   When you are feeling down, angry, or sad, these feelings are held within your body. If you just try to think happy thoughts and repress them, they will continue to rise up until you deal with them. They want acknowledgment! They are valid and your truth. Sit with them and allow them their existence. Sense where you feel them within. Your heart, chest, stomach, neck? Embrace them with your attention. It may take several times, but you will notice the tightness, the constriction, the pressure or pain begin to ease and disperse once you've given them permission to be.

·         One of the reasons we feel helpless is because we feel like there isn't anything we can do. Do some small thing every day to make someone's mood better, or write your politicians, give to a charity, volunteer, make a phone call to someone who is lonely, visit someone who is in the hospital, teach a child, teach a class, or write your ideas and solutions down for others are just a few anyone can do!

·         As you bring yourself into alignment with your higher self, as your consciousness is raised, you will notice you are developing a deeper understanding of others actions. You will start to see everyone is doing the best they can from where they are at the moment. This will help toward lessening your automatic response to the news with anger or fear. You will understand the causes.

·         You will see this world is wonderful and beautiful even with the suffering that is always going on. The world has always been this way. As we grow and evolve we can impact the world by just being who we are. And as we evolve, the more impact we will have on the whole, each and every one of us.  

Can You Feel It?

Can you feel it? The ground shaking? The great shuddering of the Earth? Somethings coming. Something's happening. Something new we haven't seen before.

     My world has been shifting anyway, in the last several weeks. Where once a government contractor occupied a small suite of offices downstairs, there is now an enchanting young woman exploding with enthusiasm on the entrepreneurial path. And another dynamic woman came looking at the suite but requested a small office for her service. Her contagious passion to start her own business convinced me that I needed to give up one of my own seldom used offices. It was my library, filled with over 1,000 books that were getting dusty. I was moved to donate them and clean out that room for her.

     At the same time, we hired an industrious, lovely woman starting her own eco-friendly cleaning service. Her work is thorough and she runs her business efficiently down to every detail!

     Three dynamic women whose generosity, demeanor, intelligence, passion, determination, energy, and positive outlook just knocked my socks off! And three of them are working in our building! YAY, you Gen Xers!

     This is a mini explosion of female chutzpah like I've never seen! My two new tenants will be increasing wellbeing. One providing skin care, massage, and facials and one helping teens entering adulthood from the foster care system. They are both brilliant and still in the midst of attaining more accreditations and degrees. One will have her masters by the fall!

     We are seeing a shift emerging out of these wild and raucous times. Women are rising, not as whimpering victims, but as beautiful, intelligent and bold manifestors moving out of their safety zones to change the world, each in her own way.

     More women than ever are running for political office. More women than ever are stating their dissatisfaction and determined to do something to improve our world. I can't wait to watch.

Does the U.S. have a unique racial problem?

It appears, with attention to our media, we do. We don’t hear about overt, frequent incidents of racial bias elsewhere. When I visited In South Africa I noticed how submerged it was, yet it was obvious there was still prejudice there. But we didn’t hear it blasting from every media outlet.

It exists here. No doubt. Within every human there are perceived ideas about people different from ourselves. And, as with any societal expression the cause is a combination of biology, history, exposure, beliefs, and preconceptions.

1)      Without awareness, or in fear, our higher rational part of our brain is hijacked and the primitive reptilian brain takes over, causing rapid, sometimes incorrect decisions about a situation. We see this whether someone is a trained police officer or a lone woman walking down the street. Feeling threatened, we go into survival mode: freeze, attack, run, or find help as fast as possible. For millions of years we’ve been programed to go into fear mode. Women, being normally smaller and weaker, are especially vulnerable to feeling panicky when a powerful man seems threatening. Its not something we seem to be able to talk about, but the fear a woman feels being followed by a large man when she is alone is an ancient, biological response. Not something easily controlled.

2)       In the U.S. we are all exposed now from a very young age to images of threatening men in certain dress and look in movies, music videos, and series. We are then biologically and psychologically conditioned to see them in real life as a threat. I’m only guessing, but the two black men who came in the Starbucks, both wearing sweats, facial hair and one with cornrows, may have triggered fear in the manager, solely because of stereotypical images.

3)      When great attention is paid to one incident, even if it is a rare incident, it becomes larger than life, and the media goes on high alert for like events. It gives the impression that it is overwhelmingly common. For example, child abduction has been on the decrease for many years but if you ask the parent of a young child they have the impression it is a increasing threat. Most likely 499 public  interactions out of 500 don’t end up with a racially biased action, but our perception is so heightened it feels like it has permeated the country.

4)      I remember when Juan Williams was fired from Public Broadcasting for admitting he would feel fear if he were in an airport and saw men with Islamic dress after 911. That was a missed opportunity to talk about this.

When we can’t speak about our fears we can’t rise above them. The only way to solve this problem is by raising our consciousness so that we aren’t so easily triggered into fear by situations that aren’t dangerous. Only raising awareness can we hold onto our higher rational, logical mind, preventing the negative and primitive kneejerk reaction.

Firing the young female manager who called the police for instance, isn’t a positive learning experience for anyone. Not addressing her reaction psychologically doesn’t solve the larger picture.