Women, Don't Buy into Barriers

This came up on my memories. Still same sentiment.

2018

I wrote this last night after watching the news. Instead of railing against how the news is presented, I write. :) The picture is me at 13! :

 I like hearing about women who ignore the idea that the world is stacked against them. Women who do what they want regardless of what others think. Women who do not listen to the rhetoric that says women have been discriminated against, who act as if this is not the case, who venture into all worlds with the expectation that they can do anything, and see no barriers, only opportunities. This was ingrained into me by my father.

There were blocks in front of me in the early 80s when I became a stockbroker. I tried to join Rotary but was told they weren't ready for a woman member, I was chased around a desk from a groping manager; I have stories, but making those stories into a victim's story is devolving. I just chalked it up to the idiot behavior of a few. Mostly the men in my life have been great, and working in an industry with so many men has been a blast.

It seems like we're going into another round of hearing women are victimized. One of the ways we fight this is by moving past the perceived barriers, don't believe in them.
Those who choose to point at the reasons why they can't succeed, won't. Those who barrel on through regardless, just may change the world.

Create Peace in all the Division

 

              Photo by Loverna Journey on Unsplash

Much like most of you I have friends and family members who cover the spectrum of beliefs and ideologies. Intelligent people I know and respect who think so differently from each other on so many topics: politically, on health, fiscally, socially and more. I watch and hear the confusion people are feeling trying to understand this wide diversity among people close to us.

Look how confusing it is in our world today.

•  We have multiple information outlets with experts of prestigious backgrounds voicing disparate 'truths' on whatever topic you pick, from what drugs are effective, to when to open schools, and whether to trust the safety of wearing masks and more, just on the virus alone!
•  A continuous stream of 'breaking', alarming news.
•  Social media rife with torrents of angry rants, condemnation of others, as well as horrific stories of unimaginable atrocities to people, children and animals.
• Widely diverse news stories showing the information from an unbiased view (where?) all the way to extreme bias.
• An increasing number of conspiracy theorists gaining in popularity among all demographics
• Increasing violence in the streets of large cities and very little coverage of it on mainstream media.

             And no one takes responsibility for this. We hear the cry; it is the evil media's fault; they are the villain here. It is the politician's fault; no, the 'other party's' fault. You can find stories to validate whatever it is you are inclined to believe. Then you can feel justified in your judgments, your opinions, and 'know' you are right and others are wrong. Even the pandemic, of which we are in the middle of, is worse, or not nearly as bad, as the different sources say.

            Let's stop for a moment and look at where our judgments come from. In our modern world we have this gigantic compilation of all the egoic thoughts represented on the internet. Like a global brain, mass consciousness is suspended in the Ethernet, holding all good, bad and indifferent indiscriminately.

             We don't know how to handle all of this information overload. We spent a few million years living in small clans, knowing an infinitesimal bit about the greater world around us. We went on instinct, our guts, and our emotions, observing others near us, understanding what kept us safe, and had to stay focused on finding food and surviving.

            Now most of us don't need to worry about getting enough food, or a safe place to sleep. With our time we can spend it coming up with new ways to live and entertain ourselves day after day after day.

            So, where are we now? We work toward what constitutes a good life and how we want to be, and we gather with those who agree with us, but find many in our sphere don't, and low and behold we find millions of others disagree. Then others sometimes hold back on discussing topics, or quietly separate from us, or they may argue with us, or even get enraged!  

            The truth is we all are creating our own individual worlds from our own consciousness. Our own minds. We absorb—consume is a better word—all the information coming into our senses. We react with a combination of judgments, reactions and ensuing emotions. We base all our assumptions and beliefs on our history. Our ego is like an operating system that has learned about the world since our birth. This is where our judgments come from.

            We couldn't survive without it.

            But almost all of our suffering is caused by the ego. Our thoughts about a situation, and our feeling that we are powerless to fix it, drop a blinder in front of us, blocking a way out of the suffering. We don't see the suffering coming from inside our minds but blame everything outside of us. We become open to explanations served by conspiracy theories.  We reinforce this suffering by talking to our friends about how terrible everything is. We all do this to some extent, and it is so hard not to. Yet it holds us away from our sense of inner peace.

            We can learn to 'see' the deeper reality below all of this created chaos by being anchored in the unchanging, omniscient, omnipresent source; use your own words here: God, The Unmanifest, Source. Let's see how.

            We have another 'mind' besides the ego; that is our higher consciousness. That part of us that nudges and whispers when we stop to look within; when we take a moment to listen, actually connecting to our source. Pause, be mindful, meditate, be present, these are all suggestions to hop beyond the judgmental mind's suffering.

            No matter what is going on in your own world right now—you may be experiencing difficulties or illness—in this moment, you are sitting there reading these words and you are OK. The sun will still rise tomorrow. All that really exists is this moment, right now. Stop burdening yourself with worrying about the whole world. It's futile. Worrying about all the other people who think differently from you won't change anything. Worrying about the newscaster who said something incorrect, the politician who said something awful, the latest numbers on the virus, the violence and natural disasters, will not help anything.

            Create love in your heart. Find a way to seek to understand the hearts of others. That’s all. Then you are moving from ego to love. And as always, the more people who seek love and understanding will change the world.

 

 Kasey at the foot of a Statue of Gandhi in London

Resolving the racial divide and racism

 

There are many terrific ideas being proposed to help our culture include more equality, from improving education, to assigning more mental health professionals to work with the police, and taking to the streets to bring awareness and express dissatisfaction. Most are old ideas. I've watched this struggle since I can remember; in the 1960s and 70s there was a similar upheaval for change and healing of the racial disparity. There was much talk and action to address it.  Yet here we are, circling back, realizing how our efforts have failed. Why? 

One reason is our piecemeal approach, so many programs that affect only a few people. Or ideas like Head Start; an honest effort, but didn't address the real problem. And equating throwing more money as a solution to problems. More food stamps, more welfare, more school lunches. While much of it is necessary, this still doesn't address the problem. Legislating to stop discrimination is nice but doesn't address the problem. Pulling down Confederate statues may help emotionally, but will never address the problem.

 Just as a rising tide lifts all boats, lifting the entire society to become more aware, more conscious is the only real solution.

 It is the only one that doesn't continue to slap band aids on a cultural problem.  If we continue to be focused on the symptoms and not the cause, we will never get there. And it isn't the easiest, but it is possible.

 What we need to stop doing:

•          Stop ostracizing and punishing those who are acting out for or against changes. For using trigger words, for using hateful speech. They're acting out of ignorance and reflexive fear, and they may not learn anything if they are always disregarded as human beings and not heard. This helps no one.
•          Stop mindlessly spending money on our problems. The lack of effectiveness and waste in government spending is disgraceful. We have a multitude of programs at every level of government with little to no progress to show.
•          Stop talking and look for positive actions.

 

What we need to start doing:

•          Send good communicators out into the communities. Mental health experts, compassionate conflict resolution experts, educators, and elected officials with the objective of listening, problem solving, and coming up with creative and thoughtful ideas to discover our commonalities and working on our communities together.
•          Develop a program that will be taught in all schools that includes conflict resolution, problem solving, stress management, and some type of mindful practice that allows inner reflection and growth in awareness. There are schools across the country doing this now but they are few and far between.
•          Develop a better plan to help the lowest socioeconomic sectors stop the perpetuation of staying in poverty generation to generation.
•          Prison reform. A thoughtful plan to bring the non-violent offenders into programs that increase their success in life through education, problem solving etc.

 By raising awareness, or consciousness in a significant number of people in society, systemic problems like racism will wane naturally because we grow in self-reflection, empathy, and broader perspectives. With compassion and care for everyone, we will all rise.

We Are All Brainwashed

Why are we so surprised when someone acts badly, horribly? There have always been people who do so. Why do we expect others to change and behave because we tell them to or think they should?

     When people we like say unfortunate things we excuse them, when people we disapprove of say unfortunate things we say, "See, see how awful that person is?"

     Our whole law and order system is based on the premise that we have no control over ourselves and will purposely do bad things if we are allowed to, but not if there is a law against it. Huh?

     We keep expecting military, police and others in the line of danger to control themselves, even after teaching them how to harm and kill others. Are we giving them skills to increase their insight, judgment, and self-control?

     Why do we hoard toilet paper? Why do selfless acts, people doing the 'right' thing, bring so much attention?

     There is so much going on, originating from our primitive past and evolution, to our states of awareness or consciousness. The great majority of us don't get up and plan to do harmful things one day. We expect people to behave because most of us tend to follow the rules, use care and make decisions not to harm without even thinking about it.

     But we are emotional beings, and when we are tripped emotionally by fear, real or imagined, our primitive part of our brain, the reptilian brain, hijacks our rational, more evolved brain. When fear sets in and takes hold, our basic survival reflexes take over, and our thoughts go from reasonable to "I won't have any toilet paper!".  More seriously, when fearing our existence could be extinguished, the root of all fear.

     And we have the media and social sites stoking the flames over and over and over causing more brains to go into survival mode. It is like an inflammation of society. It is the old adage, what you pay attention to grows.

     What is the answer? What I have always maintained; enough of us having the intention to raise our consciousness, our awareness. We can learn how to subdue the primitive brain and not allow this knee-jerk reaction of fear.  There is a profound amount of research now to support the myriad benefits of conditioning our minds with meditation, yoga and other mindful practices, and understanding how to attain wellbeing, which includes health, happiness and prosperity. If enough of us do this it will raise the mass consciousness perhaps to the point where we will begin to see clearly the causes of these outbursts we see on the news, like the woman in the park who called the police on a black man just telling her to leash her dog, or more dire acts of violence such as the policeman who killed a black man in custody. It is more than prejudice, it is low consciousness, which doesn’t suppress a primitive response such as fear, apathy and other ignorant reactions that can lead to cruelty. (Noted, a black person seeing what happens to other black people when confronted by a bad policeman, will feel fear. To ask someone in this situation to not feel that way in this present day is ridiculous.)

     We are all brainwashed in that we all are prejudice. We grow up with our family of origin's beliefs, our communities, our culture's and the beliefs of those who we chose to be around, right or wrong. Then, we have layers added from the media, internet and Hollywood images. We seek out validation of our own opinions and surely, we find them. It is mostly unconscious.

     We think we are right and others who disagree with us are wrong. That is prejudice. All sides of an issue have varying degrees of validity. It takes maturity to see another's viewpoint. To see their hurt behind their harmful words and actions. To see their fear in the violent acts. To see their desperation in their hateful speech or destructive actions. It isn't easy.

     To be open-minded doesn't come naturally; it takes intention and effort, it takes introspection. 

     The miracle is how our society functions as good as it does most of the time. The great majority of police and military act with honor and conscientiousness. Most of the protests are peaceful and productive. Most drivers are driving carefully. Most people, given the opportunity, will not steal. Most people show kindness daily. And this isn't because of our man-made laws, it is because of consciousness.

     When I saw a white policeman kneel beside the protesters, and another wrapping his arms around one, a lump formed in my throat. Then, I saw more police talking of the great need for real conversation between the black community and police departments. And I now see a small light emerging. Growth. Will it be fanned instead of more of the grief and anger? Will we now listen to each other and move to the next level of awareness with love and kindness?

The USA has Inflammation (Maybe the whole world!)

The USA has Inflammation

(Maybe the whole world!)

It is inarguable that tempers are rising across the country and have been for quite a while. In a physical body, inflammation is a protective response to infection, illness or injury. According to the ancient health system of Ayurveda, from which our current practice of yoga comes from, inflammation is the result of an accumulation of too much Pitta, or fire in the system. This may be from a combination of lifestyle habits: unbalanced diet, aggravating thoughts, stress, toxins, too much heated activity, frustrations or other impediments to a soothing and calm experience. If it continues over a long period of time without recognizing and changing the harmful patterns in one's life, inflammatory disease could result, such as heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, autoimmune diseases, and premature aging among them.

Of course, the country, as a society, has the qualities of consciousness, just as a person does. It can be called group consciousness or mass consciousness. Therefore, the consciousness we are experiencing as a group affects our life experience on all levels: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Only if you were a hermit in the woods, never interacting with others or hearing the news, would you be unaffected. All that goes on about us and around us is affecting us. The outrage, the violence, political standoffs, verbal abuses, increasingly violent entertainment, obsessive use of electronics streaming unsavory images, people caught behaving in awful ways, and on and on, all seeps into our lives. It's nearly impossible to avoid. We may become inflamed over and over during a typical day. This energy is added to the mass consciousness.

Something has to give.

And so, the country. The vulnerable, the susceptible, will out-picture the inflammation emanating from the masses. The weakest links will move to release the pressure from the cooker. And we have the outbreaks of cynicism, frustration, rage, and violence.

Before and after the world wars we had long periods of a calmer, more peaceful society. The wars blew out the built-up inflammation. Now we have some small international skirmishes that are barely on our radar. There is no big safety valve to release this build up, not that a war is an acceptable release.

We must evolve to find healthy ways to bring our society to wellbeing. We must enable the release of the anger and inflammation safely, and at the same time learn skills and practices that allow each of us to find peace within.

·        Practice Conscious Communication from the work of psychologist Marshall Rosenberg.

·        Meditate. A practice of meditation allows you to become aware of your knee jerk reactions and emotions so you understand you have a choice how to respond.

·        Limit your exposure to media and information that upsets you. Read about the topic instead of watching images, etc.

·       Take up spiritual/religious studies that cause you to see a greater perspective of life. How we are all inextricably connected, and what affects one affects all.
·       Learn to release your anger in a healthy way such as telling loved ones using 'I' messages, when anger arises stop and drop your attention to your bodily sensations and observe them, get plenty of fresh air and exercise, go for a walk etc. And take care of each other.

By doing the things that create peace within ourselves, we can eventually see it change society as a whole. It doesn't take a majority to do this, just a small but significant percentage can shift everything. Take care of yourself and teach others, spread peace.

What Do We Make of the Abortion Issue Today?

What do we make of the abortion issue? This is one topic you better stay away from at that cocktail party.

Is one side right and one side wrong, really? If so, which side is right? It depends on many factors; how it is perceived by an individual: including but not limited to their faith, beliefs, cultural conditioning, experiences, role model’s views, politicians’ arguments, party affiliations, etc. etc. These all have play into an individual’s response to this subject.

Neither side is trying to be divisive, authoritarian, judgmental, or elitist. Individuals, if we really care to dig deeply, are thinking and deciding out of an abundance of care.

Each side has explored an issue that is quite unsavory, an action that is irreversible with unknowns as to how a woman, or the potential father, will look back and feel about it.

When I was a young mother in my 20s, a friend asked me to drive her to an abortion clinic to get an abortion. She already had three children and found herself pregnant. As I sat in the waiting room, the atmosphere felt thick with tension, with women sitting around staring into space, some softly crying, most very quiet. A sweet looking young girl, maybe 16, sat beside me. She seemed confused. She kept glancing sideways looks at me. Finally, she spoke.

“I’m scared,” she said turning directly to me, her face pinching up. “I’m not sure this is right thing to do. How do I know if this is what I should do?”

Then the tears she'd been trying to hold back came in a downpour, wetting her reddening face. She was alone. I couldn’t imagine how frightening this must be for her. I feebly told her they would take her in first to talk to a counselor, pointing to a door down the hallway, who will help make sure she had all the information to make a good decision. They will help her, I said. I didn’t really know what else to say to her. I felt totally inadequate to counsel this young, distraught girl.

I, myself, didn’t have a strong leaning for or against abortion rights. I just know I found the topic dreadful.

A few years later, with a little more maturity in me, and more medical and spiritual knowledge under my belt, I had a liberal attitude toward abortion ‘rights’. It was 1981. Sandra Day O’Connor was just sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. I wrote her a long letter explaining my view on the abortion issue. I was for the government staying out of the decision making. Not making it a right or a wrong, but a decision between the physician and the woman.

That’s one thing I've never quite understood; why or how the government became a party to making this difficult decision for a woman. How does a governing body mandate a healthcare decision? An extremely personal, even heart-wrenching decision?

So, I watch the sides once again bringing this to the fore, adhering to their playbooks. One side telling us the opposing side is trying to take women’s freedom away, one side telling us the other side doesn’t care about these tiny human beings.

But in the nut of it, at the core of it, it is all out of love.

There are those who want to make sure a woman is able to do what she thinks is right for herself and her own life. Their mantra is, "Those against abortion want to take your choice away and control your bodies. We want to protect  a woman's freedom." They care about these women. They don’t want them to suffer. It is out of love.

There are those who want to protect the innocent. Those beings not yet born. They value and hold these lives as every bit as important as you and I, with all the rights we have. Their mantra is, "Those for abortion want to kill babies. And many of them are the poor and uneducated. They don't offer better solutions."

But this too, is out of love. 

Yet this stops any communication and problem solving in its tracks.

It is more important now that we work harder on creating a society that has reduced unwanted pregnancies to the lowest number possible. That we don't give our young girls the idea that casual sex is fine, and no worries if you get pregnant because it's an easy fix.

Do we really know how that will affect a woman or a young girl down the road?  I've had friends who seemed to manage fine post-aborting, and others who experienced a gnawing regret. I'll never forget one woman who had an abortion when she was young and single; then years later, after marriage, she found out she couldn't conceive again.

Neither side is evil. They care very much. Let's be more grown up about this and admit there is a lot of pain experienced around this topic and the procedure. How about working together to reduce the need?

This is serious stuff. Which is why, I think, people get so emotional on both sides. It isn't a frivolous topic. Some see it as a freedom issue, and some see it as a life and death issue.

Can we open our minds and hearts to understand both sides?

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

How much is the US Budget? How much is a trillion dollars?

Answer. The 2019 US budget is $4.407 Trillion Dollars

A trillion dollars is a 1 with 12 zeros after it. $1,000,000,000,000.

If you stacked this in $100 dollar bills, they would reach the International Space Station.

The top 20% of US citizens are worth an average of $3 million each

Net worth of all US households in 2017 was $94.7 Trillion

40% of this worth is owned by the top 1% = $37.88 Trillion

Therefore, roughly the top 1%, 400 people, are worth each an average of $34 billion

What if the 1% then paid 40% of the budget? They own 40% of everything.

They would pay $1.8 trillion divided by 400 or $20 billion each. So, their wealth would last less than 2 years.

There is a point here, there isn't enough money to continue spending trillions of dollars a year. The numbers tell the story. Our government continues sidestepping this, pretending money will always be there. The top 1% cannot save us.

A conversation between Trump and the Angel, Grace, when his life is over*

The soul who had played the energetic personality of a powerful man on earth left his physical life, emerging into the next world. In this realm, there was no real evidence that he had been such a force in humanity, except now he senses being newly freed, as well as awareness of his deep wisdom, which was hidden before.

"Wow Sweetheart, what a pivotal, important role you played! Exceptional. Your whole life, culminating in your becoming president of the most powerful country on Earth! It was such a strong expression of so many waning thought patterns. Their last hoorah! What was it like? What did you feel while in that life?" Grace fluttered about the shifting image as he went through that life and all the emotions it evoked.

"It was tough, not fully realizing who I was, who we really are; from my bombastic, critical father who made me feel so small and incompetent, to always feeling like I was on the edge of obliteration if I didn't barrel through and defeat everyone in my way. My enemies were anyone who disagreed with me! The worst was the constant search for validation; but I guess without that, I wouldn't have been able to play such a role. When I volunteered for this—whenever we volunteer for something so critical in human evolution—we don't quite grasp the depth of suffering and longing we will endure. But there was always small glimpses, Grace. I felt you near in those depths, even though I never articulated them. Myself as 'The Donald' would never allow that type of introspection or personal disclosure. That would have been far too threatening.

Of course, I see and know now how you were there every step of the way. How you sent kind souls to give me strength, how you fortified my feelings of power. Phew. I had to have almost inhuman power to pull that character off!"

"And just look at how many humans you woke up! Of course, there were reactions at every level of consciousness, but those nearing the leading edge of evolution, they needed the strong push you gave them!

            That culture had been moving—no—expanding, in two directions at once: one where those with the most evolved state of consciousness, bringing messages of peace and compassion, grew in great numbers, while the vulgar, violent, hateful expressions of lower awareness was ripped wide open for all to see. And you became a masthead for that." Grace stopped, observing the twisting and tightening of his energy field in front of her.

            "It is so painful. All those negative expressions came from such a state of pain. People who were trying to be good found hate in their hearts for those who they disagreed with! From good, hearty family folks who went to church every Sunday, and the spiritual community who studied philosophy and wanted nothing more than to grow and love, to those who felt sidelined from the country's promises—they all seemed to fall into some kind of spell when they heard other viewpoints and then spewed such vitriol. It really did pull all of this out of the population, what they had no idea was there. But, you're right of course. Those nearing the highest awareness of that time on Earth, they really needed a push. They were so very necessary to bring about a change."

            Grace fluttered, changing colors and twinkling, "The unearthing of all that was inside really startled the spiritual community! They found it so difficult to walk the walk as they say, when faced with this darkness that was so blatant. Ah, finally, we will see, years after your death, they discover that it was inside them and that's the turning point, don't you think? They thought before that it was just within the "other" people?”

            "Yes Grace! That is when things really begin to improve. When they all accept responsibility. Wish I had lived long enough to see that. From this vantage point, we can see what unfolds. I did see the unraveling of the two-party political system, I saw the beginnings of a great reorganization of a fairer, more just system. But it wasn't completed. Grab some old Earth popcorn, let's watch it."

*Grace is a character from Kasey Claytor's novel, The Light of Grace, Journeys of an Angel. Grace is brought in as an experienced life review Spirit Guide. This is a work of fiction.

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.