HEALING THROUGH PEACEFULNESS

Healing Through Peacefulness 
By Dr. Diane Abdo
          The reality and impact of terrorism and its brutality in our lives and world today can be overwhelmingly frightening and distressing.  In order to cope with the anguish and pain that is caused by the knowledge of the brutality and trauma perpetrated upon innocent people, we must understand the nature of anger, its purpose and value.

         Please join me in a short explanation of the purpose and impact of anger.  Anger is your psyche’s way of warning you that you are feeling vulnerable or violated.  It is impossible to not feel anger, or even rage, initially, when you have been betrayed or traumatized.

          Rage overwhelms and immobilizes your senses, thereby inviting your dark side to control you.  Acting on anger interrupts your healing process.  The goal is to understand and address the meaning and impact of the cause or causes of your anger.  Once you understand the psychological meaning of the event, and arrive at appropriate methods for dealing with the situation, your anger will shift into something manageable and workable.  You will experience a sense of personal empowerment and control from this process of understanding, rather than remaining a victim of your emotions and reactivity. 

          Understand that anger and rage give you illusions of power, strength, justification and protection.  Often, the sense of connection that results when you join with others in anger or rage, can lead to behaviors and attitudes that are negative and destructive.
 
          Consider that membership in a gang is a good example of this phenomenon.  Typically, the fundamental impetus for involvement in a gang is the need for belonging.  Without the guidance, support and sense of importance to a trusted family, young people are lured into the inclusive, if not distorted, dynamic of belonging to a group of people controlled by a malevolent leader.  Rage and fear are the tools of manipulation that gangs and terrorists rely upon.  We must internally insulate ourselves from the control these tools can have over us.

          A significant point to understand is that the emotional pain and vulnerability one experiences during times of trauma or other distress creates chemistry that disrupts calmness.  This calmness is necessary to support clarity of thinking, which then assists the management of emotions and then effective decision-making.  Further, when we are afraid, angry or otherwise negatively emotionally overwhelmed, the other’s anger is experienced as abrasive and disruptive to the calmness that is necessary for clarity and emotional healing.  If you remain focused on anger and rage, others will not feel safe with you and you will perpetuate the chemistry of stress and negativity within yourself and the others around you.  Moreso, the rage within you will be further ignited, disguising the deeper need for healing.

          Hopefully, now, you can see the importance of being in charge of your own emotions in order to be able to contribute to an environment that is healing.  Both for your own wellbeing, and for the wellbeing of those you bond with through challenging times, it is essential to develop your skills at being a harbor of safety.  While we cannot stop the dark forces of others, we can support the process of healing by not giving in to our own dark forces in whichever ways they exist within us: unbridled anger, rage, resentment, hostility, etc.

      To empathically understand is more helpful, healing and powerful than to connect in rage. While this healing begins within us as individuals, ultimately, others benefit as they experience the soothing and supportive energy that emanates from us, consciously and unconsciously.  Just imagine the potential reach to larger groups and communities of that singular decision to commit to compassion, despite fear and rage.  This form of loving gives new meaning to the concept of power.

          Choosing the peaceful and loving path does not justify acts of horror and violence.  Rather, it empowers you to have personal control as you choose your response.  Further, it builds the Life Muscles of: Endurance, Perspective, Finding Focus During Chaos, and Choosing Meaningful Participation vs. Reactivity.

      Let’s consider developing these, and other, important Life Muscles as you navigate challenges and as you connect in meaningful ways with others also experiencing challenges.  As you read this brief description of valuable Life Muscles, please assess your current skill level on each of these measures and commit to developing proficiency in each of them over time.

1. Purity of Intention to Love: 

• Prioritizing kindness, gentleness, sensitivity to other’s experience of you, and compassion in relating to others
• Consistently checking your patterns of relating against this standard

 

1.  Endurance:

• Valuing the long-term results of compassionate relating over the desire for immediate gratification or reinforcement
• Faithfully adhering to the belief that the ultimate benefit to another’s heart justifies walking a difficult path

 

1.  Perspective:

• Willingly stretching your view or thinking to understand a different or opposing view, without judging or critiquing it; simply understanding it
• Maintaining an open and respectful attitude toward those who think differently than you; without forming or entering exclusionary camps

 

1. Finding Focus During Chaos:

• Developing and maintaining the habit of reliably and responsibly managing your thoughts, emotions and reactions so that you have calm control in tumultuous or unstable circumstances
• Prizing personal control, and the opportunity to be the calm in the storm, with the intention of being helpful to others in stressful situations

 

1.  Choosing Meaningful Participation vs. Reactivity:

• Consciously choosing valuable moments of engagement helps you to participate with forethought and purpose, making your engagement valuable to you and others
• Being in a reactive vs responsive mode causes you to contribute to the chaos and prevents the de-escalation of the stress response

 

1. Identifying the Image of How You Wish to Show Up:

• To strengthen your calming style while engaging with others, visualize and practice the ways you can best appear in all aspects of body language, attitude and verbalization

 

1. Finding Purpose Through Challenges:

• Seek to understand the ways you can benefit and grow from the challenges you experience
• View all challenges you face as opportunities to build emotional strength and Life Muscles

 

1. Being the Soft Place for the Other’s Heart to Rest:

• Recognize, embrace and practice the character and strength required to be trusted as a safe person for those in emotional pain
• Commit to honing the skill of being non-judgmental, as trustworthiness relies upon it

 
Through developing these Life Muscles, you can more readily arrive at:

• Clarity to drive your responses vs. Impulsivity to exacerbate your reactivity
• Neutrality which invites vs. Opinion which divides, and
• Healing which promotes internal peace vs. Remaining trapped in the habit of negative emotions.

In the effort to be clear in my message to you through this article, I will offer this very simple but powerful point:
          When two or more people join in rage, hurt, anger and despair to share their pain and agony about an act perpetrated against them, their family, friends or community, a sense of connection, and even solidarity, occurs.  Their shared outrage, or grief, supports them initially.  However, if outrage or distress are consistently the main form of expression during times of sharing, the experience becomes incendiary.  Repetitive rage, anger, hurt and despair, can blind, distort, and intensify the psyche and chemistry of illness and deepen pain within an individual or group of people.  Ultimately, if not interrupted, this pattern renders the connection, that was initially supportive, to be debilitating and toxic.  Now, the connection cannot heal.  Now, it harms.

          Choose to be a source of comfort by helping those in pain (including yourself) to calm and gain composure.  Recognize their, and your, anger, rage and hurt.  These emotions are natural and necessary.  Then, light the pathway to healing by emitting tranquil and loving energy.  Maintain the attitude that expresses understanding and gentleness.  The intentional act of interrupting outrage with moments of quiet allows the process of emotional healing to begin to take root.   Those around you, and you, will benefit from that starting point of healing.  Now, with the clarity that comes from calmness, measured responses to even the most unsettling circumstances can be initiated.

          As you consider the messages in this article, if you notice any tug of resistance to the concepts presented, seek to understand:

• What that resistance represents, and
• The impact of that resistance on your life personally and interpersonally.

Knowing the psychological significance of your moments of disconnection from peace will help you to better understand your path through life and your impact on that path.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.”               (Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.)

          I hope you choose to be the light of safety and comfort in times of darkness.
 
          I realize that the scope of the concept of Healing Through Love is too large to effectively represent in only one article.  Therefore, I will be addressing different aspects of this topic in future articles here on my blog at www.drdianeabdo.com.
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