Memorial Day Monday: What You Can Do If You Are Angry About the War Raging in Our Streets?

Thought for the Day: This Memorial Day weekend, I am angry and I need your help. Those of you following my blog know that I have been voicing my concerns and offering suggestions of ways to help prevent the senseless loss of life from gun violence in our country. In January of 2013, after the Sandy Hook Tragedy, I wrote a letter to President Obama outlining my concerns along with creative ways to implement educational and psychological programs nationwide. Sadly, the violence has continued since then. This Memorial Day weekend began with yet another attack at the University of California in Santa Barbara. I watched in horror and sadness as the details of senseless loss of life unfolded. Unfortunately, we are living with not only a war waged by terrorists against our nation, but we are also under attack from within by angry, hurt, young adults who feel marginalized and mistreated by society.

I was also saddened to learn that my grandmother's nephew,  Herb Crane, a World War II veteran, passed away at the age of 95 two days ago. He lived a full active life. He even drove to the gym daily while in hospice care. (The article was written and aired before he passed away.) I want everyone in our nation to have the opportunity to live their lives, like Herb, to the fullest without fear of violent attacks in schools, colleges, shopping malls or movie theaters. I need your help. If you are angry, like me, and want to be part of the solution, read on on to see how you can take action...

Motivational Monday: Psychology, Morality & Politics: Is there a Red Line Even Pacifists Cannot Ignore?

Thought for the Day: It's Labor Day and I don't feel like writing, however, often I find that I need to push myself when I feel least motivated. Sometimes, it leads to some of my greatest insights. I have been avoiding writing about the horrible events in Syria for a while now. I try to stay clear of political topics. Instead, I focus on things more directly related to the field of psychology. However, as a psychologist who has always looked at issues related to war and peace, I know that I need to address this sooner or later.

It will be no surprise to those of you who have been following my blog, that I am a "dove" at heart. I grew up singing folk songs of peace and protesting war. I lived in Israel and studied ways to help people cope with the trauma of war, father absence and death of a parent during war and terrorist attacks. Here in the USA, I have continued to work for peaceful resolution of conflicts, sensible gun control, and reduction of violence and bullying.

On the other hand, I grew up hearing about the holocaust. I know all too well the traumatic impact World War II and the Nazi's intent to annihilate the Jewish people (and gypsies and disabled of all races and religions) had on my family and on countless others for generations to come. I worked with holocaust survivors and their offspring. Therefore, I am conflicted by the evidence of the gassing of innocent civilians and children. Although I and most Americans are weary of wars and reluctant to get involved in yet another conflict in the Middle East, can we sit by idly and watch a tyrant who would gas his own people? What message are we sending to the world if we turn our heads and pretend it is not happening? Could hundreds of thousands of lives been saved during World War II if the United States had responded sooner to Hitler's regime? Is there a red line even pacifists cannot ignore? Has it been crossed?

I don't have the answers, just scores of questions. I hope that our president, congress and military strategists have creative interventions that will make a difference and help put an end to the violence. The red line in Iran and a nuclear threat to the world is rapidly approaching as well. Like it or not, we need to address these issues. Is there a moral red line that we all must cross when a tyrant moves toward the genocide of any group? It saddens me that I must write about this, but I guess this is why I did not feel like writing today. My guess is that it is something we all would rather avoid, but the world is looking to us for leadership and it is our responsibility to address these questions.

As always, your thoughts, suggestions and comments are welcome. Please join the discussion and share them here.

Throwback Motivational Monday: Who Needs Emotions?

Thought for the Day: Let's face it. Emotions are tough! Who needs anger, sadness, rage, or jealousy? Many of my clients have spent their lives trying to avoid confrontations. Others can't seem to stop getting into fights with family & friends. You may be wondering who needs emotions, since they seem to just complicate relationships. I just finished making the above image which looks like a poster for a science fiction movie, but I made it while thinking about a client of mine from many years ago. I'd like to use it as part of an illustration about emotions, so bear with me.

Here's an important post from back in June which I decided to repost today. Have a great start of the week!

I'd like you to imagine that you are about 13 years old & growing up Jewish in Europe. You live with your mother, father, 5 sisters & brothers in a suburb of Krakow Poland (Krakow had 237,000 residents with at around 60,000 Jewish citizens). Your parents each have 4 siblings & they too have several children living in your neighborhood. When your family gets together for holidays your family is joined by 30 or 40 cousins of varying ages, 8 aunts & uncles & your grand parents at the gatherings. Your friends & neighbors have similar families. You go to school with hundreds of your friends & family members. Not long after your thirteenth birthday, war breaks out & the family is uprooted. You are separated from your relatives & end up in work camps & finally in a concentration camp struggling to survive. When the war ends you are 17 years old. You walk hundreds of miles to get back home. When you arrive, you discover that you are the sole Jewish survivor of your entire neighborhood. You go to a bar & get drunk. The next day, you leave your home town & never look back. You do not shed a tear & vow to forget everything that happened to you before the age of 17.

This was the true story of a client of mine in Israel (although I am not sure the town was Krakow, I simply used it to give a sense what my client experienced) . He did not come to therapy for himself. He came when his 13 year old son was hospitalized in a school for emotionally disturbed children. His son was out of touch with his emotions. The staff used to say that the boy was like a "robot." Both of his parents were survivors of the holocaust. The child was paying the price of their need to avoid their emotions at all costs. With help the parents & their son were able to start working through the powerfully difficult emotions they had been trying to avoid.

Who needs emotions? We all do. Emotions are not right or wrong, good or bad, they just are part of being human. If you are alive & human, emotions can help cope with the challenges of life.  As the heartbreaking pictures come in from Oklahoma, how can people cope without tears & hugs? As the survivors from Boston heal from the trauma of the bombings, should they try not to feel their anger? Emotions help us express the pain, anger, sorrow, regret & fears so that we can find our way back to life. If we try not to feel the negative feelings, we may survive, but may lose the positive feelings that we want to have. It takes a lot of energy to repress negative feelings & there may not be energy left for the positive emotions of joy & happiness. One theory proposes that depression is anger turned inwards. Avoiding emotions may be one of the things that keeps you from being motivated to follow your dreams.

Are there emotions that you have been trying to avoid? Have you found ways to express them? What has helped you? By sharing your experiences, you may help someone recognize their own blocks & start finding ways to deal with their emotions.

One Person Can Only Do So Much?

Thought for the day: On this holiday weekend what is your dream for the world? Spring is a time for rebirth. I hope that spring will help you to reignite your dreams. This weekend I have been thinking about freedom, change & the circle of life. What are your dreams? I hope you will share one dream here. As the simple edit above shows, one person's dreams can do so much to inspire others.

How often do you see the problems facing the world & feel overwhelmed? We are all busy living our lives, feeling we can only handle the demands of work & family life. When we feel this way, we think thoughts like the one above, "I'm just one person, how can I make a dent in the problems of the world?"

In 1983, I was a 3rd year doctoral student at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, I was one person stretched to what I thought was the max. I worked part time as an intern, part time as a fee-for-service psychology assistant at the Greater Lawrence Psychological Center, was a full time student & mother of three children. I was trying to complete my doctorate & had to choose a topic for my Doctoral project. I was leaning towards working on something that would build on my Master's Thesis, which looked at what helps children cope with bereavement, father absence & war. I thought it would make the project easier to accomplish within a year.

That same year, the television movie, "The Day After," aired. It was a powerful, disturbing movie which portrayed the lives of a family in Kansas the day after a nuclear attack. After I watched the film with my family,  I angrily asked, "Where are the demonstrations? Why aren't there protesters against nuclear proliferation like there were protesting the Viet Nam War?" My oldest daughter was a teenager.  With the biting honesty of a teenager confronting what she saw as hypocricy she asked, "Why aren't you doing anything?" I told her I was too busy, going to school working & running a household, but her question haunted me.

For those of you who have been reading my blog, you may already have noticed that often I sleep on or "dream on" things & awaken with new solutions to problems. After I slept on it, I woke up & realized that I could do something. I decided to use my doctoral project as a way to discover what was keeping people from taking action against the nuclear threat. I decided to create & study a technique to help promote discussion of this difficult topic & to help stimulate activism. It was harder than what I had planned to do since I was going into a new area of research, but it energized me. I felt more positive about the project & actually completed it in a timely fashion.  In addition, as a parent, I was modeling the kind of behavior I wanted my teenage daughter to emulate. Instead of telling her, "There is only so much one person can do," I was showing her that, "one person can do so much."

What is your dream for the world? What can you do today to start moving toward your dream? The 1st & most important step is owning your dream. Tell yourself what you want to accomplish & then tell others. Just conceptualizing it will help you begin to see how to fit your dream into your already busy life. In this day & age, it might be as simple as googling the issue & posting something on your facebook page every day. I'd love to hear your dreams. Have you ever felt like there was nothing you could do to change something & found a way? I'd love to hear your stories.