Hello ... After this post, I will not be serving as a GoodTherapy.org Hello ... After this post, I will not be serving as a GoodTherapy.org

Healing the Misuse and Abuse of Power: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Stormy clouds over roadHello …

After this post, I will not be serving as a GoodTherapy.org Topic Expert. I will be moving on to other ways of communicating with people about their relationships with power, individually and with regard to how our individual relationships with power affect our towns and cities, our country, and our world communally. This is of crucial import in our world and becomes so more and more with the passage of time and the developments that are occurring.

From the individual outward into the communal … each one of us who is unable to feel his or her feelings safely ends up contributing to the disconnection, the alienation, the projecting, blaming and scapegoating, and the violence in our world today and in the future. Each one of us who cannot discern which feelings need to be safely acted upon in the here and now and which need to be followed to the there and then long ago, for our healing compounds whatever numbing, deadening, burying of violence, cruelty, wounding, and pain occurred long ago and reenacts it somehow in our world today—whether outright or by feeding it in others.

And from the communal inward to the individual … our society does not value feeling. It values functioning, being strong, being brave in a puffed-up way. Our society does not value emotional vulnerability. It values toughness. Numbness. Thinking. Doing. Our society does not value really taking the time to feel and grieve. It values a symbolic ritual, a short time to pay tribute, and getting on with it—perhaps by going back to normal or a new normal, perhaps by taking all the feelings that are part of the cauldron of grief and funneling them into a fight against what supposedly caused the grief.

So the individual’s fear of feelings contributes to society’s not valuing feeling. And society’s not valuing feeling interferes with the individual’s allowing himself or herself to feel. A vicious cycle that more than most people can imagine definitely contributes to and feeds the misuse and abuse of power in our world.

My hope and my prayer as I move on is that each person who has read or who reads my posts will take them to heart, be touched and inspired by them, let them move you to take another step in your own healing and in your own relationship with power, and pass them on to others you know.

Thank you, each of you, who has read my posts and has participated with me through your comments. It has been an honor and so meaningful to me.

Many blessings to you all …

Judith

© Copyright 2013 GoodTherapy.org. All rights reserved. Permission to publish granted by Judith Barr, MS, LPC, Power: Healing to the Root Topic Expert Contributor

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  • DV

    April 30th, 2013 at 11:43 PM

    It is so true that feelings are not valued in our world. And yes that does lead to us avoiding feelings individually. Not a good thing at all because we are always trying to be something than to feel what we are.

    First time visitor here but I will check out your older posts. All the best in whatever you proceed to do.

  • Laurie

    May 1st, 2013 at 4:12 AM

    Here’s to a bright and promising new life and purpose to you!
    I know that there are maby readers that you have inspired through your posts here, and you are wished the best of luck!~

  • d nash

    May 1st, 2013 at 8:51 AM

    I wanna be absolutely open about this – there are very few people who allow themselves to feel, and to acknowledge to themselves everything they do feel. And when the feeling does not happen they lose connection with themselves and become a ship lost in a storm, without a direction. These are the same people who when in power misuse and abuse it and cause a world of problems to so many of us, as is the case in most parts of the world today.

    Its almost like an illness, an ill person cannot lead or make decisions for himself much less others.So when such people do assume the role of leaders or whatever they will only cause suffering and chaos, and unfortunately that is exactly what is happening today.

  • Judith Barr

    May 2nd, 2013 at 4:58 AM

    Thank you for your responses to my final post. I’m moved, d nash, to read your depth of understanding of what I’m working so whole-heartedly to help heal in our world.

    Your feedback on my posts having inspired many, Laurie, really means a lot to me. And your checking out my older posts does also, DV. You can all continue to be inspired and to help in the healing. . . one of the things I’m doing is offering online home study courses for both professionals and laypeople — including ones on healing violence, healing bullying, and healing our relationships with money, and healing our relationships with power – all to the root. GoodTherapy.org is cosponsoring the courses, and you can find them on my website, accessible through my GoodTherapy.org profile.

    Finally, your sweet wishes to me for my future, Laurie and dv . . . touch my heart. Thank you so much.

    Many blessings to you . . .
    Judith

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