Even the Best Meditators Have Old Wounds to Heal

This article speaks deeply to my experience.

Blessings ~ Molly

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by Jack Kornfield

For most people meditation practice doesn’t "do it all." At best, it’s one important piece of a complex path of opening and awakening.

In spiritual life I see great importance in bringing attention to our shadow side, those aspects of ourselves and our practice where we have remained unconscious. As a teacher of the Buddhist mindfulness practice known as vipassana, I naturally have a firm belief in the value of meditation. Intensive retreats can help us dissolve our illusion of separateness and can bring about compelling insights and certain kinds of deep healing.

Yet intensive mediation practice has its limitations. In talking about these limitations, I want to speak not theoretically, but directly from my own experience, and from my heart.

Some people have come to meditation after working with traditional psychotherapy. Although they found therapy to be of value, its limitations led them to seek a spiritual practice. For me it was the opposite. While I benefited enormously from the training offered in the Thai and Burmese monasteries where I practised, I noticed two striking things. First, there were major areas of difficulty in my life, such as loneliness, intimate relationships, work, childhood wounds, and patterns of fear, that even very deep meditation didn’t touch. Second, among the several dozen Western monks (and lots of Asian meditators) I met during my time in Asia, with a few notable exceptions, most were not helped by meditation in big areas of their lives. Many were deeply wounded, neurotic, frightened, grieving, and often used spiritual practice to hide and avoid problematic parts of themselves.

When I returned to the West to study clinical psychology and then began to teach meditation, I observed a similar phenomenon. At least half the students who came to three-month retreats couldn’t do the simple "bare attention" practices because they were holding a great deal of unresolved grief, fear, woundedness, and unfinished business from the past. I also had an opportunity to observe the most successful group of meditators - including experienced students of Zen and Tibetan Buddhism - who had developed strong samadhi and deep insight into impermanence and selflessness. Even after many intensive retreats, most of the meditators continued to experience great difficulties and significant areas of attachment and unconsciousness in their lives, including fear, difficulty with work, relationships wounds, and closed hearts. They kept asking how to live the Dharma and kept returning to meditation retreats looking for help and healing. But the sitting practice itself, with its emphasis on concentration and detachment, often provided a way to hide, a way to actually separate the mind from difficult areas of heart and body.

More: http://www.buddhanet.net/psymed1.htm

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Joy comes not through possession or ownership

but through a wise and loving heart.

~ Jack Kornfield

Unequal Protection

This is perhaps the best book on corporate personhood.

Peace ~ Molly

* * *

Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate

Dominance and Theft of Human Rights

by Thom Hartmann

Click here to go to the site Click here to buy it from amazon.com
Unequal Protection is a book about how corporations are trying to hijack democracy – and what we can do about it.

In Unequal Protection, author Thom Hartmann tells a compelling, can’t-put-it-down story that tracks the history of the loss of democracy in America. It starts with the birth of the modern corporation with the founding of the East India Company in 1600, through the Boston Tea Party revolt against transnational corporate domination of the early American economy, the rise of corporations during the Civil War, the ultimate theft of human rights before the Supreme Court in 1886, and into the modern-day theft of human rights in the US and worldwide by corporate interests and the politicians they own.

“If you wonder why the corporate world constantly lurches from malaise to oppression to governmental corruption and back, Unequal Protection reveals the untold story. Beneath the success and rise of American enterprise is an untold history that is antithetical to every value Americans hold dear. This is a seminal work, a godsend really, a clear message to every citizen about the need to reform our country, laws, and companies.”-Paul Hawken, author, Natural Capitalism

More: http://www.thomhartmann.com/2007/11/08/unequal-protection/

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You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

All serious daring starts from within.

~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

Whoever said anybody has a right to give up?

~ Marian Wright Edelman

Business vs. Business…Corporate Personhood

From Thom Hartmann's blog:

In response to the Supreme Court’s terrible decision giving corporations First Amendment rights “dozens of current and former corporate executives” from corporations including Delta, Playboy Enterprises, Ben & Jerry’s, Seagram’s liquor company, toymaker Hasbro, Delta Airlines Men’s Wearhouse, and Crate & Barrel sent a letter to Congress asking it to immediately pass the Fair Elections Now Act, which would publicly finance all congressional campaigns out of a special fund created by a fee levied on TV broadcasters. They say they are tired of getting fundraising calls from lawmakers and now it will get worse. Actually, these relatively smaller corporations really have nothing to worry about when it comes to getting more fundraising calls from members of Congress. Their smaller contributions will be replaced by billions from Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, Big Retailing, and Big Manufacture in China. What they really have to worry about is that these huge corporations will use their new Supreme Court-granted political power to wipe them out altogether. Robber Baron industries can now drop billions to lobby to simply make illegal smaller companies, or force them to sell to giant conglomerates. Reagan and Clinton brought us “good buy small business” – our malls and downtowns are now totally almost totally national chains. Now you can say “good bye” to medium sized businesses – and even big American corporations – as well, as transnational, German, Japanese, and Chinese corporations can legally buy our politicians and use the power of the state to put their competitors out of business.

More: http://www.thomhartmann.com/2010/01/25/business-vs-business-corporate-personhood/

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One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

~ Maya Angelou

There are no magic answers, no miraculous methods to overcome the problems we face, just the familiar ones: honest search for understanding, education, organization, action that raises the cost of state violence for its perpetrators or that lays the basis for institutional change -- and the kind of commitment that will persist despite the temptations of disillusionment, despite many failures and only limited successes, inspired by the hope of a brighter future.

~ Noam Chomsky

The best way out is always through.

~ Robert Frost

It's Fascism, I Tells Ya!

by Tom Degan

"Fascism should more properly be called 'corporatism' because it is the total merging of corporate and state power."

Benito Mussolini

the Founding Father of the Fascist state

... Ascribing humanity to a corporation, to a company like Exxon or Disney for example, raises too many questions to even list here. But let's at least attempt to ask a few of them, shall we, boys and girls? Here goes....

Are corporations really persons?

Do corporations think?

Do corporations weep?

Do corporations fall in love?

Do corporations grieve when a loved one dies as a result of a lack of adequate health care?

Do corporations have loved ones?

Are corporations even capable of loving?

Do corporations sometimes lose sleep at night worrying about disease, violence, destruction, and the suffering of their fellow human beings?

Do corporations feel your pain?

Can a corporation run for public office?

Is a corporation capable of having a sense of humor? Is it capable of laughing at itself? (EXAMPLE: "So these two corporations walk into a bar....")

If a corporation ever committed an unspeakable crime against the American people, could IT be sent to federal prison? (Note the operative word here: "It")

Has a corporation ever walked into a voting booth and cast a ballot for the candidate of its choice?

We all know that corporations have made a shit-load of cash throughout our history by profiting on the unspeakable tragedy of war. But has a corporation ever given its life for its country?

Is a corporation capable of raising a child?

Does a corporation have a conscience? Does it feel remorse after it has done something really bad?

Has a corporation ever been killed in an accident as the result of a design flaw in the automobile it was driving?

Has a corporation ever written a novel or a dramatic play or a song that inspired millions?

MORE: http://tomdegan.blogspot.com/2010/01/its-fascism-i-tells-ya.html

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A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

~ Edward R. Murrow

Fascism Anyone?

I am moved to share this post by my wise, brave, and loving friend Mary Frances, which is a response to the Supreme Court decision of 1/21/10 to grant corporations the unlimited freedom to fund national candidates for President and Congress:

Hello World, The Supreme Court of the United States of America is holding a sale. What's for sale you ask? The United States of America - to the highest bidder. Oh yeah! It starts with an F and ends with an ascism. Mussolini defined fascism as "t...he merger of corporate and government power." So...welcome to the Fascist States of Amerika y'all. Check out: "Fascism Anyone?" by Laurence Britt...stunning!

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Fascism Anyone?
The 14 characteristics of Fascism

by Dr. Lawrence Britt

Dr. Britt, a political scientist, studied the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile). He found the regimes all had 14 things in common, and he calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism -- Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -- Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to 'look the other way' or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause -- The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military -- Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

More: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/14_Characteristics_Fascism.html

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What better way to control a people than

to convince them that they are not being controlled?

~ Brian Murray

(My now 30 year old son talking about

America several years ago.)

If Corporations Were Human

If America were informed that the 1/21/10 Supreme Court Decision has brought out into the open 1984 style that we are now officially a Corporatocracy, we would be out in the streets by the millions demanding democracy rather than a nation of, by, for multinational corporate interests. We must speak out and spread the word! Please join me! Peace ~ Molly

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Published on Friday, January 22, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
by Scott Klinger

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case removes all limits on large corporations to finance and influence federal elections. In its ruling the Court reverse a decades old ruling barring companies from using their general funds to fund political campaign, and guts pieces of the popular McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation. In so doing the Court implicitly embraces a 125 year-old precedent in the case of Santa Clara v. Santa Fe, where the Court first developed the legal doctrine of corporate personhood, explicitly granting corporations the same political and civil rights granted to human beings. Our nation's founders would be shocked to learn that their revolution had resulted in non-human entities like corporations being endowed with the same hard fought rights secured for citizens.

But what if we accept corporate personhood as the current reality and instead focus on changing the rules such that corporations would also have to be bound by other limitations of humanity? How would corporations be different if they were indeed human-like?

More: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/22

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No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices. (about Senator Joseph McCarthy's accusations about Communism in the American government) ~ Edward R. Murrow

We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Supreme Court Rules Corporations Are Free to Dominate Elections -- Citizens' Movement Emerges to Overrule the Court

I heard the moment it was breaking news that corporations have been granted unlimited financing of Presidential and Congressional candidates. This is the most frightening, disturbing, shocking, destructive ruling of my lifetime. The silver lining may be that it wakes more of us up. Please act now and spread the word! Thanks! Peace ~ Molly

* * *

National coordinated campaigns unite to revoke

corporate personhood, corporate "free speech,"

and secure citizens' rights.

Breaking News, Jan 21: Rep. Donna Edwards announces bill to amend the Constitution and overrule the Court. Rep. Leonard Boswell also announces plan. See our home page for Edwards' video announcement.

BOZEMAN, MT - The Supreme Court dropped the pretense of impartially interpreting the Constitution today in favor of unabashed activism on behalf of corporate power, overruling century-old legislative precedent and decades-old precedent of its own.

The Court enshrined corporations -- an entity unmentioned in the U.S. Constitution -- with the political rights of human beings, overturning settled law that distinguishes between corporate and individual expenditures in elections.

In response, two citizen coalitions have emerged with the explicit mission of overruling the Supreme Court via amending the Constitution. ReclaimDemocracy.org is among more than one dozen citizen groups that have joined forces to advance Move to Amend, a call to amend the Constitution to revoke the Court's illegitimate creation of “corporate personhood,” as well as establishing a constitutional Right to Vote and safeguarding local democracy.

More: http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_speech/amendment_campaigns_launch.php

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... the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.

~ Alex Carey, Australian social scientist,

quoted by Noam Chomsky in World Orders Old and New

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

~ Thomas Jefferson

Obama Finally Gets His Victory For Bipartisanship

Drew Westen
Psychologist and neuroscientist; Emory University Professor

You can blame a bad candidate, bad organization, bad timing of a vacation -- choose your rationalization. But the reality is that voters in Massachusetts were reacting to the same foul mist coming off Boston Harbor that New Jersey Voters smelled coming off the Hudson and Virginia voters off the Chesapeake.

What they all understood was that the source lay on the shores of the Potomac.

It is a truly remarkable feat, in just one year's time, to turn the fear and anger voters felt in 2006 and 2008 at a Republican Party that had destroyed the economy, redistributed massive amounts of wealth from the middle class to the richest of the rich and the biggest of big businesses, and waged a trillion-dollar war in the wrong country, into populist rage at whatever Democrat voters can cast their ballot against.

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/obama-finally-gets-his-vi_b_429232.html

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There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil

to one who is striking at the root.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Reflections on My Focus for the New Year...

These excerpts from Jack Kornfield's book

The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace

(which was written in the summer following 9-11)

reflect my values and where my heart is centered and

what I seek to deepen in myself and our world.

With each year my hope and intention is for greater

remembrance and awakening, love and peace.

I am grateful for these loving gifts from Jack Kornfield

which I am also moved to share with you today...

Hatred never ceases by hatred

but by love alone is healed.

This is an ancient and eternal law.

~ We who lived in concentration camps can remember those who

walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their

last piece of bread... They may have been few in number

but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be

taken from us but the last of human freedoms...

the freedom to choose our spirit in any circumstance.

- Viktor E. Frankl

Forgiveness and compassion are not sentimental or weak.

They demand courage and integrity.

Yet they alone can bring about the peace we long for.

~ True love is not for the faint hearted.

- Meher Baba

In spite of all confusion and fear, you are born with a heart

that knows what is just, loving, and beautiful.

In the words of the Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson:

~ Curiously, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more

strenuously than they hide their dark sides. It is more

disrupting to find that you have a profound nobility of

character than to find out that you are a bum.

If we look at ourselves truthfully, we can feel the possibility of

being more compassionate, more awake, more free.

~ If it were not possible to free the heart from entanglement

in greed, hate, and fear, I would not teach you to do so.

- Buddha

To sustain love we need to develop practices that cultivate and

strengthen the natural compassion within us.

Forgiveness honors the heart's greatest dignity. Whenever we

are lost, it brings us back to the ground of love.

With forgiveness we become unwilling to attack

or wish harm to another.

Whenever we forgive, in small ways at home, or in great ways

between nations, we free ourselves from the past.

We can meet the tragedies of the world with what

Gandhi called "soul force."

~ If you want to see the heroic, look at those who can love

in return for hatred. If you want to see the brave,

look for those who can forgive.

- Bhagavad Gita

In the end, forgiveness simply means never putting

another person out of our heart.

When we clearly realize that the source of disharmony and

misery in the world is ignorance, we can open the door

of wisdom and compassion.

If only we could help each other build temples of

forgiveness instead of prisons.

We can.

In our hearts.

We need to respect our tears. Without a wise way to grieve,

we can only soldier on, armored and unfeeling, but our

hearts cannot learn and grow from the sorrows of the past.

We can do our part toward the healing of the world...

We can begin to build a bridge of tenderness to those

who have been separated by pain and fear.

The greatest protection in all the world

is lovingkindness.

- Buddha

In the end, when we look at our life,

the questions will be simple:

Did I live fully?

Did I love well?

Without love our creative spirit will dry up.

~ An ulcer is an unkissed imagination taking its revenge

for having been jilted. It is an undanced dance,

an unpainted watercolor, an unwritten poem.

- John Ciardi

Our society has forgotten how to teach love.

In the words of John Gatto, New York City Teacher of the Year:

~ Think of the things that are killing us as a nation:

drugs, brainless competition, recreational sex, the pornography

of violence, gambling, alcohol, and the worst pornography of all --

lives devoted to buying things, accumulation as religion.

Even in terrible times we must learn to love.

~ We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, our ravages.

Our task is not to unleash the on the world; it is to transform them

in ourselves and others.

- Albert Camas

The ground for love is found beyond judgment and blame.

~ If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people

somewhere else insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were

simply necessary to separate them from the rest of us and

destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts

through the heart of every human being.

And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Hate if the first and most obvious enemy of love...

The other great enemy of love is fear. Fear contracts the heart.

Its worries and anxieties stop the flow of love.

Do we really want to live in fear?

As the Persian poet Hafiz kindly puts it:

~ Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I'd like to see you in

better living conditions.

~ An honorable human relationship, that is, one in which two people

have the right to use the word love, is a process of deepening

the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this

because it breaks down human self delusion and isolation.

- Adrienne Rich

With lovingkindness we see with the heart.

Lovingkindness gives birth to a natural compassion.

The compassionate heart holds the pain and sorrow of our life

and of all beings with mercy and tenderness.

~ It is this tender heart that has the power to transform the world.

- Chogyam Trungpa

When we come to rest in the great heart of compassion, we discover

a capacity to bear witness to, suffer with, and hold dear with our own

vulnerable heart the sorrows and beauties of the world.

In every place of suffering around the globe, there are those who

have discovered the good heart's capacity to love, and who

are willing to tend to the sorrows of the world as their own.

~ Compassion is a verb.

- Thich Nhat Hanh

Love does not try to fix the whole world. It is enough to plant

seeds of kindness and justice everywhere we can.

Compassion, gratitude, and joy are companions to the work of

lovingkindness. Compassion practice offers a conscious vehicle for

the sorrows of the world. Gratitude and joy balance the sorrows

of compassion and awaken in us a generous and gracious spirit.

The human mind can create conflict. It can also create peace.

To find peace in the world we must find peace in ourselves.

To make peace we cannot ignore war, racism, violence,

greed, the injustice and sufferings of the world.

They must be confronted with courage and compassion.

Unless we seek justice peace will fail.

Yet in whatever we do we must not let war, violence,

and fear take over our own heart.

~ If you expect your life to be up and down,

your mind will be much more peaceful.

- Lama Yeshe

Embracing both joy and sorrow, our heart

can remain tender and wise.

Peace is not an absence of change or difficulty. It should

not be confused with withdrawal or indifference to life.

These are the imitations of peace, ways of closing down

based on fear. We must see them for what they are.

With equanimity we can care for all things

without trying to control them.

With a peaceful heart whatever happens

can be met with wisdom.

Peace is not weak; it is unshakable.

Yet to find peace we have to let go of our struggles,

to stop making war with life.

We can direct our actions but not their fruits.

~ No seed ever sees the flower.

- Zen teaching

~ Sometimes I go about pitying myself and all the while

I am carried by great winds across the sky.

- Ojibway Indian

With equanimity we can see clearly.

~ We can make our minds so like the still water

that beings gather around us, that they may see their

own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer

perhaps even a fiercer life because of our quiet.

- William Butler Yeats

Wisdom comes when we see with a vast perspective. Our life is

unfolding in the timeless galaxies. We turn with the stars in

cycles of light and dark, birth and death, joy and sorrow.

~ Oh Nobly Born, remember the pure open sky of

your own true nature.

Return to it. Trust it. It is home.

- Tibetan Book of the Dead

Happy, Loving, Peaceful New Year!

Namaste ~ Molly

Trauma Bond: A Personal and Collective Experience

Warmest Greetings

Recently I had two separate but related experiences. I attended a training through my work as a Department of Human Services Child Welfare caseworker on trauma bonding, and I watched the preview films and advertisements in a Regal Cinema as I awaited seeing the movie Avatar. I do not often get out to the large movie theater venues. Yet, each time I do stray beyond the small local theaters, I am struck with how it is getting worse. Dramatically worse. In awaiting Avatar to begin, I grew to increasingly feel like I had walked into a science fiction story. Then I turned to my eldest son who sat to my right and Brian said exactly what I was thinking: "1984".

My one negative experience of the otherwise outstanding Avatar is that the really "bad" guys were too one dimensional and, therefore, lacking in a sense of depth and being real and believable. Yet, this was essentially an amazing film which illuminates a larger perspective with many layered and nuanced deep meanings and profound messages that are very relevant to our times. Paradoxically, the advertising messages leading up to Avatar held a plethora of shadows also reflecting the dark side of our culture, replete with mind, heart, and spirit numbing glitter, glorification of violence, the allure of materialism and the dictate to buy, buy, buy. The people up on the huge screen were consistently one dimensional and noticeably disconnected from anything with any depth of truth, heart, and meaning. The repeated enticements to join the military were especially offensive as our youth were portrayed in ways which used them - used them to glorify fighting, violence, war. There were no images of the horrors that I have been witness to in attending veteran's events over the years where our soldiers share their PTSD and how it feels to kill, and all too often when who they have killed is a mother or child or other innocent civilians. There was also no mention of the deeper reasons why our youth are sent to kill and be killed on foreign soils or who really benefits. Contrary to "supporting the troops", these messages up on the big screen exploited our soldiers and the youth that were being enticed to join the military and, as such, were deeply disrespectful and disturbing.

As we sat together in the movie theater, my two sons and daughter-in-law and I all acknowledged to one another how this violence to one's soul was painful to see and experience. And especially that it has become so "normal" in American culture.

How can this be - what has become so normalized in American culture? . . .

Maile McCluskey is an amazing therapist. She has worked with one of my clients for over a year around this mother's history of generational trauma. The more I have come to know Maile and the work she does, the greater the depth of my appreciation and respect for how she makes possible a depth of healing for her clients. Maile (pronounced like "smile" only without the "s" and with a long "e" sound at the end) isn't just a therapist with different degrees after her name. She is a woman of great wisdom, strength, and heart. Being a trauma survivor myself, there has been a part of me that has wished that I could have found someone like Maile to support me in the early years of my own healing work 25 years ago. Of course, today I also recognize and am grateful for all the pieces of my story, including the most challenging and difficult ones. I know that all of these experiences have blessed me with the depth of compassion, caring, and growing wisdom that I possess today.

With humility and gratitude, I also recognize that there is always more to open to and learn. And now this significant new perspective which weaves it's way through seemingly separate and different experiences. As Maile spoke about trauma bonding, and after years of doing my own personal and professional work, much of what she shared was already familiar to me. But there was also this new depth of insight which I find myself continuing to notice and integrate.

In our training, it was easy to recognize the trauma bonding in our clients - those who have been victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and other forms of violence and neglect. Maile talked about Stockholm Syndrome in which victims become aligned with their abuser, and the components of this syndrome, which include: (1) a perceived threat, (2) small acts of kindness, (3) isolation, and (4) a perceived inability to escape. In moving more deeply into discussion of trauma, Maile highlighted that core to trauma bonding is a promise, and how it is that this promise comes to be threaded and woven through any trauma bond. Also important to note is that hidden in this promise is the use of seduction, power, fear, and intimacy.

Understanding the promise inherent to any trauma bond illuminates how it is that something that is experienced as "normal" to some can appear crazy to others. One can wonder why a victim of domestic violence won't leave the perpetrator or how the horrors of the holocaust happened or how the aftermath of 9-11 occurred right here in America. Identifying the promise is key to understanding the traumatic bond. Yet, also key to understanding the craziness of the trance that any of us is capable of in the wake of a trauma is to grasp the awareness that in the process of trauma bonding a severe deadening occurs to one's intuition. As the victimization of the vulnerable individual or even whole society occurs, red flags that go up are minimized, ignored, or denied. No matter the cost, what is right under one's nose cannot be seen. This is the power of the promise. And this is the price of the injury to one's instincts in the aftermath of a trauma.

It is easier to look at trauma bonding as something which occurs to others, such as the children and parents who come into the child welfare system or the followers of a Jim Jones or Adolf Hitler. Even though there is some vicarious traumatization that can occur when we are witness to the trauma of others, there can still be the safety of some detachment when we see it in another individual, another family, another religion, another cult or culture.

It is sometimes much more difficult to look at and, often, to even recognize our own traumas and resulting victimization. Traumatic bonding can be subtle enough to not even penetrate conscious awareness. And this is how it can be both insidious and powerful: we fail to recognize how traumatic bonding doesn't just happen to those other people out there. It can also happen to anyone, including ourselves.

Maile McCluskey began our training on trauma bonding with asking each of us to reflect on our personal experiences when 9-11 happened. Maile reflected how at that horrific time there were groups of people connecting everywhere, often total strangers and from a diversity of backgrounds. There was an instantaneous bond which was emerging from this profound shared trauma. This was a gift, a strong light in the midst of the horror of such darkness. The immediate bonding that arose as the towers came down reflected the positive side of trauma bonding. We came together to support one another.

Individually and collectively, we Americans also had a new depth of vulnerability which was ripe for exploitation. And thus the dark side of our trauma bond. With 9-11 and it's wake came the trauma, the promise of protection, the increased - but for many subtle - victimization, followed by red flags (often hidden behind the American flag) which were ignored or not recognized because, in the midst of our trauma, we had fallen under the trance that comes with injury to our instincts coupled with the power of the promise.

In the time following the fall of the Twin Towers, and while millions of Americans watched in new horror, millions of others endorsed, supported, believed necessary, or did not notice what followed in the aftermath of 9-11: the severe polarization and propaganda of "you're either with us or with the terrorists", color code alert warning systems, other constant reminders of the trauma of 9-11, the Patriot Act, two wars, the introduction of "embedded journalists", the trampling of the Constitution, the end of Habeas Corpus, torture, extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo and secret prisons, illegal wire tapping of Americans, the hiding of the return of the military coffins, the "dumbing down" of journalists' questions, a continued focus on terror and "the war on terror", the one-sided pervasive propaganda of the American media, violation of the Geneva Conventions Protocol, destruction of the global environment, the total failure of response to Hurricane Katrina, fixing of the facts of scientific studies to deny global warming, the president's signing of more than 800 Signing Statements which circumvented over 1000 provisions of US laws, the outing of a CIA agent, war crimes, and the list goes on. Looking at just this one example of the impact of trauma bonding illuminates the vulnerability that we can all have and how, without awareness, the catastrophic impact that can unfold.

So, yes, whether reflecting on the aftermath of 9-11 or sitting in a Regal Cinema awaiting a movie to begin, war is peace and other forms of 1984 are in our midst. AND knowledge is power. May we each find the courage and passion to increasingly recognize, embrace, learn from, heal, and transform our own individual and collective trauma and victimization. There is a depth of life lessons, empowerment, and profound blessing to be found in the midst of the darkness which is part of the human experience. May this New Year see more and more of us seizing the moment to individually and collectively further awaken our hearts and work toward creating a world that cares for all beings.

Namaste ~ Molly

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How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ~ Anne Frank

Although the connections are not always obvious, personal change is inseparable from social and political change. ~ Harriet Lerner

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. ~ M. Scott Peck

Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead