This is the first of a multi-part blog divided into three main sections 1) to identify some of the significant sources of stress over the last year, 2) to restore our own balance in the face of these stresses and not forget who we are, and 3) to move forward on a foundation of our core values (without necessarily becoming like that which we abhor).

Some of what I say here may make us aware of old wounds. More precisely, as we look into the stresses of our time, we may recognize wounds that have been activated by the peculiar nature those stressors. The important thing in this is to accurately connect the old wound with the current stressor to better deal with both.

When I began talking about stress-management 20 to 30 years ago, everyone’s focus was on the mind-body connection and our ability to manipulate our internal state to reduce the influence of events outside and inside of us. It was mostly a self-healing, self-focused activity. Today, however, I do not think we can achieve healing and wholeness for ourselves without some degree of healing the wounded world around us. In that, we must also recognize our relationship with the world. It is because of that relationship that things out there stress us out. It is also because of that relationship that we can influence our world. In all real relationships, influence goes both ways.

Stress, Chaos and Revelation

This past year – particularly since the 2016 presidential election – has been one of extraordinary stress for many people. It shows up in social media, in real conversations, in counselors’ offices, clergy consultations, and professional publications: our national psyche is beset with waves of stress, anger and anxiety. I present my observations not to add fuel to partisan fires already burning, although that seems unavoidable. Rather, I invite you to beware of your automatic reaction, whether for or against what I’m saying or about the topic. Instead of reacting, I suggest a moment of self-reflection. When you are tempted to respond to something I’ve written, ask yourself the following questions:

 

• Why do I want to respond at this moment?
• What is my emotional investment in this?
• What is missing, or what do I really want here?
• What do my answers to these questions say about my values?

 

Now back to my observations and thoughts.

 

The Unique Qualities of Today’s Stresses

We live in a unique time and are beset with stress waves and one emotional virus after another, both arising from a plethora of sources. In addition, we are becoming aware of the fact that we are all connected by media, by electromagnetic forces and by our very existence in the collective consciousness of humankind. We face choices about how aware we want to be, and how to evaluate the validity of information coming to us. Shall we react in kind, or respond from the heart? Can we respond to a monster without becoming monstrous ourselves?

To begin, let’s identify the threads that have come together to create this situation.

 

The Election and Post-Trumpmatic Stress Disorder

The escalating stress to which I’m referring seems to have begun with the 2016 presidential election. “We” elected a man whose behavior has always been outside the bounds of our expected presidential decorum and decency. His supporters are delighted to see someone speaking his mind and shaking things up, and are disgusted at the intolerance and judgmentalism of his detractors. His critics, on the other hand, are appalled that a man of his character has been put into the highest elected office of this country.

His amorality should be no surprise. He repeatedly created businesses that went bankrupt (meaning he used others’ resources without compensating them) while enriching himself. His sexual exploits and racism are legendary. And his war on “political correctness” was a code to battle against the expectation that we should treat one another with respect.

The distress of the time that now focuses on him, however, is not just from this one man’s day-to-day behaviors or position. Many people who have been subjected to bullying in early life – in the military, in business or industry – find old hurts and resentments reawakened. Many people (mostly women) who have been sexually assaulted, harassed or otherwise abused have found a resurgence of their old wounds – a reactivation of post-traumatic stress arising from earlier experience. Given that the man at the head of this nation glories in his ability to bully others and evade accountability, and who brags about his predatory sexual exploits (and then denies and hides them by bullying his victims), it is only natural that unhealed wounds and unresolved resentments have been triggered.

Some mental health professionals have broken with tradition to openly question the president’s mental state, character and fitness for his office. The first book I became aware of was A Clear and Present Danger: Narcissism in the Era of Donald Trump, and the more recent The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. Both books are edited by psychiatrists. Mental health professionals find him an easy diagnostic subject, and his impact on citizens has been noted with a newly-coined term, “Post-Trump-matic Stress Disorder.”

(A webinar can be found called Post-Trump-matic Stress Disorder and Other Psychological Aftermath of the 2016 Presidential Election at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIWTuXeP7O4.)

They may skirt the issue of outright diagnosis because of ethical considerations, but they do not avoid the dangers of having this kind of person in a position of power. It’s the man’s behavior and attitudes (not diagnoses) that put us all in danger.

Coinciding with these mental health perspectives, there are shamans who say that “. . . I must conclude that Trump, the GOP and his supporters are possessed by what we term evil spirits. They are not “deplorable” as Hillary Clinton suggested. Their soul is trapped and they are suffering. Undoubtedly, their actions fit all the markings of traditional evil spirit possession.” (Itzhak Beery, http://realitysandwich.com/321732/trump-is-possessed-a-wakeup-call/) Again, whether or not you accept these conclusions is not as important as recognizing the behaviors on which these judgments are based.

Finally, clergy and Bible scholars are questioning how a supposedly “Christian nation” can take such actions as the immigration ban, withdrawing support for the poor, and enacting economic policies that give immediate benefit to the wealthy and powerful, while leaving the poor and vulnerable subject to “the market.” Biblical passages calling for welcoming the exiles, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc. appear irrelevant to whatever faith these people profess. This is not the Christianity with which most of us grew up. What’s more, for Earth-centered faiths, exploitation of the Earth and her natural resources, and the introduction of toxins into soil, water and air are surely a violation of the sacred (not to mention that our personal health depends on the health of the environment around us).

 

Regardless of which side we take in all these issues, we are all subject to the consequences of the president’s actions and character, and the stresses they provoke in our society. Those who consider him a savior to a set of problems nevertheless face a backlash from most of the rest of our citizens (and the world). Those who consider him an affront to American decency are faced with the reality that he has garnered the support of the Republican party (for its own ends, of course) and certain religious groups in his efforts to dismantle and re-shape government and remove protections of vulnerable populations.

Our attention may be repeatedly focused on the president, but he is not the source of these issues. And, as much as he might like us to think otherwise, Donald J. Trump did not come to his position on his own, nor is he the only source of what faces us today.

 

In the next two postings, I’ll note 12 of the pre-existing social conditions for which Donald J. Trump has been a catalyst. Without addressing these underlying conditions, we leave open the door for the entry of the next demagogue, regardless of what happens to this one.

 

My recent absence from my Facebook community has made me consider my relationship to such things. My world does not seem amenable to postings or, perhaps, I don’t know how or grasp why. It’s not that I don’t have a life, with eating, drinking, people I love and people I don’t, joys and pains, death and renewal, holiday celebrations, reactions to news and the political stage. Nor am I indifferent to people’s troubles. Something, though, seems out of rhythm; and short reactive postings don’t have the luminosity I seek. After all, it took the writing of three books to get through my ideas and experiences with reincarnation, past-life therapy and karma.

I’m attracted to the novel, but less in entertainment and consumption than in ideas that take me into deeper thoughts, and experiences that take me into explorations of sound and rhythm through poetry and music (or yet another musical instrument). For me, a few good conversations make for a good month. Media outlets are unfaithful seductresses, luring me in with mostly-empty promises of escape, enlightenment or communion. As enjoyable as media at times might be, my yearning is for intimate conversation, the heart’s shelter, words of truth and the flow of inspiration that comes from an invisible world beyond anything the captains of industry can comprehend.

The spirit of this time is provocative, though transitory, full of manufactured emotional reactions, passing (though enjoyable) fashions. Although not devoid of its beauty and inspiration, there is another spirit that would call some of us into the deep end of humanity’s divine and animal natures – deep enough that these – that seem so far apart – meet as one, and call us into the invisible world of ancestors and spirits, and into the things of this world that are simply overlooked by virtue of the speed of living or garish clamor thrown at us by those who want our attention and thereby profit from our distraction.

There are also events that happen inside: thoughts we didn’t know we could think, ideas we didn’t know we had, concepts that come to us from another place, images that come from another world or another time, and the voices of poets, wild women and men, and the uncanny silence of the listening forest. Don’t get me wrong: I love the sensory world – landscape, curving form, music and laughter, well-spiced food, a voice speaking from the heart of truth, winds, rivers and trees, and a hearty beer. They all have their value and beauty in their own right, but they can fragment me or make me whole, drain me or enrich me, depending on whether I take the time to honor the god that brings them or the god that’s in them – and that requires investment in the non-sensual and, at times, the nonsensical.

All that said, I’ll still post on Facebook, but more of my effort will be put into this blog. In a couple of days, I’ll start posting a seven-part series on the extraordinary stress of the last year or so, and what to do about them without becoming like the miscreants to which we object.