Just like the argument over nature versus nurture, a similar discussion often occurs over the concept of change, that is, people can change versus people don’t change.  The subject of change is a popular one in our culture, especially the mystery of exactly what creates change.  You will probably remember David Bowie’s famous song, “Changes,” both about his personal struggle of acceptance but also about the larger issues of how change occurs.  In the lyrics to this song, Bowie repeats over and over, “Time may change me but I can’t trace time.” He appears to view himself as a helpless bystander to how he is changed by time.  He is adrift within changes that go on within and about him and seems to keep trying to find some kind of balance and acceptance through it all.  Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus asserts that “A man cannot step in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”  This supports Bowie’s sense of lack of control over the movement of life/time that creates changes of which we are not fully aware as they are occurring.  While I will concede that there is an aspect of change related to the passage of time over which we have little control, I am thinking about other factors that might create change.  Do we have control over any of this?  I was just wondering…………………

Sometimes we change out of necessity.  When we are subjected to a crisis, for instance, such as a job loss, we are forced to look at things differently.  A crisis will often shake us out of our routine, thus offering us a new way of seeing things.  It is a mild form of receiving electric shock treatment! Our homeostasis is temporarily altered and as we regroup, we are sometimes exposed to new ways of operating.  A romantic breakup or even worse, the death of a significant other will cause the same type of response.  We are temporarily derailed, and during that time we are often exposed to a significantly altered way of managing our daily routines.  This exposure to new elements can create permanent change.  The type of change provoked from some sort of tragedy, however, is not planned and has not been considered before the upsetting event.  So, it is more of a shakeup, like throwing the IChing, and however it settles is how you will learn to create a new balance.

Another stimulus for change is an epiphany.  This is also unplanned and unexpected.  It seems to come about when, for reasons we don’t fully understand, you suddenly see or experience something that has been usual and ordinary in a completely new way.  There is usually a triggering event, again often something very ordinary, but you may suddenly have an “Aha” experience.  Some prior experiences all on their own have suddenly coalesced to create a new and important meaning.  An epiphany may also occur from something emotional or something extraordinarily beautiful.  It is like a little seizure of sudden understanding where before there was none. It is a reconfiguring jolt to the brain which allows us to see something not before understood.

The argument about change seems mostly to arise when we want to change in some way that is ostensibly under our control but just doesn’t occur.  We may want to lose weight or overcome a fear but do nothing to change our behavior or thinking that would alter these wishes.  We may be unhappy in a relationship but continue to behave the same way within it.  We may wish to be kinder or more spiritual but do nothing to make that happen.  We are experts at wishing, but we are not so good at making our wishes come true.

Einstein suggests that “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself,” and he further suggests that “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” C. JoyBell C. avers, “The only way we can change is if we learn.  The only way we can learn is if we are exposed.  And the only way we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open.  Do it.  Throw yourself.” She further encourages, “We can’t be afraid of change.  You may feel very secure in the pond that you’re in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea.  Holding on to something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don’t have something better.”  Nietzsche suggests that “The snake which cannot cast its skin must die.  As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.” Roy T. Bennett says, “It is only after you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.” According to Libba Bray, “And that is how change happens.  One gesture.  One person.  One moment at a time.”

What actually makes the changes that you want to make?  WORK! You have to do the work.  And what is the work?  Just as the experts have suggested, venture out, expose yourself to new things, immerse yourself with people, books, all educational materials that represent successfully what you want to become.  Follow the behaviors of those whom have succeeded before you, practice, find a mentor, and ACT!  Do your homework and then put it into action! As a psychologist I have seen people do their work, come back, and change, and I have seen those who never take the suggestions offered, keep complaining, and continue to wait for the magic wand.  The magic wand is only for fairy tales. If you really want to change, then unless you experience a tragedy, crisis, or epiphany, you have to make the effort.  Are you willing to do that? Or as in Bowie’s song ”Changes,” are you willing to allow time to shape you while you remain adrift and helpless to its subtle influences?  I was just wondering………………

A Life Well Lived











Dancing in the Grocery Aisles













The Reptile Within

As a part time resident of beautiful, swampy, low country on an island in South Carolina, I have frequent encounters with alligators.  During my daily dog walk I pass by two ponds inhabited by these creatures, and they are frequently found sunning themselves on the bank of the pond about 20 feet from me and my dog as I pass by on the leisure path.  Some days they are even closer, and for safety, I am forced to trod through the brush in order to maintain a safe distance.  Because of their nearby habitation, I have educated myself in alligator behavior. The most interesting aspect of alligators, however, is how we humans are like them.  Through evolution, the oldest portion of our human brain, the amygdala, has been passed down to us from our reptilian ancestors.  So the bottom line is, what is the effect of the amygdala?  How many people actually understand the influence of our reptilian brain?  I was just wondering………

Alligators enjoy a fairly uncomplicated existence.  They slip into a pond and swim around when they want to cool off, they bask in the sun on a bank when they want to warm up, they breed at a certain time of year, and they eat, with a plentiful food supply.  They do not think because they do not have consciousness.  They react.  They follow ritualistic patterns of behavior.  They are instinctive and they are neurologically wired to fight or to flee.  Because they are territorial, if another alligator comes into their space, they make a signal that shows the intruder that he is noticed.  If this does not effectively remove the intruder, then a hissing sound may emerge or the alligator may plump himself up in a menacing manner.  This is the brain that we have inherited.  And this part of our brain remains very active within us to this day.  The amygdala is the part of our brain that causes us to react without thinking.  It is the part that causes us to fight or to flee.  It is our amygdala that causes us to feel threatened and to feel the need to protect ourselves and what we perceive as our territory.  In short, while the amygdala does still serve a protective fight or flight purpose, it is the ancient part of the human brain that causes most of our problems today.

When we are faced with a true threat, such as a robbery, a fire, a tornado, or physical harm, our reptilian brains remain a useful asset.  But unfortunately, we have learned to become reactive about perceived emotional insults, and this sets in motion the same kind of reptilian responses, such as hissing, puffing up, and other threatening behaviors.  We have also taken the territorial protectiveness aspect to a new level, so that we react with hate crimes based on our differences. We have expanded the concept of threat to include things that are only emotional, not physical threats to our being.  When we react to emotional threats in the same way we would deal with a physical threat to our lives, we actually create problems.  We have learned to perceive a dirty look or a snub or a smart remark as an act of violence.  And then we respond with the same reptilian response as an alligator, with a fight!  Perhaps in a way they are smarter than we are. Their battles are limited to survival, while ours are often over insults!

So, what can we do about our amygdala brain?  How do we stop its control over our behavior?  The good news is, that unlike the alligator, we have consciousness!  Consciousness is the beautiful aspect of humanness that separates us from all other animals.  Consciousness allows us choices.  In fact, we do not have to react as the alligator.  When not under immediate threat, we can learn to pause to better assess our situation.  We can evaluate the various responses that may be available to us before we chose to react. We can actually decide whether or not a nasty remark is really worth doing battle over.  We can choose to ignore a snub.  We can honor and appreciate our cultural differences instead of fearing that someone different from us is encroaching on our territory to cause us harm.  We can rejoice in all of our glorious manifestations of humanity and learn from one another rather than to fear that which is different.

Our reptilian ancestors can teach is a great deal.  The scary alligator is a good lesson on how not to be scary humans.  Our consciousness allows us to appreciate the beauty of our world, while the alligator just goes through the motions, day after day after day.  Is that how you want to spend your life, going through the motions day after day after day, without thinking?  Without choosing how you really want to behave? Do you actually want to be human or are you content to be ruled by your reptilian brain, the amygdala?  I was just wondering………..




Harnessing The Brain’s Neuroplasticity

Until recently, we believed that the brain formed in early life and that its capacity to grow and learn began to decline thereafter.  Newer research has demonstrated that the brain has an amazing neuroplasticity capacity.  This means that we can learn new, even complicated things late into life.  Because of what we have learned about the brain’s plasticity, we also know that we can unlearn things that were earlier programmed, such as a fear, or even more debilitating, phobias.  It means that if we are right handed, that even as adults we can learn to write with our left hand.  It means that you can change beliefs if you practice reciting opposing ideas.  Think about the possibilities!  Because of what your brain learns from it, your daily environment is a tremendous influence on how you feel about your life.  What would you like to learn, change, or overcome?  I was just wondering……

Let’s start with the concept of fear.  When I was very young, before I went to graduate school, I worked for several years for an airline.  Because I had a fear of flying, { fear of being confined in that space from which I could not escape}, I worked in reservations, not as an attendant.  However, we did receive free trips and I would prep myself with alcohol before flying, one time at 7:00 am to catch an early flight to Miami.  After I left this job and got into the mental health field, I spent many years studying for my advanced degrees during which time I made sure all of my traveling was either by car or by train.  Twenty nine years passed and my husband said he wanted to travel somewhere outside of North America, so we drove to Florida to take our first cruise.  The next year my husband announced that he would meet me in Florida for the next cruise because he was not willing to drive there again.  My flying phobia had grown really severe in all of these years of avoidance, but I knew it was time to face my fear.  So with great trepidation, I made the airline reservations four months before the planned trip and then I began the work to create new cerebral neurons that loved flying.  Twice a week I had long drives for nursing home consulting, and I began each drive by talking out loud to myself about how I loved flying.  I would remind myself of my accomplishments, note that many people fly and enjoy it and if they can do it so can I.  I basically engaged in a pep talk to myself for about 20 minutes.  I am convinced the verbal component is crucial because it prevents the mind from thinking an opposite thought.  Fears become greater because we give them a lot of attention. Every time we remind ourselves we are afraid of something and list the reasons why, we are reinforcing that fear and that thought races over the neural connection already established for it so that it becomes a deep trench in the brain’s neural connections. My verbal practice created a new fear free neural connection in my brain resulting in a fear free flight four months later.  Since then I have flown all over the world without fear.

Another way to empower the brain’s plasticity is to learn something new.  We all do this, of course, but often we allow our learning to decline after our school years and even more often after retirement.  But just like in childhood when we learn to walk, to talk, to ride a bike, etc., we can learn strange new things with practice.  While I was reading Norman Doidge’s book, The Brain that Changes Itself, I began writing the alphabet and one short sentence once a day for a month with my left hand.  As recommended in the book, I then stopped the practice and 4 months later when I attempted the same exercise, the writing was much improved!  The book explained that it takes some months for the new learning to coalesce and then the result is improvement.  When I broke my right wrist around this time, they handed me papers in the hospital and asked me to sign an X with my left hand.  I astonished the staff when I produced my signature with my left hand!  I highly recommend the Doidge book to anyone who is interested in learning and the brain.

At the same time we must realize that due to this plasticity, our brains are constantly learning from our environments.  Our belief system becomes structured by our surroundings.  Our brains learn not only from what we study and read, but also from what we watch on television and by the company we keep.  Even something as seemingly innocuous as a sitcom may teach us what we come to believe are acceptable norms.  Once our beliefs are formed, it is much harder to challenge them.  It is important to take a moment and try to think outside of the box and wonder about the learning environment of your brain.  Is it getting enough exposure to life enhancing information, or is its learning environment lacking in growth producing ideas and instead, its exposure is too narrow and one sided?  Does your living environment make you think or are you in a non-stimulating routine that does not promote enrichment? Are the people in your inner circle promoting growth and new ideas for you to explore or do they portray life as a struggle, every man for himself? Are they happy or complaining? Without your awareness, your brain is learning every single minute of your day.  You have control over that which you expose to your brain.  Think of your brain as a camera.  You can change its exposure.   Are you content with your daily education?  I was just wondering…………………


Look Again

As we welcome the New Year, many of us begin to agonize over the promise of our annual resolutions.  Because we so often fail at them or lose our commitment after a few months, I thought this year it might be fun to try something else.  Look again is a practice of quickly recreating reality.  It is fun, it is challenging, it is creative!  Are you willing to try something new?  I was just wondering…………………

Years ago, as physicists were attempting to perform a double screen experiment with light, trying to determine whether it was a wave or a particle, they became confused and frustrated.  The problem that occurred was that with each attempt to view the true nature of light, they became more confounded, as one time it appeared as a particle and the very next experiment demonstrated it to be a wave.  After a number of experiments, they finally concluded that it depended upon how you looked at it. Even more amazing, when a recorder was set up to observe the experiment, the electrons behaved in a particular way, different than when the recorder was not present.   This has awesome implications for the field of psychology and human behavior.  According to quantum mechanics, this means that consciousness defines how things behave.  So, the way we see the world is just that, the way we see the world, but not necessarily how the world is, because another consciousness (individual) sees it differently.  Also, the perspective and attitude of the viewer shapes the outcome!  We tend to think of reality as an ultimate truth, when in fact what you see is dependent upon how you look at it.  This is one of the reasons I love psychology so much.  There is no absolute reality.  When you have a disagreement with someone, from their perspective, they are right and from your perspective, you are right.  You are both right and you are both not right!  Quantum physics helps us to understand this dilemma, that is, it depends on how you look at it.

Since I first read about this concept I have remained fascinated by it.  I have tried to trace this in my own life.  I have thought myself fickle at times, because I like something, and then I don’t, but then I can see the other side and like it again for another reason.  Ultimately, I think this is a good thing because you become aware that you can always see it in a better way.  And we live by how we experience our lives.  We can be happy, we can be sad.  It depends on how we look at it.

For instance, how do you see your significant other?   I challenge you to look again.  Change your attitude and look once more.  You will learn to see the chameleon you create!  Think about it!  How much of who they are is real and how much is created by your attitude and baggage?

How about the other people in your life?  How do you treat them?  Are you really sure you are responding accurately?  Are you positive the people you don’t like are really as bad as you have concluded?  Can you look again and see them morph into something else?

Think about the things in your life you obsess over.  Do you really know why you are spending your time and energy doing this?  Knowing now more about this law of physics, can you see perhaps that things are not really the way you have been seeing them?  In order to confirm this possibility, all you have to do is to ask a few people what they think and you will get as many different answers as there are respondents!  Some will agree, sort of, wholeheartedly, a little, not at all, but they will be unlike your viewpoint.  Do you really need to hold on to these ideas that cause you distress and worry? Maybe things just aren’t exactly as you have perceived them!  Look for the hopeful and calming perspectives. As quantum physics would say, all the possibilities exist!  Chose a positive view!

Especially important is how you are seeing yourself.  Look again.  Make a list of positives if needed.  Read it every day to remind yourself that these traits exist and then look at yourself again.  Watch yourself improve as you sculpt yourself through your evolving perspective.  As the observer of yourself, you are the creator of the outcome!  That is an incredibly powerful concept!

As you begin to digest your newfound powers to create a more satisfying world by the way you are looking at it, never forget the profound authority you have over your life.  If you are not happy with what you are seeing, remind yourself of the kaleidoscope in your brain, and just shift the contents to create a new vision.  If you don’t like what you see, then shift again.  There is always another view.  Can you see it? I was just wondering……………………




As I walked my dogs past Spring Lake recently, I encountered a wheel chair bound fellow basking in the sun, fishing.  I greeted him with a question, “Catch anything?”  He responded with a big smile and said “No,” without any regret, and then he laughed while he added, “It’s a good thing my wife went to the store.”  We began to chat and he informed me that he used to be a coal miner and that is where his accident occurred.  He told me he was 53, but the fact that he was paraplegic didn’t seem to disturb him at all, at least it certainly did not interfere with his ability to enjoy life.  I silently felt sorry for him, that he was unable to walk around the lake like me, that he missed out on so much that I can do that he cannot.  But I slowly began to realize that he may have a secret that I and others could learn from.  He clearly knew how to be thankful!  He was focused on what he could do, and he was definitely enjoying it! So how does a person make this transition from despair to contentment?  I was just wondering……..

During this season of Thanksgiving, this man offers us a wonderful lesson.  As I write this blog, I think of several people I know right now who are suffering deeply.  One lost a son to a tragic accident over a year ago and another lost a sister to suicide a few months ago.  These are both horrendous tragedies that even with the best efforts take time for healing.  But the most effective way to heal is always to focus away from oneself, by helping others and by being thankful for WHAT IS.

It is so easy for us to obsess about everything that is wrong with our lives. I have been guilty of that at times myself!  No one’s life is perfect!  Just remember that!  But we all have some perfection in our lives, and while we are bemoaning our sorry lot in life, all the good stuff is just waltzing on by, and  we are not even seeing it.  Just think of the happy movie going on right around us while we are lost in negative thoughts.  Perhaps we look at but don’t see the beauty of the sunset.  Maybe we miss the flower that bloomed.  Perhaps we don’t see the love offered to us because we are so enveloped in our sorrow.  Imagine that we miss the possibilities and opportunities that might make us feel better because we just can’t see beyond the sad movies we continue to view in our heads!

My favorite teaching from the Rhonda Byrne book The Secret is, “What you think about, you bring about.”  Just consider this for a moment.  Really take some time to think about how this has actually transpired in your life!  If you keep yourself into negative and unhappy thoughts, that is just where you stay.  If you begin to monitor your thoughts and change them to positive ones, then you suddenly begin to notice those beautiful and wonderful people, things, events that have always surrounded you but you simply overlooked!  Life is not about one event, one circumstance, one person.

Thanksgiving is our yearly lesson in thankfulness.  But this time I encourage you to make it a daily practice, so that you can enjoy Thanksgiving every day of your life and thereby reap the benefits of being daily nourished by the Thanksgiving message.  Every time you catch yourself being sorry, sad, depressed, discouraged, dissatisfied, angry, irritated, think immediately of something wonderful in your life. It is there!  I promise!  And you probably won’t have to look too far.

An exercise I often use to help people be thankful is to write down 20 things you like to do.  The list is a starting point to help you get focused on what makes you happy and thankful.  My list included even small things like drinking a hot cup of tea on a rainy day, watching my dogs play and roll around on the floor, feeling the breeze blow my hair while riding my bike or while walking the beach, or just spending time with good friends.  Sometimes the simplest things are the most meaningful.  Next, start doing them!

Helping someone else is another powerful way to overcome your own despair.  This will quickly focus you away from yourself and help to create concern and thankfulness.  But the best trick of all is to go to the nearest mirror, and instead of asking like the wicked witch, “Who is most beautiful?” just smile at the image before you and your troubles will magically begin to melt away as your own reflection connects to you empathically and knowingly and with forgiveness as you realize how you hurt you own soul. Celebrate your life this Thanksgiving by being grateful for it by making the very best use of it every day. Remember those who are gone by making them present in how you choose to lead your life and show your thanks to the living by being a gracious and inspiring light.

Can you make a promise to be thankful for yourself?  Can you promise to make the most of your life like the fisherman in the wheelchair, and make it a joyful encounter?  Will you treat yourself with love, caring, compassion by focusing on what it good and what you have to be thankful for rather than using your thought energy on things that can’t be changed or that you can’t have?  I was just wondering…..

Whirling Dervishes

The term whirling dervish evokes a sense of mystery and my interest in this phenomena goes back many years.  I am not even sure anymore where I first heard the following parable about the dervishes which goes something like this:

A tourist and his guide were traveling across the desert.  It was hot and arid and the trek was difficult. After crossing some distance, they began to see something on the horizon.  A mirage, of course, they both exclaimed.  What else could be in the middle of the desert?  As they approached, however, they began to discern there were people, and as they neared the group they were able to see that these people were whirling.  With so many people whirling the energy was totally chaotically.  In the center of all of this tumultuous activity sat a woman who was calmly reading a book.  The tourist was astounded!  He turned to his guide and asked with perplexity, “How can she possibly concentrate on reading a book amidst all that frenzy?”  The guide paused and then replied with an amused knowing smile, “She just lets the dervishes whirl, and eventually they all just fall over.”

I actually had the privilege to observe one during a trip to Egypt.  Simply put, a whirling dervish is an individual’s attempt, by using a specific approach, to achieve spiritual transcendence.  My group watched with fascination as the practitioner, decked out in layers of colorful flowing material, began to spin.  Starting off slowly, the individual increased the speed of the whirl as well as alternating his position, frequently changing the center of balance.  The effect was both amazing and beautiful.  While we were mesmerized as onlookers, the effect on the practitioner was even more profound, as he lost himself to the practice in which he was engaged.

So while we were mesmerized as observers of the whirling dervishes during our trip, try to imagine sitting in the midst of many of these dervishes dancing about madly!  Just like the tourist In the story surmised, it would be extremely difficult to read a book or do anything requiring concentration in the midst of such intense energy.  I have used this story for many years as a reminder to clients to stay out of the fray.  And the lesson is, all that appears so agitating eventually just goes away, just as the dervishes in the story drop from exhaustion.

This is not an easy task however.  I am reminded of the droppings of the cottonwood tree, beautiful fluffs of billowy white cottony balls that float slowly in the breeze. If you are walking around them it is difficult to avoid having them attach themselves to you. Also, they are lovely and fascinating and in one way you want to touch them, to try to discern their mystery. The whirling dervishes in our lives attach in the same way.  At first they may seem interesting, and we may barely notice that we are immersed in them.

Another less appealing but equally enticing analogy is the difficulty we have walking past a “trainwreck.”  Often times horrible things hold a certain fascination for us and we can become victims to its pull to engage us.  We crane our necks to view an accident that we pass, we move toward an altercation to hear what is going on, we watch engrossed at news reports of tragedies and calamities.  We can’t take our eyes off of someone’s bad behavior, because while revolting, it is also somehow captivating!

It is similar when we are not minding our own business, allowing ourselves to be pulled into something that does not concern us and then causes us great distress.  Or when we obsess over a problem, lose sleep, can’t eat, and just can’t let the bothersome thoughts go.  These are whirling dervishes in our brains, numbing our ability to concentrate and clogging our thought processes and disturbing our daily routines.

Think about what was bothering you last year.  Does the problem still exist?  What about six months ago?  What about last week? Do you still have the same concerns?  As time goes on, everything changes, and the truth is, many problems just dissipate without any sort of intervention.  But joining in with the fray will rarely help you to resolve a problem.  Allowing the dervishes to cloud your thinking will only prevent you from finding a solution.

The true whirling dervish practitioner is in a state of transcendence instead of a state of anxiety, worry or chaos.  He is not frightened by appearances, but instead is in a calm state of mind.  He is not distracted by appearances, but instead is focused on inner peace.  Can you learn to detach while you address the issues in your life?  If you have problems for which there is no apparent solution, can you disengage, remembering that everything changes and it most likely will not look the same in 6 months, next week, or maybe even tomorrow?  Can you stay out of problems that don’t need to concern you?  Can you just let the dervishes whirl like the puffs from the cottonwood tree and avoid having them stick on you? Can you resist their pull and stay centered and immune to the chaos around you?  I was just wondering…………………..

We Are All One

In the wake of recent tragedies here in the US and around the world, we are challenged with how to deal with our emotional responses. It is so easy to go directly to anger and even worse, hatred, for those who have perpetrated these horrendous acts of violence, but this only exacerbates the problem and engenders more of the same. We are left stunned, fearful, and ready to attack back, losing our important and powerful capacity for judgement and reasoning. Reacting with a full charge of emotion fueled by fear producing adrenaline, we most often make the wrong judgement and only pour more fuel into the already embroiled mass of emotion. But let’s stop for a moment and take our temperatures. How are you feeling? Are you sad, fearful, enraged, hopeless, confused? I was just wondering………………….

As I have explained in my book, Anger the Toxic Temptress: Understand It to Overcome It, anger acts as a defense mechanism. That is, anger blocks us from experiencing our true underlying feeling, a feeling of vulnerability. This is why it is so easy to go directly to anger in response to recent events. But it also means we are not actually dealing with our true feelings of vulnerability. It does not help to mask vulnerability with anger. It only ensures that the battle will continue.

But even more importantly, we are failing to understand that we are all interconnected, and that what hurts one of us hurts all. You may not be aware of this, or you may not view how this is directly happening to you or your loved ones, but let me help to make this clearer. Many years ago Ken Keyes, Jr. wrote about the hundredth monkey phenomena. While observing a Japanese monkey, scientists discovered that one monkey one day learned that washing a sweet potato removed the unpleasant tasting dirt. This new trick was taught from monkey to monkey across the island. But strangely enough, the same behavior began to be observed across the sea. Scientists came up with the “Hundreth Monkey” theory, that is, when a behavior reaches a certain critical number, that we collectively “get it,” almost as though the behavior is transmitted by ESP. This discovery lends credence to the concept that we are interconnected through some kind of force, or even more fascinating, that we are not only interconnected, but we are all a component of one large whole. Metaphorically speaking, once the big toe gets it, the new learning slowly travels throughout the entire body system. Think of each living creature as a part of the one, large, all-encompassing whole being, that we call by many names such as God, Buddha, Krishna, Allah, Great Spirit, Jehovah, Yahweh, or my own favorite, Order of the Universe. We are one collective consciousness. So, once one part of the body whole gets it, the rest eventually adapts to the new learning. This is critical to understand because we can then see that everything we do spills out into the universal being, that is everywhere throughout us. So it is so vital that right now we do not take the wrong path toward hate, anger, and revenge.

Another great example of this phenomena is the “butterfly effect,” coined by Edward Lorenz. This concepts states that a small change in one state can result in a large difference in a later state. Again, to simplify, Lorenz discovered that the flapping of wings of butterflies many weeks before a large hurricane system can influence the direction and force of that system. This phenomenon has also been known as the “ripple effect” or the “domino effect,” which also demonstrate how very small events spread out far beyond the area of initial impact. The implications of this are astounding. We come to realize that even the most seemingly insignificant action can have a staggering effect on future events.

We understand this phenomenon also in family systems therapies. Achieving change in only one person’s behavior will have a change effect on the entire system. Teaching someone to stop reacting, for instance, will often have the effect of eliminating the annoying behavior. It is a circular system. One change creates other changes. However, just as in the previous examples, the exact outcome cannot be predicted. However, we know that positive behavior generally elicits more positive behavior. Negative, angry, threatening behavior creates fear which results either in submission and withdrawal or in war.

I encourage everyone reading this to take a moment to take your emotional temperature. If you feel angry and hateful, I strongly urge you to connect to your underlying vulnerable behavior. Once you are there, then connect emotionally to the tragedy in all of this and make a promise that you will not add to the growing fury. Stay connected to the pain and try to find a way of understanding how we got here. Remember that great psychologist Carl Rogers said, “What is most personal is most general.” Think carefully with reason and good judgment, do you really want to hurt another part of the collective being of which we belong? Begin to understand that we are all one and that we must address this growing problem with an even temperament that does not cloud or judgment.

What is your emotional temperature? Can you connect with your vulnerability instead of hiding it with anger so that you can avoid reacting impulsively and dangerously? Can you remember that when you cause harm to another that it boomerangs back? Can you be a strong force so that we can collectively stop “shooting ourselves in our own hips?” I was just wondering……………………..