"Imagine If...We Tried"
by Judith Barr

At this time in our world …
We are busy becoming informed, writing , voting, marching, fighting.
It’s necessary – but it’s not enough.
We are busy worrying, wishing, hoping, meditating, chanting, praying.
It’s necessary – but it’s not enough.

Most of us don’t know the relationship between our own psyches
and what’s happening on the world stage.
Carl Jung calls it the collective unconscious.
Where we are unconscious of our own unresolved experiences of being abused –
we unknowingly contribute to the abuse of power in the world.
Where we are unconscious of our own misuses of power –
we unwittingly contribute to the abuse of power in the world.

When I first began my training as a psychotherapist,
I read a book that taught me there is a terrorist in all of us.
If we deny it ...
if we aren’t conscious of it ...
if we don’t acknowledge it ...
if we don’t own it and take responsibility to heal it ...
then we contribute to terrorism in our world.

This is not a popular concept.
This is not a popular reality.
People have difficulty looking at this.
Edward R. Murrow said …
“We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information.” *
But if we don’t work with this – our unresolved experiences and feelings –
we will feed the abuse of power in our world, despite our most conscious, best intentions.

Our world has come back to this again and again.
It is more visible and accessible for healing now than ever before.
Many spiritual traditions say, “the poison is the medicine.”
The abuse of power out in plain sight is the poison.
If we can look at it, face it, feel it, and heal it … it can also be the medicine.
It is the one thing we haven’t tried yet.
Imagine if … we tried.

*EDWARD R. MURROW, RTNDA (Radio-Television News Directors Association & Foundation) Convention, Chicago, October 15, 1958
© Judith Barr, 2006.