Belonging is programmed into our DNA, but what is the price we pay for belonging to a traumatizing society built upon a history of trauma?
America is a nation built on slavery and genocide, and built upon this traumatizing history America is known around the world as a brutal, warring nation. One hundred million people have died in wars since the end of World War II.
One does not have to directly experience gore and violence to be affected by it. Indirect or Vicarious Trauma also occurs. Vicarious Trauma is a condition caused by witnessing the trauma of others, and is almost as damaging as being the direct victim of emotional or physical violence oneself. It should be obvious to all that stop and think about the history of humankind that we and our ancestors are all victims of trauma, some more than others, but nonetheless we are all victims, directly or vicariously, of multigenerational, systemic and endemic violence, we are all traumatized.
Those that are the most traumatized in early childhood become the sickest amongst us, they are sick people, not bad people, people who have suffered enough already and are immune to punishment because they cannot feel.
If there is any hope of saving this planet, which I very much doubt, it will require a monumental shift in consciousness, and the first step is that we have to wake up and acknowledge who we really are now. What has become of western civilization? We glorify war, spends trillions of dollars on warfare, killing millions, imposing sanctions on entire nations of people killing millions more, and we love violence on TV and at the movies. Our socioeconomic system is dependent upon the profits of war.
If we are to save this planet we have to wake up and face a very ugly truth of where we are now. We must wake up to and end the denial of who we have become. We must step back and take a hard and painful look at the state of the society to which we belong and ask ourselves is it worth it? We do have an inbuilt and desperate need to belong, but do you really want to belong to this society as it is today?
Capitalism has given us so much, and all for the measly price of one small planet, and our Souls. The cost of belonging is so very high, but the cost of waking up seems even higher, it requires a painful Soul searching that if undertaken will cause suffering. We will experience grief and loss. The truth will be painful but it is the pathway to freedom and an end to suffering. We will have to traverse the stages of grief, and do it voluntarily. No longer numb and disconnected from our suffering and the suffering of those around us results in reconnecting to our pain, pain that we have been living with for years unconsciously. The pain that is the source of our dis-ease. It means facing the question, “Who am I?” and what is the true nature of the “civilization” I cling to? Can you even say we are “civilized”, when we allow so much suffering in our midst.
If you believe that we are merely physical beings, just a fluke of nature and there is no greater power in the universe than ourselves, then please don’t begin this journey, stay as you are and enjoy life while you can. But if you believe there is a greater power than ourselves, a cosmic intelligence responsible for and underlying Creation, a life force that permeates all of Creation including you, then have faith in this force, and the force will be with you. This force has been called many names, but in fact cannot be named, and should in fact remain nameless since language and thought are so limiting. Just knowing that this higher power exists throughout all of Creation and exists within you is enough to begin the journey that overcomes the material realm and allows you to transcend it. The first stage of grief is denial, if we are to end our suffering we have to move past denial and get to a state of accepting a very painful truth. Western society is a killing machine, we kill for sport, for pleasure and for profit. Not only do we kill each other in massive numbers, drive other species to extinction, but we are killing the planet that sustains us and all life, and now we stand at the edge of extinction. The children of today will not die of old age, and it is we who have sealed their fate. This knowledge is painful, we can practice denial and repress our pain into the unconscious mind, or we can allow the painful truth into consciousness and deal with it.
In psychology there is a condition known as Conversion Disorder. We experience physical symptoms like pain and inflammation because of the pent up pain and trauma repressed into the unconscious. Repressed pain and trauma have real consequences if left undealt with, either psychologically or physically. It is estimated that eighty percent of all physical illness is psychosomatic. Denial is very costly, it is literally killing us. We have to wake up, embrace our pain and move through the stages of grief.
I will deal with the eight stages of grief next.