When Will We Say "Enough!"

When Will We Say, “Enough!”

Another Israel-Palestine war. Countless people have been killed and thousands injured in a war that is only days old. I don’t know how it is for you, but for me it is heartbreaking. As I witness globally sanctioned murder and a tsunami of graphic images, the wall between me and any sense of peace and safety has huge fissures I cannot close. Nor do I want to close them, strange as that may sound.?

I want to look at what we are doing. When will war stop? When will we say, “Enough!” Enough hatred, enough killing, enough blasting open a wound in the side of humanity we may not be able to mend. Will the day ever come when we stop screaming for revenge and plotting genocide? Can we salvage enough of our humanity to hear our own cries for peace?

— Because what we are doing is causing unfathomable human suffering

— Because what we are doing is aiming Weapons of Mass Destruction at ourselves

— And because annihilation of all of us is only a handful of mentally ill people away

It may sound overly dramatic or counterintuitive, but as heart-wrenching as it is, I want to look at war— this monster— in the face. The truth is, war is looking me in the face and asking me not to turn away. What I know— from my own healing journey, from being a mother, and from years of experience as a psychotherapist— what I know is that inside every one of us is a heart that once longed to connect, that needed validation, encouragement, safety, peace and love. And to the extent we did not get these things, we made adaptations to survive, some of which morphed into the worst of what we now see humans are capable of. In the best therapy, we look that nightmare in the face and we do not shy away. We search until we find, if at all possible, the frightened, injured little person behind the rager, the loner, the addict and even the murderer. And what we find is always, always, a beautiful, loving human being. ?

So the enormous job we have now is to search until we find that innocent loving essence inside armies of terrorists and those who fund them, brainwash them, and/or force them. This probably sounds crazy and honestly, I don't know that it can be done. Perhaps for now we just have to know that an innocent essence is in there, buried, festering, and exploding— know its causes and right ourselves the very best we can before this ship sinks. How do we right ourselves? By committing to interrupt the cycle of violence wherever we can, by doing everything in our power to supply all that has been missing— love, care, belonging, and peaceful cooperation for the common good. Because out of the poverty of all that is “missing,” an army of terribly ill-formed humans is taking us hostage. This is the only way to break the cycle of violence that threatens us all.?

Politics as we know it cannot do this job. This is the work of healing our collective mental health by bringing love and belonging, care and peaceful cooperation, into politics, budget, business, social media, education… all our relations. We can do this when we say, “Enough!”

I vote for America to be In Therapy.

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