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Last month's articles addressing bullying and related
issues elicited both comments and resource sharing
from readers.
Sunny Davidson wrote:
"I read your thought-provoking bullying piece with great
interest and will pass it on to friends with children and
grandchildren. I also appreciate your piece about the
Boys to Men Initiative."
Another reader, Karen, wrote about Impact, a
program that provides self-defense skills for kids and
adults.
"It is an amazing program. I have been involved with
the program in some capacity since 1992. I've taken
courses, assistant taught, and helped train some of
the muggers. Recently, I have had both of my kids
take the program. For my son, I got his afterschool
program to run it for 5th graders transitioning to
middle school. My husband even took the program.
He actually took it first, since he was mugged many
years ago when we lived in Brookline. I had my
daughter take it as a freshman entering high school. I
will have her take the women's class before she goes
to college."
Two articles in this month's newsletter
continue to explore the themes of bullying and
healing: and
Moving Beyond Hurt and Anger: Vibrating Healing
and Love.
Our May 23 EKP Community Clinic was well attended
and meaningful. We are doing another EKP
Community
Clinic on Saturday, September 11 from 11
am - 5 pm in Newton. If you would like a session,
contact LSMHEART@aol.com.
Tammy Robert, a member of the EKP
community, is bringing EKP to RI, hosting a work
shop in her Pawtucket home. We will be offering the
workshop this fall. To attend, contact Tammy
at tamzquest@yahoo.com.
There will be another 1/2 day EKP workshop,
Healing and Nourishing Your Heart on
Sunday, June 27 at Healing Moon in Norwood, MA.
At the March Keeping A Vital Heart
workshop,
the idea of inviting EKP community members
to be "helping hands" in our EKP Community
Clinic at the Spirit of Change Natural Living
Expo in September emerged. If you would
like to be part of our team of "helping
hands" at the Expo, which will take place the last
weekend in September, please let me know.
Michella has invited me to do a special program at the
Expo on Making Peace With Money. In our
challenging economic climate, this workshop has
particular meaning. The workshop will take place on
Sunday, September 26 from 1 - 3 pm.
In an effort to create more ways to connect
with community members, dialogue and share
ideas, I have created a new blog at
HealingHeartPower.blogspot.com. Sign
up for new posts and please add your thoughts
to discussion threads.
You can also become a fan of
HealingHeartPower on Facebook. By signing up
to be a fan, you will be notified whenever a
new blog post is published.
Your comments and feedback are always welcome!
Heartfully,
Linda
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When Society Is A Bully
Last month I wrote about the tendency to "blame the
victim" in our bullying culture. As I have continued to
explore the roots of bullying, I have become more and
more aware of how deeply engrained bullying is in the
fabric of our society.
Exploring and talking about bullying does not make
me
popular, and can even make me the target of hostility
and bullying-type behavior. For example, I have been
told by other people as I have tried to explain what I
am doing regarding anti-bullying work:
"When are you going to just stop being such a pain
and stop trying to meet with people and just let things
be?"
"Bullying has been around since the dawn of
humanity. It is human nature and it is never going to
change."
"If someone wants to avoid being bullied, they need to
make a list of the things they are doing that might
make them a target, and just stop doing them. If they
don't stop, it is their own fault that they are bullied."
"Society expects you to conform and if you don't
conform, it is your own fault that you are bullied."
My heart hurts whenever I hear these kinds of
statements. Just because something has been
around a long, long time, and perhaps ALWAYS, does
not make it right. Just because human beings have
bullied one another for a long time, does not mean
that we should continue to allow bullying to be a norm
in our culture.
There may be ways any individual can take steps to
avoid being a target, but sadly, there are too many
cases where one can be a target just for being the
way one is. And there are parts of our identities that
are the root of who we are. What kind of society do we
live in if we are told we need to give up the core of who
we are if we want to avoid violence? If one is black or
gay or smart or tall or short or male or female, is it fair
or right to be a target of bullying? If someone is angry
or jealous or scared or stressed out, is it fair to inflict
their pain and anger on another human being?
And the pressure to conform at all costs is an
oppressive and bullying force itself. A huge part of
maturing as a human being is to balance having a
personally defined and meaningful sense of self with
a respect for the social context we live in. Yes, we
need to understand social norms and respect them in
many circumstances. But, no, not all social norms are
healthy (such as the norms of workaholism, living
beyond ones means, accruing debt, eating junk foods
and feeling so stressed out one cannot go to the
bathroom when ones body calls.)
When teachers or parents or kids or community
organizations try to confront and address a bullying
problem, they are often met with bullying. A parent
bullies a teacher for informing them that their child
has been hurting other kids at school. "Who are you
to be singling out my child?" yells the angry
parent. "You're a wimp to be standing up for Johnny,"
chimes in Tommy, Johnny and the advocate's peer.
These kinds of attitudes push the fundamental
problem underground and pass the bullying buck.
Bully, bullied and bystander all suffer from our bullying
culture. And EVERYONE needs to be engaged,
mobilized and collaborate if we are going to build the
awareness to take action and create new models to
allow for cultural change.
The bullying issue is so polarized right now, that it is
very difficult to dig deeper and see the forest from the
trees. If a kid behaves badly, they may be expelled
from school, but then what happens? Is the kid left to
sit at home watching hours of television or playing
hours of video games? Or does the kid then start
loitering in the community at large, feeling isolated
and bad about him/herself and then start getting into
deeper trouble?
If someone is causing trouble, they are part of a
troubled system. Kids who belong to gangs do not
come from "stable, welcoming, emotionally literate
homes." They are not loved and nurtured are home,
so they look for belonging on the streets.
At a conference meeting I attended today, one of my
colleagues made a very interesting point. Once, it
was believed that kids who participate in high risk
behaviors are more likely to have trouble with school.
What's been recognized more recently is that kids who
have trouble with school are more likely to engage in
high risk behaviors. When we don't belong. When we
feel lost and invisible. When we carry deeply buried
pain or even contain pain just under the surface,
things are not going to be okay.
As I have been working with a team of colleagues to
help put together an bullying prevention conference on
June 8, we've made a list of key messages we want
people to understand about bullying and bullying
prevention:
* Bullying is serious; it isn't just a right of passage for
young people growing up. (And it doesn't end with
youth either. It can continue throughout one's life if not
addressed and taken seriously).
* Bullying has serious consequences for the bully, the
bullied and the bystander. No one escapes the
tentacles of our bullying society.
* Bystanders are key to fostering a climate of zero
tolerance. We can't just stand by and ignore what is
happening around us.
* Just because bullying has been around for
generations (and perhaps millennia), does not mean:
1. it is or has ever been okay and 2. it needs to
continue to be tolerated.
* Creating environments that hold people
accountable to the harmony of community are
essential. A great deal of tragedy take place when this
kind of environment is lacking.
* Bullying prevention is part of an overall school
climate. It is part of an overall cultural climate as well.
* Bullying is EVERYONE'S problem. It is a system
issue and can only be solved systemically.
* Emotional literacy is at the root of safe relationships,
safe schools and safe communities. Sadly, our
culture suffers from a low EQ, and few models of
emotional literacy are available or visible.
Albert Einstein commented that we can't use the
thinking that created a problem to solve it. That is very
much the case with the bullying mentality that has
been normalized in our society. Until we can integrate
heart with head, spirit with intellect, and self with other,
we are at risk of suffering the painful separation that
allows us to stand back from and remain numb to the
bullying dynamic that really effects us all.
Each and every one of us can be part of the solution.
And if we are going to overcome the bullying society,
we all need to work together to find a different path.
©2010 Linda Marks
Please share your thoughts...
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Moving Beyond Hurt And Anger: Vibrating Healing and Love
Recently, a client asked me an interesting question.
She was feeling lots of anger, and wondered how I
might coach her to program herself to vibrate healing
and love. As a software engineer, the idea
of "programming oneself to vibrate healing and love,"
made a lot of sense as a framework for self-work.
Recognizing that human beings are electromagnetic
generators, and that the heart is the strongest
electromagnetic generator in the body, this task of
programming oneself to vibrate healing and love
makes a lot of sense.
We do emanate what we feel in our hearts and souls.
That frequency goes out and can be palpably felt by
thouse witin 8 - 10 feet of where we are located, and
can be perceived in more subtle ways by those at
greater distance.
The more grounded w are in the moment, our hearts
and bodies, the more consciously we can manage
our vibration. The safer we feel, and the more
embodied we are, the more space we have to
breathe, think, feel and generate what we want and
care about.
Here are some coaching tips that might help you
vibrate healing and love:
1. Honor the ways you are angry, what you are angry
about, and go deeper to the root of your anger. What
are ways you might feel hurt, invisible, or treated
unfairly? See what you really need deep down inside
and honor that. By both honoring your anger and the
deeper roots underneath, you start honoring yourself
and vibrating love to yourself.
2. Notice, attend to and honor the sensations you feel
in your body. By noticing them, presencing them and
attending to them, you bring more self-love to yourself
and nurture your heart. If you are hurt, you are literally
hearing your hurt at a heart level.
3. Focus on the vision of what you really want to
create. Write it down. Draw it. Feel how you feel in
your body when you think about and envision what you
really want. Make a vision journal. Keep notes and
read them daily. Review them weekly. Tune them
monthly.
4. Make a list of people and places you'd like to
vibrate love to. Vibrate love to them consciously and
regularly.
5. When you hit obstacles, don't lose the vision.
Honor the obstacles. Honor your feelings. Learn the
lessons. And keep vibrating love towards the vision.
6. Get support whenever and wherever you need it.
You don't have to do it all alone. And getting support is
part of self-love.
7. When people do mean, thoughtless things, try not
to take it personally, even if it impacts you personally.
When people are not fully grounded, they operate in all
kinds of ways that aren't right and don't work. Keep
your vision on what is right and fair.
©2010 Linda Marks
Share your thoughts on this article...
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HealingHeartPower Calendar
Would you like to learn how to do EKP?
Applications are being accepted for the
2010 EKP Apprenticeship Program. The
apprenticeship group meets once a month for a
weekend training session beginning in
September 2010. For more
information, contact LSMHEART@aol.com or call
Linda at (617)965-7846.
If you would like to apprentice in EKP and
get involved before September, you may want
to consider participating in a half-day EKP
workshop or a special seminar for current
apprentices.
The Thursday night EKP Therapy Group
has room for another member. If you would
like to be
part of a committed long-term group using
EKP, this is a very special group. An
interview
and one EKP session are required to apply.
Contact
Linda if you are interested at LSMHEART@aol.com
Saturday, September 11 will be an EKP
Clinic Day featuring free 60 minute EKP
sessions facilitated by EKP apprentices.
To sign up for a session, contact
LSMHEART@aol.com.
EKP comes to Rhode Island this fall.
"Healing and Nourishing Your Heart," will
take place from 1 - 4 pm in Pawtucket.
Contact Tammy Robert for more details
tamzquest@yahoo.com.
Linda will be presenting "Healing and
Nourishing Your Heart" at Healing Moon in
Norwood on June 27. Contact Trish for
more details. TheHealingMoon@aol.com.
On Wednesday, September 1, Linda will be
giving a presentation for the Worcester
Holistic Moms Network. The topic will be
"What DO We Really Need?" For more
information, contact egardner@charter.net.
Saturday, September 25 is the EKP Community
Clinic at the Spirit of Change Expo in Sturbridge,
MA.
On Sunday, September 26, Linda will be giving a
special workshop on Making Peace With
Money from 1 - 3 pm at the Spirit of Change Expo
in Sturbridge.
If you are interested in being part of an
on-going EKP group that meets once a month,
let me know. We had run a Sunday EKP Process
group for many years, and could consider
forming another one, if there is interest.
Whether your schedule is too busy for a
weekly group, or you live far enough away
that a monthly session is more sustainable,
if a monthly group would best meet your
needs, we can try to put one together.
EKP opportunities in Newton include:
- Being a guest client in the Student Clinic
- On-going Thursday night EKP Body
Psychotherapy Group (which currently has a
waiting list for new members)
- Apprenticing in EKP
If you would like a Healing the
Traumatized Heart
workshop near you, or have a group of people
who you would like to bring EKP to, please
contact
LSMHEART@aol.com.
To find out more....
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Heartfully,
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