HOPE IS A GOOD THING, MAYBE THE BEST OF THINGS AND NO GOOD THING EVER DIES

The above is from the movie "Shaw Shank Redemption" in a letter written by Andy to Red encouraging Red to not give up and to join Andy after Red is paroled. And Red does just that. So, is that statement true. Is hope the best of things and will it never die? How is that possible?

Is hope a basic aspect of being human? Will it live on in humans and never die? Fear makes it hard to feel hope. Fear is the enemy of hope and as Stephen King has been quoted as saying: "Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free." It does seem that fear can hold us prisoner as we are constantly controlled by our fears and are also at the mercy of our fears and at the mercy of people who fuel our fears in an effort to keep us afraid and immobilized so that we can be manipulated. This is a very sad way to live and will keep us prisoner until we can turn away from fear and embrace hope. 

If we are brave enough to see ourselves clearly and recognize that we do not need to be afraid and see others as working against us, then we can choose to begin to let go of our fears and begin to feel hope for ourselves and for the world around us. 

What do you think?

IS EMPATHY JUST LISTENING TO OTHERS WITHOUT OUR OWN REACTIONS?

I've become more and more convinced that listening to others is the best way to be connected to other people...no matter how much your belief's differ from theirs. However, for listening to actually connect us to others requires that we listen without having any reactions ourselves. If you react, you are not listening and this disconnects you from the other person. Maybe this is   one answer to the problems that are dividing people. Possibly. However, we would need to get people together so that we could listen to each other. But what does together mean? Could we liseten without reacting to what we hear on the phone, or on the internet, or on TV? Would this help us to not judge others or have to buy into the us against them way of thinking?

It is sad that lies from leaders make it harder to listen to each other as we have been brainwashed to react with anger and even hatred to others who have different views. It is clear that one way for tyrants [bullies] to have power over others is to promote an "us against them" belief system so that the tyrants can have blind loyalty from their followers. Why do I say blind loyalty. Well, when anyone has been taught to be afraid of something then all the tyrant needs to do is to trigger these fears by lying and promoting the lie that people with different views will cause terrible things to happen. Then when any of us recalls a fear from the past and still feel afraid, our brains will react instantly [in a nanosecond and that is one billionth of a second] in order to protect us by causing us to see people with different views as the enemy and as dangerous. This is not true but your brain thinks that it is true. We can let our brain's know that it does not need to protect us as there is nothing to fear. However, this requires that we choose to recall these past stresses and not feel stressed, thus demonstrating to our brain that there is really no need to be stressed.

Maybe if we can learn to listen without reacting we will discover that we do not need to be afraid of other people and we will stop allowing ourselves to be manipulated into being afraid. If we can do this, our lives would be a lot better.

CONSUMING FEAR OR CONSUMED BY FEAR?

After the terrorist attacks in Paris, I heard a priest give a sermon where he said that we are being consumed by fear, that we are like vultures, and the fear is like carrion. This sounds like we are consuming fear and can't get enough of it.

My patients have shown me that their fear makes them like the carrion and they are being being consumed by the vulture of fear.  If it seems that we cannot get enough of fear, it may be that is because we feel compelled to expose ourselves to stressful events over and over.  An example might be the TV news that seems focused on reportiing stressful events over and over. Maybe we keep exposing ourselves to stress in the hope that it will change and be ok and no longer a stress. Some of my patients saw the planes hit the twin towers thousands of times.  I saw it twice and I was upset with myself for choosing to see it a second time, as that was not necessary and only increased my stress level.  It also seems that stress is related to worries and that worries are almost reassuring in that if you worry a lot you will always know what is going to happen...you will be worrying.  

So, why is it so hard to stop worrying?  As I've mentioned, being able to know what was going to happen each day may be reassuring enough to keep us worrying.  I also wonder if our brains recall past stressful events and bring up a memory of this event as a way of asking us if we are still stressed by this but we think our brains are making statements, telling us to be stressed and worried.  So why don't our brains tell us they are asking questions?  This might have to do with the fact that it is our brain and we are supposed to be in charge and make the decisions that then tell our brains what to do.  This may not sound like the way your brain works, or mine.  Yet this is important as it reinforces the importance of the choices that we make and that it really is up to us.  

So if it is really up to us why does it seem like it isn't?  What do you think?