What is Polarization and How to Avoid It?

What is polarization? Is it possible not to become polarized? Whether it’s politics, gender, religion, or parenting, sometimes not taking sides seems impossible.

In his book The Wisdom Pattern, Richard Rohr says there is a “third way.”

“This is a position that refuses to become polarized. This is a position that recognizes the ego at work both in excluding and oppressing the other, as well as in claiming moral superiority through a continuous victimhood narrative.”

Two like charges repel each other. But if I reverse one of them, they will attract. My ego will always push away the other ego. They are too alike. I need to reverse my charge to start attracting.

What is polarization and what causes it?

To explain the phenomenon, Peter Kreeft, the philosophy professor at Boston College, gave the following illustration.

Imagine two people standing on top of two opposite hills, each at the farthest possible distance from each other. Even if they shout at the top of their lungs, they won’t hear much.

But the more each one descends into the valley, the closer they will get to each other. The closer they are to each other, the less they will need to “shout.” The closer they become, the less they will need to second-guess the meaning of each other’s words.

Eventually, they will reach the lowest point in the valley, where they won’t even need to whisper. Silence is more than enough for communication. The closer you are to God, the closer you are to the Other.

This does not mean that there are no more differences between them; it means they are above them. When we go down we go up. The differences are still there, but they are not all that important.

There, at the deepest depth, all differences are transcended, not eradicated. Overemphasizing differences is a symptom of superficiality – not going deep enough. There can be no mutuality or understanding on the surface. Only isolation and polarization.

Continue reading “What is Polarization and How to Avoid It?”

What Happens When You Heal Your Inner Child?

A parent holding a child's hand

How do you heal your inner child? What is it in the first place?

Your inner child is your inner guidance system that tells you what you need to be happy.

Your inner child is that part of you that always knows what you would have been if you had been loved perfectly.

It’s an inner sensor of love or its absence.

Your inner child is a flower inside you that blooms or fades depending on how much love you feel.

The inner child is that part of me that always tells me the absolute truth about how I feel right now.

If I feel bad inside but keep smiling on the outside, my inner child will be kicking and screaming – and I will feel inner conflict.

If I neglect him for too long and he feels desperate, he will hide – making me feel sad and lost.

If I really hate doing something but try to convince myself otherwise, my inner child will not be fooled. He will break the truth quite bluntly:

“I want to get out of here!”

You may ignore this still small voice for a long time – or even try to silence it entirely – but it will ALWAYS manifest itself in your subconscious through feelings, dreams, and those serendipitous moments when life catches you unawares.

Your inner child is your inner GPS system to always guide you towards perfect love.

The inner child knows what it feels like to be loved perfectly and always protests when you acquiesce to something less.

The more we neglect that voice, the further away we are from perfect love.

The more we want to control, the more inner conflict we feel.

Inner conflict indicates a struggle between what your inner child feels and what your controlling mind craves.

The difference between my inner child and me is that I can lie to myself, and he cannot.

He is my innermost treasure to point me to what I need to be truly happy.

But if I want to connect to this inner GPS system and allow it to lead me to real joy and fulfillment, I need to first recognize my inner child and start listening to him.

It’s not easy at first – the inner child has been hurt. He doesn’t trust me. I have been mistreating him for so many years.

Why would he go out of hiding? Why would he crawl from under the bed?

He will, eventually, if I keep showing up for him with RELENTLESS EMPATHY.

That’s what a loving parent does! They give the child RELENTLESS EMPATHY and UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE.

Continue reading “What Happens When You Heal Your Inner Child?”

Reverse Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by Increasing “Happy” Hormones

Can you reverse post-traumatic stress disorder?

My grandfather fought in World War II. As a child, I would often ask him: “What is war like?” He never answered.

The memories were too painful. He never talked about them. He just drank.

Every memory or thought about the war brought the same emotions in him AS IF HE HAD BEEN IN THE MIDDLE OF IT.

He wasn’t. There was no war around. But he still felt it as if it was his PRESENT reality.

One consequence of PTSD is that once your brain has been hardwired to expect danger, it cannot distinguish between thoughts and reality.

A thought of war feels like an actual war.

PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) has been known for a long time – during World War I, it was called “shell shock.” But it wasn’t until the 1980s that a corresponding diagnosis was proposed.

What is the mechanism of PTSD?

John Bradshaw, the author of the bestseller Healing the Shame That Binds You, says that when a person goes through a traumatic experience, it gets imprinted in their brain within the next 72 hours unless they are able to talk it through with someone they trust.

Why?

Because trauma does not get registered in the brain when met with relentless empathy.

Trauma gets recorded in the brain and causes PTSD symptoms under one condition – the person has FELT an overwhelming emotion but never got any empathy.

In other words, when a person talks through their experience with someone they trust within the first 3 days, the brain does not create neuron pathways (electrical connections) that produce PTSD-related symptoms. 

If, however, they suppress or deny their feelings, the traumatic event eventually gets hardwired in the brain.

When trauma gets hardwired in the brain, the brain gets chemically conditioned to expect the same traumatic experience again and again (and releases the same chemicals before the event happens).

What does that mean?

Continue reading “Reverse Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by Increasing “Happy” Hormones”

Hooked: A Story About Fishing in the Swimming Pool

The swimming pool was teeming with people. Bright luminescent bikinis, squealing children, laughing dads, chattering moms, all jumbled up together in a thick soup of incessant movement, stirring, whirling, mixing, blending.

On one side of the pool, there was a man sitting by the edge of the water with a long pole, fishing. His face was hidden in a thick beard. He seemed totally detached from what was going on around, watching intently the red bobber on the undulating surface of the pool. A guard hastily jumped down from his tower and ran towards the man.

“Sir,” he said with an air of utter amazement, “what are you doing? This is a swimming pool!”

The man didn’t budge.

“So what?”

“This is not allowed!” “This is…,” he stumbled, “you’ve got hooks out there, people can get hurt!”

“Yeah,” chuckled the man, “what did you think? Good things come to those who bait. Just look at this beautiful bait.” Continue reading “Hooked: A Story About Fishing in the Swimming Pool”

How to Be a Friend to Your Own Child

No doubt, there is a time when you need to be a parent to your children, but there comes a time when you can become their friend. Being a parent is about exercising control, being a friend is about letting go of control. Being a parent means you attach a child to yourself, being a friend means you let them go so they can come back to you of their own accord. The paradox of parenting is that you bind a child to yourself when they are little, so that you can let them go when they grow up.

When I think about my relationships with my kids, I have to come to grips with one thing – if I wish to be their friend, not just a parent, they must choose me for a friend. Unlike parents, friends are chosen, not given. And this has to be a free choice on their part, with no compulsion, coercion or manipulation on mine. Such is the nature of friendship – it’s a free choice, not out of necessity or obligation, but because a person’s soul resonates with your heart and mind.

C.S. Lewis wrote: “I have no duty to be anyone’s Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadow of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself.” Friendship can only thrive when someone’s inner world is attractive to you in and of itself. It’s true that my children are 100% dependent on me, and I could have forced them to “be my friend”. But that’s not what I want. I don’t want to say to them: “Be my friend, or you will regret it.” Friendship, unlike parenthood, is the opposite of dependence. Continue reading “How to Be a Friend to Your Own Child”