It is well known that the body's immune system is affected adversely by stress in our lives, what is not so well known is that occulted and conscious traumas are constantly sapping our ability to deal with situations and that our level of stress remains high constantly. This state of constant stress produces toxins in our blood that affect our digestive system, our ability to deal with emotional stress, and in the end, severely affect our general state of health and well being.
When a person commit an offense and hurts someone, both the offender and the victims suffer from stress. The offender feels guilt, shame and is afraid that someone will find out, while the victim fell anger, fear and desperation if he or she can not change the situation. The situation will remain that way until the offender comes forward and apologize, or the victim finds the courage to confront the aggressor to ask for an apology, compensation, and offers forgiveness.
The major difference when a child is traumatized is; the child's love is so important that he or she will have to forget the trauma in order to continue loving. That unconditional love has some draw backs however. Occulted or forgotten memories are just as damaging to human spirit as are conscious ones with the difference that uncontrollable outbursts of anger and fear result when similar situations arise later in life. The anger that was not allowed to be expressed by the child is stored in the subconscious memory and often triggers with very violent outbursts.
In order to liberate one self from such repressed memories, one has to go trough regression therapy, or the offender has to come forward with an apology. If the offender comes forward, he or she must be prepared to deal with the anger that will be expressed by the victim at that time. All of the repressed emotions of the victim will surface. In the end, one must remember that forgiveness will eventually have to take place. If forgiveness is hard to do, one should always remember that those who become aggressors where also victim when they were children and that their mistakes are often the result of forgotten childhood traumas. The best part of this process is the final reconciliation of the victim and the aggressor.
The human mind is a very powerful tool that is only used to 10% of its capacity and it is because we are constantly analyzing our environment for danger signs and dreaming up defense scenarios consciously or subconsciously. When we clean up our subconscious mind of all the forgotten traumas, we liberate it to do more constructive work. Meditation is one of the most effective tools to control the wandering mind and to learn to focus on the present moment. Most people are constantly thinking about their problems and could be sitting in paradise if only they could stop thinking about everything else. The fine tuning of the mind and our ability to detect the subtle messages of the spirit are part of the process that will help us come out of our collective mess.
Dreams are also a means to receive information from the spirit world, and many people are receiving dream messages repeatedly and continue to ignore them. One must understand that spirits do not have a body and therefore can only communicate with us by sending us images and or symbols to convey a message. Some times we are sent emotions like fear to warn us of impending danger, and when we look around, there is nothing in our immediate vicinity that would indicate there is anything wrong. Ignoring such messages can be costly.
When an offense is committed, there are two victims: the aggressor and the victim. In order to achieve healing, both must deal with the offense and its consequences. Revenge is not an acceptable option because it simply extends violence into a new group of people.
1.- Prevent further acts of violence.
2.- Allow the victim of the offense to come to terms with the emotions related to the event and to forgive the aggressor.
3.- To prevent further acts of violence, the aggressor must admit an offense has been committed, seek the counsel of a healer in approaching the victim of the offense, and, when conditions permit, ask the victim to be forgiven.
When forgiveness is given without being asked for and refused by the aggressor, only the victim is healed.
When the victim refuses forgiveness when asked for, the aggressor is healed but the victim remains sick with hatred.
When forgiveness is given when asked for, both the aggressor and the victim are healed and the cycle of violence is broken.
When the victim exercises revenge, the cycle of violence is extended to new people and continues to grow. It's the worst possible thing that can happen, and in some cases, it damages entire communities.
When forgiveness is asked for, the victim must remember that violence is learned by being a victim of violence. This is especially true if a child is raised in a violent environment. Having been a victim in childhood, the chances are good that the child will grow to be a violent adult if he is male and a victim if female. This is because adrenaline is an addictive substance and is also the reason why so many women end up in violent relationships, which they leave, and most of the time end up with even more violent mates in their new ones.
People with a violent disposition need help to deal with their problems. Patience and compassion will go a long way in helping those caught up in the cycle of violence.
We must keep in mind that raising our children with love and respect will create a society vulnerable to aggressive people but, do we want to keep increasing our military arsenal and risk being destroyed?" For me the answer is simple, I want to be happy and if it means being vulnerable, then so be it.
World peace can be a reality if we all decide to do something about it. Some of us are programming ourselves for violent behavior prior to our birth; end up addicted to violent emotional states and crave violence right from the beginning of our lives. It is not a hazard that our children love violent television programming and violent video games.
The most important question at this time is how do we stop this cycle. Some countries have started rehabilitation programs that intervene at early stages of the development of family crisis and deal with offenders as people requiring assistance in identifying their problems and following trough with therapy sessions which eventually bring the family back together to start a new life. Again it must be stressed that the only way to deal with violence on to long term is to deal with family problems, to give our children love and respect, to treat our pregnant women with love and respect, and teach our young people what love and respect is. It will take a while to accomplish this but it is well worth it.