Using Kindness to Reduce Stress: Coping with Another Sad Mass Shooting.

As I write this blog entry, I'm also just hearing of yet another mass shooting.  This time at an elementary school in Uvalde Texas, which follows a prior mass shooting just over one week earlier at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo New York.  All of which has raised the stress level of the country once again, especially when thinking of the young and innocent victims, as well as injured and deceased adults from both shootings.

As I've written in prior entries about other mass shootings, it's important to hear the news, absorb the story, but then limit exposure to repeated broadcasting of the same information for prolonged periods of time.  Take the information and allow yourself some time to process it, feel it, and move through your feelings about these events.  But in the end, we each must work to find a way in our lives to take positive (not violent) action.

It is not helpful to fall into the trap of believing you are helpless to these events.  There are already some who are stepping forward to donate blood, send condolences, assist the families and law enforcement workers, and donate or provide money and items needed that might be helpful.  And if you are in a different state or miles from the event, spend some time contemplating how you can make a difference in your own community when it comes to these sorts of events.  It doesn't have to be impressive.  

In addition, don't let these kinds of events blind you to the good that others are doing out there in the world.  There are many kind and good people who care very much about others and especially about children, teachers, and black lives.  And kindness is the key.  Teaching it and practicing it will help create human beings who can react properly to internal anger and rage, and kindness is what helps a community heal when an individual does not choose kindness.

Stress levels can be eased by choosing kindness in your behavior.  You don't have to save the world, and you can't.  Instead, you have to look closer to home and see what you can do in your own state, town, community and sometimes just your own neighborhood.  What can you do to make your local schools safer?  What can you do to make your community safer?  Is it a vote?  Writing an article?  Making a donation?  Talking to your local leaders?  The error comes in believing it's always others who will solve the problem, whatever it is.

So we can't turn our eyes away.  We do have to hear the story, but do not have to listen to it repeatedly for hours on end.  With the information gathered, the next step is to process our feelings.  We might need a good cry, especially over the loss of young innocent children, but equally over the lives of people of color!  We might need to journal, go running or to work out.  We might process things by taking a mental health day, or going for a walk or trip or vacation that allows us to process what we feel about this news.  Maybe we need to talk it out with another person.  But in the end, we have to get busy seeing that we have the ability to  act in some non-violent way, and in a way that is within reach.  In other words, it's not an unrealistic expectation placed on ourselves which can never be reached.  But instead, is something we can actually do.  Taking non-violent action can help ease your pain and stress, and kindness is the key.

"My religion is very simple.  My religion is kindness."     ~Dalai Lama

Thanks to R. Miller for the great photo, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Mass Shootings: Discouraged? Encourage others!

Oh boy... how many times have I written here in this blog about how we should take care of ourselves after mass shootings.  Seems I hardly get going on other topics, and back we are again on the topic of dealing with the stress of yet another mass shooting, again!

I continue to hear from more and more people about how discouraged they are about these kinds of things and how they are worried about "the state of the world" and "the way humanity is going".  It seems people are losing confidence in one another and giving up on hope for the potential of human kind.

I've heard that the way to become less discouraged, is to encourage others.  I suppose the reason is because when you need to encourage someone else about something you yourself feel a bit discouraged over, you have to dig deep and challenge your own discouraged thinking in order to see the places where things could get better or don't have to go so poorly.

So let me help myself, by helping you with the best anti-discouragement message I can find as I dig deep into the creative juices of my sense of self in order to help you the reader to not give up hope on humanity during a time in which most of us are quite baffled about how poorly some human beings are behaving.

First of all, if you are feeling powerless about the state of things in this world, I encourage you to take a second look at that belief and realize that you have more ability and power than you realize to make a difference.  You don't have to tackle the largest problem on the planet or in your state or even your community, but you do have the power to do something more about the problems you feel powerless over than you care to admit.

Second, believing that the tiny bit you can do is meaningless, unimportant, insignificant and won't even be a drop in the bucket of needs on this planet is also a belief that will stop you from even making a move on the few things you are capable of doing, which could actually make a difference and even soften your discouragement.

Third, it's imperative that you recognize where you fall on the scale of consciousness in this world.  If you are fairly unconscious, with head down and your sights set only on how to survive from moment to moment, you may be simply taking care of your basic survival needs.  And that's fine!  But if you are one of the many on this planet who is privileged enough to be more conscious than that, with less of your "basic needs" unmet, capable of looking up from the grindstone, and are able to do more to change this world, then you need to take more responsibility for your place in this world and stop waiting for someone else to take the first step.

Finally, put an end to thinking that "doing something" can't be too small, or has to be huge.  As if only some enormously famous, outstanding, massive piece of work, progress, or accomplishment, will be worthwhile or help to change this world.  Writing this article is something.  Can you write?  Paint?  Volunteer?  Offer?  Create?  Teach?  Donate?  Support?  Can you encourage someone else?

If you are feeling stressed by the state of the world or feeling discouraged by the negative events of your fellow human beings, recognize that you have the power to do something rather than nothing.  Don't wait for someone else to create a to-do list for you.  Make your own list.  Make it positive!  Do something instead of nothing, and don't buy into the discouraging beliefs that might convince you to not even try, or to hang it all up and shake your head in despair.

If you are a lit candle, light the candle next to you.  If you are lit by another, then light someone else on fire.  If you are not able to burn, or light the wick of someone else, that's okay too.  Encourage those who can and don't feed the fire of discouragement.  Take a deep breath and realize these massive problems we face cannot be ignored.  We must stay resilient and strong in the face of them and though we may feel discouragement, don't let it take root and don't give it your power.

Thanks to Luigi Mengato for the great photo

Learned Helplessness: Stress Solutions in the face of Mass Shootings

Since the recent mass shooting in Florida, I am hearing a general sense of hopelessness and helplessness expressed among those I talk to.  There is an expressed feeling that, "It's never going to stop", or "It's just getting worse."  I'm hearing from people the belief that there is nothing that can be done to stop this growing problem or to change things, but these conclusions stem from the belief that we are powerless and helpless over the situation.

The research that was done by Martin Seligman in 1967 on Learned Helplessness taught us that we are capable of believing that we are helpless when, in fact, we are not.  Once this belief sets in, depression can take root as people gather a sense that there is no hope.

What Seligman's research taught us as well, was that once this belief sets in, we can become a bit blind to any actual solution or path that leads out of a seemingly hopeless situation, and the result is that we begin to give up trying to find a path out.

The solution, of course, is to become aware of the open doors and paths that can lead back to a sense of grounding or footing that feels even the slightest empowering, inspiring, and motivating.

When I asked people recently what they themselves could do to try to bring change to the world regarding mass shootings, many felt powerless to find an answer.  It seemed some felt their answer would not be good enough, and others seemed to worry that something might be expected of them if they suggested a possibility.  The sense of powerlessness also resulted in expressed anger that many have directed at various targets.  The NRA.  The politicians.  Child rearing practices.  Men.

These feelings are understandable as each individual tries to sort out for themselves what the problem could be.  It's very human of us to try to identify the problem so we can resolve it somehow.  But if we feel overwhelmed by the problem, and not fully sure of the solution, we may begin to slide into that abyss of helpless feelings that lead to depression and surrender.

One of the keys to this problem for each of us, is to search within ourselves to try to determine what we personally can do to move society as a whole toward a remedy of the problem.  Even if it seems like just one small step onto the path that leads us all toward a solution.  There are small things each of us can do now to try to help.

For one thing, check your own passive-aggressive behavior at home and in the workplace.  Be the non-violent role model you want to see in the world.  In addition, become comfortable with your own sense of human anger so when others express theirs, you don't shut them down or stop listening because you are so uncomfortable with the emotion.  Unheard anger gets stuffed and ends up coming out in ways none of us want to see or experience.

There are lots of people right now making attempts to create change regarding our growing history of mass shootings.  If you are having a hard time coming up with an idea or solution to champion, then get on board with someone elses' project to raise funds for metal detectors, or raise awareness for changing gun laws, or parent-child conflict skills training, all of which move us down the path that does exists for reaching a solution.  Don't assume that someone else will take care of the whole thing or that someone else "should" take care of it for you.  Get involved and be a part of the energy for change.

It's very important to look most strongly in the mirror at yourself and what you personally can do to participate.  From protesting to writing letters, from making a call to making a donation, from writing a blog to volunteering.  There is a path out of this, but it's not something that each of us is helpless to.  It's also not something that only everyone "else" is going to do.  The reality is that you are not helpless.  Each one of us can do something and if everyone of us does something, the whole of our society moves along the path one step at a time towards the solutions that do exist.

Thanks to Brenda Clarke  for her wonderful photo
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/