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Violence Begets Violence
by Thomas Capshew • Fredericksburg, Virginia
Violence begets
violence. It is a
universal Truth. Just
as an acorn cannot produce
a palm tree, violence does
not give birth to compassion.
Violence devalues another
person. Compassion
maintains a recognition of
value in another person, no
matter what they value, think,
speak or do.
The reason we are confused right now
is because we have been fed a load of
misinformation from a dominator
culture asserting that compassion
equals weakness. Compassion is always
stronger and more enduring than
violence and domination when seen at
the proper scale. The dominators first
lead us to believe that our self-interest
is paramount, including our individual
lives. They show us by their actions
and words and we begin to believe
them. Second, the dominators offer us
opportunities to feed this self-interest,
from touting “the American Dream” to
offering us higher and higher salaries
to do the work they need us to do to
further their self-interests of money and
power. They use our midbrains, with
both dopamine for pleasure activities,
and the amygdala for generating
perceived danger, to move us farther
and farther away from our life’s purpose
and the essential stuff of life. The
end game of this pattern is the same:
marginalization, insignificance, high medical bills, and dying with a sour taste
in our mouth and a deep sense of an
unfulfilled life.
As a person who stands at the crossroads
of psychotherapy and spirituality and
helps people to find a way forward that
combines mental health and spiritual
health, I see the “killing-of-spirit” effects
every day and this spiritual malaise can
be found in every stage of life: children,
adolescents, young adults, middle aged
adults, and older adults all exhibit it.
The spiritual malaise can be found
among all levels of what our society
would call “success,” from the children
and adolescents who have not yet
“accomplished” anything, to the adults
who by all external markers are in the top
5% of the accomplished and successful.
What happens is we may learn to feed
our bodies with healthy food, feed our
emotions with pleasure and avoid pain
and danger, and feed our minds with
knowledge and sensory stimulation, but
we have forgotten to feed our spirits. We
have become, not all of us, but many of
us, soul starved.
What do our spirits need for
nourishment? Our spirits’ core need is
connection. Connection to something
bigger than ourselves. Only when we are
in relationship to something bigger than
ourselves can we put our existence into
perspective and make meaning of our
lives and the world around us. With this
deep connection, our figure finds the
ground in our existence that provides
context and meaning to being alive.
Violence is an anathema of life. Violence
devalues other life to exalt one’s own.
Feeding our spirit a connection to
something impure breeds violence. This
food that breeds violence has many flavors, but all flavors of violence share
the same aborted process. Rather than
connecting to the creative force of the
universe, which feeds all of us and
everything in existence, the connection
is made to a difference among humans;
ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation,
educational level, socio-economic status,
nationality, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Our brains can always find a difference—
it is an organ that has helped us survive
as a species in a previously much more
dangerous natural world. Once we begin
feeding on the food of difference, we are
preparing ourselves for the risk of making
an impure connection to something
bigger that brings us significance,
meaning and purpose. Name a group that
promotes hatred and we can easily see
that joining that group is a connection
that leaves one feeling understood with
a growing sense of belongingness and
purpose. The central message of the
group may initially sound unpalatable,
but over time, our minds entrain to
the message. Over time, our brain
begins to filter the overwhelming
sensory information we all receive
daily to screen out the information
inconsistent with the central message
of the group and allow information
consistent with the central message of
the group to pass through, supporting
what we have come to believe. Over
time, believing is seeing.
One of the essential characteristics of
this impure connection–finding value in
difference–is that as our value increases,
the value of anyone or anything that
is considered “not group” or “other”
decreases. Once this dynamic begins,
our value increases in our mind to 100%
and the value of the “different other”
decreases in our mind to 0%, making
violence inevitable.
So what is our way out of this spiraling
death plunge? Meeting violence with
violence only breeds more violence. Meeting violence with compassion and
value breeds compassion and value. Not
condoning or giving a pass to the violent
acts that have occurred—they should
be addressed in our rule of law that was
developed to protect the common good.
But planting the seeds of compassion,
finding value in the lives of those with
different or even hateful beliefs is the only
way forward that creates the opportunity
for reconciliation. The path forward is to
“love our neighbors as ourselves,” inviting
them into a connection with the source of
all of our being, regardless of what name
or label we choose to use for it/her/him.
The creative force of the universe is the
source of life, value, connection, meaning,
and purpose. All of us have unlimited
access.
Tom Capshew is the author of Divine Warrior Training: Manifesting the Divine in Our World. He is working on his second book, Consciousness Rising, available
in early 2018.
Tom works with
individuals, couples and families in
a private psychotherapy practice. His
private spirituality practice is available
in-person and online. For a free meditation
mp3 and to join his mailing list, visit http://thomascapshew.com.
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