Have you noticed how, in spite of so many people doing good things in recent years, violent incidents
are happening all over the world, manifesting the lack of control of people’s wills?
How many times have you witnessed people attacking other people and injuring each other? These behaviours can cause havoc, destruction, pain, grief and tremendous loss. I have noticed it happening in all ages, ranging from primary school-age children to older adults, from all cultures at any given time.
What to make of it? It leaves me feeling unsettled, disgruntled and unsafe. In Bioenergetics, we facilitate people’s process of getting to know themselves at both the mind and body level.
Through the therapeutic process, clients can identify their strengths, longings and their growing
edges. They are able to notice how some of their false beliefs have kept them “captive” and/or stuck in
their own stories. In many cases, these thoughts and beliefs prevent them from achieving their full
potential, and from living life at their fullest.
Over the years as a therapist, I have seen people’s bodies and lives transforming. When people
become conscious of the thoughts and behaviours that do not serve them anymore, they can expand
their capacity to respond thoughtfully and empathically, instead of react impulsively and out of fear. They can open their heart to themselves and the other, to develop the capacity to be responsible for their behaviour.
It is my sense that there is a big difference between following our impulse out of a grounded state of
mind and body, to simply act out because we “feel like it” and /or “it is fun, it gives me a relief to retaliate, to attack, to hit, to curse, to threaten.”
Exerting power over another is very different from empowering oneself or one another. I call on you to reflect upon the times that you react versus the times that you respond and consider questions such as: How does that feel in your body? What is the difference between one and the other? How does one or the other affect one’s relationships in general?