With the tragedies we've experienced across the world, it is clear that our neighborhoods, communities, countries and the world are in bad need of HEALING. Women have long been recognized for their healing nature. Helen Fisher, anthropologist at Rutgers University and author of THE FIRST SEX: The Natural Talents of Women and How They Are Changing the World, who I mentioned in a my previous post on women looking inside to examine ourselves, also tells us that women bring innate talents to our jobs and lives, including a natural emotional expressivity, empathy, a tendency to nurture and a capacity for patience.
In a world that has become so broadly driven by more and more aggression, Helen Fisher again tells us in her book some interesting facts. One that we witness is that men continue to be more violent than women in places culturally different as Botswana, Brazil, Canada, India, Kenya, Mexico, Scotland and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). Based what we've all witnessed since Helen wrote the book, I would have to add the United States, UK, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, just to name a few hot spots of violence.
Helen as also affirms that nowhere in the world are women as physically aggressive as men. However, she does point out we are far from innocent --- we can be catty, demeaning, bitter and abusive to one another's face and slanderous behind each other's backs, but few of us are prone to physical attacks. Helen goes on to state that "some scientists have argued that women and females of other primate species are just as aggressive as males, they just express it differently." This is where I must say I find my thinking...
We are all capable of dishonoring one another, aren't we?
...and we have a wide range of ways to go about it.
SO WHAT'S OUR OPPORTUNITY AS WOMEN?
Knowing we have the capacity to be either aggressive or healing, I see that women have a tremendous opportunity to heal the world that today is so inflamed with violence in every corner --- not just wars and rumors of wars, but it has permeated every aspect of our daily lives. Check out the listings for your local theater, look online at the news, look closely at the computer games your children are playing, count how many TV programs are full of violence each day or search Google for "violence" and you'll surely get a heightened glimpse at how we have desensitized ourselves and allowed a real lust for violent behavior, greed and aggression toward one another to be seductive in our lives---so much so, most of us hardly notice anymore.
There were three specific things that have served as wake-up calls for me. 1). The other night I watched a trailer for a new animated movie about fast food. Even in this movie rated PG Comedy, violent behavior is a core element of the film --- shooting, beating, smashing. 2) Recently, I saw a brief mention of the popularity of a Christian video game that is "selling like hotcakes." It has soldiers kneeling to pray before they go to out to shoot, kill, maim, and blow-up people and their homes and cities. I found myself asking, Who is it that Jesus would ask us to kill or bomb? 3.) Great sages like Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told us that violence begets violence. We certainly are seeing the manifestation of this truth. Meanwhile, the most powerful leaders of the world are thriving on AGGRESSION and VIOLENCE right now --- killing thousands and thousands, turned millions of deaths, injured and displaced --- while the profiteers line their pockets and most of us sit helplessly watching or ignoring.
IGNITING THE POWER OF OUR HEALING TRAITS
To me the opportunity for us as women is for us to ignite the positive influence of our healing traits, using them wherever we go, leaving a positive footprint with each step we take, each room we enter, each occasion we attend; touching each place with our healing blessing of peace. In a reading from DailyOM online, they wrote about this idea of blessing space whenever we go:
"Physical space acts like a sponge, absorbing the radiant of all who pass through it. When you bless a room or an entire building, you leave a powerful message of love and light for all those who will come after you....Your affirmative energy footprint will help brighten your day as you contemplate your blessing's future impact on siblings in humanity and your environment."
Imagine the power of our collective work in this simple way. If each woman around the world could bless the space where they walked and fill it full of healing energy. There would be millions and millions of meaningful moments of good every day.
Are you willing to try an experiment?
Commit to at least one healing blessing for your world each day this week.
Then see what influence you see.
I promise to do the same and report back...I hope you will too!
You can contact me by leaving a comment here (below) and I will write back to you.
Debbe
Debbe Kennedy
Founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead
Comments