Personal Writing -- Feeling Emotional, and Changes I'd like to See in the World
Well, I am feeling pretty emotional today. That’s probably not a surprise to anyone who reads my site regularly.
I’ve been thinking a lot about a suicidal teen in England all morning. I just wrote her a long email. I feel pretty powerless to stop her from killing herself. And to stop her from being brainwashed. She already is convinced she is a terrible person and everyone would be better off without her. Like usual, she is highly intelligent and highly sensitive. She learns emotional lessons quickly, but she is coming up with deadly conclusions from her independent study. I say independent study because she takes what she has learned during the day and analyzes it by herself. She is not checking with anyone to see if she is getting the "right" answers. Or at least she is not checking with anyone outside her small dysfunctional circle of "teachers", "friends" and "family."
She thinks about the people who call her selfish and a wimp and attention seeking. And she thinks about how she isn’t like everyone else. How she doesn’t value the same things everyone else around her values. And she comes to the deadly conclusion that there is something wrong with her. She thinks it has to be her, since everyone else seems to be doing fine. She doesn’t come to the conclusion, as I have, that there is something wrong with her family and her school system, and her culture in general. She doesn’t realize that England is world famous for its emotional sickness.
She has never lived anywhere else. She’s never lived with a family that knows the meaning of the word invalidation or knows why it is lethal to intelligent, sensitive people. She’s never gone to a school which doesn’t require uniforms and going to church and learning to shoot a gun. Yes, that’s right. I said learning to shoot a gun. They are teaching 13 year old girls at her school how to be little soldiers. Just in case they ever have to “proudly serve the country.” In other words, go off and kill people for “God and Country” and let’s not forget for the King or Queen, whichever it may be.
So that is one thing I am feeling emotional about.
Another thing is a Michael Jackson video clip. It is from a DVD called the HIStory tour back in 1996. I just saw the video for the first time this weekend. I’ve been thinking about the emotions of his concerts and his songs and the whole Michael Jackson trial and about how Rob Emmerling and others are afraid I am some kind of Michael Jackson or that I am abusing my power or influence with the teenagers I talk to.
I will show you the video clip I am talking about. It shows a young woman, probably around 19 or 20, crying as she listens to one of Jackson’s songs, and as she sings along. She obviously knows the words by heart. When I look at her face and gestures I see the pain she has felt. I can tell she is a person who cares about other people. And I would guess she feels pretty powerless. And I would guess her values are different than most of society’s. I would guess she would be a person who could feel suicidal and depressed and she probably wouldn’t be someone who wants to learn to shoot a gun. And I would say the world needs more people like her. And I would say she probably needs a lot of emotional support, which she probably has not gotten from her family or her teachers or school directors in her life. I would guess they were probably all more worried about her grades.
Anyhow here is the clip.
I was thinking, by the way, as I wrote to my suicidal friend this morning, that she is one of the most emotionally supportive people I’ve ever met. One of the least judgmental and most understanding. She is one of the best at sending hugs when we are chatting. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. How an emotionally intelligent person instinctively knows when to send a hug.
I’ve chatted with a lot of teenagers now and I can feel the difference between then as I chat with them. This one knows just when to send a hug. It is a little sign that shows she feels empathy and cares. You have to be emotionally intelligent to know how to do that when you are just chatting with someone and you can't even read their facial expressions or hear their tone of voice.
Teenagers don’t go to workshops on EI to learn such things. They just know. Teenage females, in their early teens especially, are the best at sending hugs of all the people I’ve talked to over the past 4 and a half years of chatting. They get worse at it as they get older. By the time they are in college or university, they’ve just about lost their natural ability to empathize quickly, and to spontaneously show their empathy and caring with a quick *hug* or the little symbol of a person offering a hug.
But the other thing I was feeling emotional about is that I just checked my site statistics. I checked a section of them I don’t look at often. It is called the summary section. Usually I just look at the daily and weekly numbers. What I found was that the highest week in the past 5 years was the week of the elections in the USA in 2004. And October of 2004 was the highest month, with 26,000 visitors.
What this tells me is that people come to my site to see what I have to say about things. And I feel guilty because I didn’t use my site and it’s influence in a more constructive way last year. I’ve felt powerless and resentful for so long that about all I do a lot of the time is bitch and complain and attack people like Goleman, Emmerling and Elias.
So this is a reminder to me that I do have some influence and that I can use this influence more “effectively” as David Caruso says. I’m not really sure what I mean by that word, but it sure sounds nice. And it saves me from having to be more specific! Lol. I guess what I mean is to feel more successful in being influential in bringing about changes which I’d like to see. That is a pretty awkward sentence. Like I said, the word “effective” saves us from having to be very specific! Kind of like using the words “right” and “wrong” or “good” and “evil”.
So now there is no more emotion left in me right now. I’m all worn out. Worn down. But I’ll go ahead and post this while I still have the energy left to do that.
S.Hein
May 4, 2005
Chiclayo, Peru
See part two below...
Okay so now I am thinking more about what changes I would like to see. There are so many I feel overwhelmed and a bit hopeless. I think why even start to list them and I feel sure I will feel depressed when I start to make the list. So in a way I would rather avoid even thinking about it. Maybe that is why I complain so much and attack others. That saves me from having to really do anything constructive myself. lol. Yeah, okay so call me a lazy, hypocritical writer wannabe. Like I call RTP a Dan Goleman wannabe. Oh btw, RTP stands for something like Rob the PhD. Something like that anyhow! lol. Oh wait, sorry, Rob, its PsyD, isn't it?
Anyhow, okay here is my list... part of it...
No more school uniforms.
No more laws preventing teenagers from choosing where they live and who they do things with.
Emotional intelligence advisors in the White House.
Teaching the meaning of invalidation in all schools in the world. As basic to education as teaching addition and subtraction.
No more wars, killing and destruction.
No more medication for suicidal teens instead of hugs and listening and understanding and emotional support.
Training classes for parents.
Emotional competency tests for parents and future parents.
Putting value on emotional skills and talents like the ability to listen, send hugs, show understanding, solve emotional problems. Either get rid of grades or give grades on these things, though that scares me because I know how emotionally sick people would use such new powers.
Letting teachers hug kids again in schools.
Not telling young people it is weak to cry.
Not calling anyone selfish or attention seeking.
Not labeling people.
Not judging them.
Having "understanders" instead of judges.
Getting rid of the entire punishment system.
Replacing it with an educational system which a) teaches people what their emotional needs are and b) teaches them the natural consequences
See file on natural vs. fabricated consequences