S2 EP186 – How Can They Live with Themselves?

Episode Summary

Mass murders, violent teens, school violence, drugs, greed – why? You might not think you are selling your soul, but is this true? The greed and violence of the wounded self needs research and healing, and I’m offering some ideas regarding what needs to happen to heal.

Transcription:

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. Today I’m speaking about something that not only breaks my heart, but that I feel outraged about, which is the greed and violence in our world at this time.

It’s now well known that big pharma pays off doctors regarding the safety of drugs, including the opioids which caused the high death toll.

It’s not as well known that the SSRI antidepressant drugs are also partly responsible for the mass shootings. Most mass shooters have been on one of these drugs, which have been shown to cause violence.

It came to light some years ago that numerous politicians were paid millions of dollars by the NRA to vote against gun control legislation, even though the vast majority of Americans want gun control.

How can these people live with themselves in the face of the numerous mass shootings? How can money be more important to them than the life of a child or an adult?

I cannot fathom this.

Money in politics is ruining the US. Years ago, when I was traveling in Europe, I discovered that in the Scandinavian countries, when someone runs for office, he or she gets free equal time on TV to state their platform – and that’s it for campaigning. They don’t need the huge campaign funds to run for office that politicians need in the US. Anyone can run for office and the people get to fairly choose between them.

Things would be very different in our country if money and greed were not a part of our political system.

When money, power, and control become more important than love and caring, we are in big trouble, and we are definitely in big trouble. What will it take for people to realize that we are here on the planet to evolve in love and to manifest love? How many children need to die in school shootings for people to do something about the drugs and guns that are far too available?

Aside from guns and drugs, food is also killing us.

I am heartbroken over how many people are dying, not only from drug overdoses and drugs that ruin people’s guts, but from the junk food that passes as food in our grocery stores, and from the GMOs and pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones that many groceries are filled with – causing cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases. These drugs and food-like products have been shown to create toxicity in the gut which goes to the brain, leading to anxiety and depression – and then on to the drugs that can cause violence. Can you see how all this is connected? And it all comes from greed.

How can these food manufacturers, factory farms, big pharma, and companies that produce pesticides live with themselves? How can the executives of these companies sleep at night knowing that millions of people are being lied to through their food and drug commercials, especially those aimed at children? How can they live with themselves, knowing that they are killing people due to their greed?

What has happened to these people that they cannot feel the pain of the families losing their children due to illness from junk food, or from drug overdose or from school shootings?

I am outraged and heartbroken about the lack of love and caring for each other that is rampant not only among politicians, big pharma, food manufacturers and factory farms, but also with the insurance companies who are now running how doctors treat their patients.

How can drug-pushing doctors live with themselves? Conventional doctors who are part of a medical corporation that is basically run by insurance companies, now have 15 minutes to see each patient and are being pushed by their corporations to see more and more patients in a day. And what do they generally have to offer? Drugs! No wonder so many doctors are now pulling away from taking insurance and becoming concierge doctors who take their time with their patients. No wonder many doctors are now getting trained in functional medicine so that they can treat the root causes of illness rather than simply treating symptoms with drugs. The Functional Medicine Center at the Cleveland Clinic has grown rapidly over the last few years and has a waiting list. People are getting smarter and now want real help rather than just drugs.

It’s going to take the people getting smarter and taking courageous steps, for things to change.

I have no doubt that greed and the desire for power and control is wreaking havoc on our planet.

Stephen Hawking said, “We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity.”

Greed has been going on a long time. Confucius said, “In a country well-governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.” The extreme wealth of the upper 1% is definitely something for countries to be ashamed of.

I’ve often thought about what causes greed.

The Free Dictionary defines greed as “an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs, especially with respect to material wealth.”

The issue that makes people devoted to pursuing more than they need is an internal emptiness and lack of self-worth, which results from self-abandonment. When people abandon themselves, they feel alone, unlovable, separate, and disconnected. Because they are disconnected from their own soul and from their spiritual guidance, they do not feel a sense of connection and oneness with others and the planet. Without this sense of oneness, they attempt to fill their emptiness with more and more, with no empathy or caring about the consequences their greed has on others.

Every day we are bombarded with the effects greed is having on our planet. I find it very sad that people bypass caring and compassion in favor of greed, and that they turn their backs on the results of their greed.

There are so many very challenging effects of greed.

The health in the US and in many other countries is abysmal. The rates of cancer, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, and diabetes – all degenerative diseases – are constantly climbing. Food allergies, autism, ADHD, and mental disorders such as bi-polar disorder, depression and schizophrenia are also hugely on the rise. Our air and water are filled with toxicity, and as I’ve said, much of our health crisis is the result of the so-called ‘food’ that the processed food industry spends billions advertising.

Between processed foods and industrial factory farming practices, we are bombarded with pesticides, hormones, preservatives, GMOs, and devitalized produce that is having a devastating effect on the world’s health. All of this is due to greed. The pursuit of huge profits far outweighs any concern regarding the effects of these products on the health of the world.

Same with big pharma. They spend billions advertising drugs that have horrendous side effects – all because of greed.

If the people running these big corporations were connected within, with spirit, and with others – if they had a sense of oneness with all living beings – they could not live with themselves selling what they sell. They can do it only because they are completely disconnected from the oneness that unites us all.

We all know that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is getting decimated. The culprit here, too, is greed.

Many large corporations are forcing their employees to work on holidays under the threat of being fired if they don’t. In these big businesses, making more money is far more important to them than supporting families on a family holiday. The employees are forced to work on holidays rather than be with their families because they can’t afford the risk of losing their job – even though their pay is so low.

I recently spoke with a friend of mine about this. Years back, he and his family ran a very large grocery chain. When I asked him if they made their workers work on Thanksgiving, he said, “Oh no! In fact, they had the whole four days off.”

Poverty breeds crime. If more of the rich were caring rather than greedy, they could do much to prevent crime.

Worldwide greed is taking a huge toll on our entire planet. How long can we continue to pollute our beautiful planet before we reach a place of no return?

Climate change is obvious to everyone – individuals and scientists – and the only people who deny it are the people who have something to lose financially by attending to it. This level of greed is destroying our planet.

Government, too, is often run by greed. Many, but fortunately not all, who seek office are those who are motivated by power and greed, and far too many politicians are self-serving rather than serving the people who elect them – which is why many of us have lost faith in government.

The level of greed on our planet is indicative of the level of disconnection with self, others, and spirit. Without the experience of Oneness that comes from connection, greed, and all the problems that come with it, will continue to wreak havoc – including violence.

In my experience, it is not possible for us as human beings to harm others when we are connected to our soul and to our spiritual guidance. When we do the work we need to do to develop a spiritually connected loving adult, we have the ability to place limits on our behavior regarding harming ourselves and others.

However, many people lose touch with their true soul self. Since our soul – our inner child – holds our intrinsic feelings of compassion and empathy for others, losing touch with this aspect of ourselves may cause us to be able to harm others without feeling any pain or remorse over it.

The question is, how do we lose connection with our caring and empathic soul self?

Many child development experts state that individuals who disconnect from their empathy and compassion – other than sociopaths who are born disconnected due to a brain abnormality – generally do so between the ages of two and four. If our parents lacked empathy and compassion for our feelings and needs, we might have chosen to be like them, or we might have chosen to be the opposite of them. If our parents shut themselves down to their own pain and to ours, we may have learned to shut down to our own and others’ vulnerable feelings. If we were physically, sexually, emotionally, or verbally abused or neglected, we may have shut down in order to survive.

The vast majority of violent people were abused as children.

I once did an Inner Bonding weekend intensive with violent offenders just out of prison, and all of them had been violently abused.

Some children, whose parents are shut down or abusive, manage to stay connected with their feeling soul self through contact with animals such as dogs or horses, while others stay connected through contact with relatives or friends with whom they identify. But many young children are in such devastating environments that they have to disconnect to survive. When in this disconnected state, if they watch violence on TV or practice violence through video games, they may further train themselves to numb out against compassion, empathy, and the pain of harming others.

Likewise, if children grow up with no personal connection with their spiritual guidance, they may not know that we are all one – all connected on the soul level with each other – and they may not consider that when they harm others, they are actually also harming themselves.

Without connection with their feeling soul self and their spiritual guidance, they are left with only their wounded self. If they are operating from an enraged or greedy wounded self, this self can act out in violent ways. With no loving inner adult to set limits, the harm to themselves or others can be disastrous, as we have seen.

Research indicates that eating processed foods filled with sugar and other additives often creates anxiety, depression, and agitation.

These unhealthy foods are dangerously prevalent in our society. Many children are put on drugs to numb the effects of both processed foods and abuse, which further disconnects them and exacerbates the problems.

While limiting guns is certainly a very important thing to do, violence in one way or another will continue until we no longer learn, as very young children, to barricade our hearts. As parents and teachers, we need to be practicing Inner Bonding so that we can reclaim our true soul self and our deep connection with spirit. Only by doing our own inner work will we be able to be the loving role models that our children need. The change in our society must come from within each of us.

Are you selling your soul out of greed?

What have you given yourself up for money and possessions?

Have you given up kindness to get ahead?
Have you given up family time for a bigger TV?
Have you given up fun for a new car?
Have you given up hobbies for a promotion?
Have you given up vacations for prestige?
Have you given up helping others for a bigger house or a new car or a boat?
Have you given up leisure time for more money?
Have you given up yourself to get approval?
Have you given up your creativity for the bottom line?

How much of your essence – your compassion, kindness, passion, joy, creativity, caring – have you given up for things, money, and approval?

How much of your time to connect with yourself, loved ones and spirit have you given up to get ahead or control others?

A few years ago I read the third book of ‘The Giver Quartet’ – ‘The Messenger,’ by Lois Lowry. This is a series of books that were written for adolescents and have been discovered by adults and made into a major movie.

The series is about two towns that are cults and totally controlled by ‘Elders.’ Babies with disabilities are put to death at birth and people are routinely killed for many other things. But one town is free, called “The Village.” Here they lovingly welcome refugees, along with those with disabilities or injuries – who escape from the cult towns – until outsiders start to bring them things like slot machines in exchange for healing their disabilities. In order to purchase what they want, they have to trade a part of their essence.

For example, one man, a kind and loving teacher, had a large red birthmark on his face. He traded his kindness and honor for the removal of the birthmark. Others traded other parts of their essence until the town was no longer kind and loving and no longer welcomed refugees. As a result, the forest around The Village became vicious and attacked and killed anyone who came near it.

This is happening to us. Our toxic planet is slowing killing us because of so many people selling their souls for profit and material things. We have lost our connection with ourselves, with each other, and with spirit, which leaves us empty, alone, and desperately lonely. We turn to various addictions to fill the emptiness caused by our self-abandonment and the resulting disconnection with others, only to suffer even further.

When will caring, gentleness, compassion, kindness, and love become more important than profit? What has to happen for our world to understand that externals will never fill the emptiness within?

My heart hurts daily at the depth of the sickness in our society – the disconnection sickness. Of course, it’s become even worse with cell phones and other technological means of communication.

I encourage you to take an honest look at your own life. Do you feel alone, empty, lonely? Are you disconnected from yourself, from family and friends, from a spiritual source of love and comfort? How often do you turn to TV, food, alcohol, drugs, work, sex, video games, gambling, spending, shopping and so on to numb out the pain of your disconnection?

The happiest people on the planet are people who live in close family communities, sharing time, love, and connection with each other. Yet not enough people in the ‘civilized’ world live this way.

How bad does it have to get for planetary change to occur?

Because of the level of violence in the US, there is much talk about the need for more mental health facilities, but just as important is why so many people are mentally ill.

As I’ve said, people who know how to love and value themselves also love and value others and would never deliberately do harm to others. People capable of empathy could not do what 20 year old Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School killer, did in 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut. The question is: What created such a degree of internal disconnection from his own feelings and empathic ability, and what created the level of self-loathing that resulted in Adam Lanza killing 20 children and six adults? What creates such a deep inability to regulate feelings? Why did Adam Lanza never learn to manage his feelings in a way that didn’t hurt others?

Let’s start from the beginning to see how this might occur.

Did Nancy Lanza, Adam’s mother, take good physical care of herself when she was pregnant with Adam? Did she smoke, eat sugar and other processed foods, that created an imbalance in her gut?

According to Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride in “Gut and Psychology Syndrome,” babies have a sterile gut until coming through the birth canal where they receive their first dose of hopefully beneficial gut flora. However, if the mother is unhealthy, then her floral is likely out of balance, with the unhealthy flora outnumbering the beneficial flora. Or, if a baby is born via C-section, then he or she receives no gut flora during birth.

The second dose of beneficial gut flora occurs with breast-feeding the baby. If the baby is not breast-fed, then he receives no gut flora. Even if Adam was nursed, if his mother was out of balance in her gut, then the flora he received was not in balance.

According to Dr. Campbell-McBride and the many other researchers, unhealthy gut flora are responsible for much mental illness, including bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, autism and many learning disabilities. Could this have been part of the problem?

Parental love and connection are vital for a baby to develop the ability to regulate his feelings and to value himself.

Babies need help in learning to regulate their feelings, and when they don’t receive this help in infancy, they may never learn to regulate. Author Sue Gerhardt, in Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain, stated,

(quote)”Caregivers who can’t feel with the baby, because of their own difficulties in noticing and regulating their own feelings, tend to perpetuate this regulatory problem, passing it on to their own baby. Such a baby can’t learn to monitor his own states and adjust them effectively, if mum or dad doesn’t do this for him in the first place. He may be left without any clear sense of how to keep on an even keel. He may even grow up to believe he really shouldn’t have feelings since his parents didn’t seem to notice or be interested in them.”(unquote)

Once a child thoroughly suppresses his feelings, he losses touch with his humanity – with his connection with himself, others, and a spiritual source of love. When he can no longer feel the pain he causes others because he can’t feel his own pain, he stops caring about others. He is left with a huge inner emptiness that he cannot manage.

Sue Gerhardt goes on to say that the orbitofrontal cortex is responsible for social development and the ability to empathize.

(quote)”[ It’s not ] a matter of waiting patiently for your baby to develop an orbitofrontal cortex as a matter of course. There is nothing automatic about it. Instead, the kind of brain that each baby develops is the brain that comes out of his or her particular experiences with people…A baby can’t develop an orbitofrontal cortex on his or her own. It depends on the relationships with other people that are available.”(unquote)

Were Nancy Lanza and Adam’s father loving with Adam, helping him to develop his social skills and ability to empathize, or were they too busy working to be there for their son? Were they emotionally disconnected from themselves and therefore unable to connect with their son? These are important questions to explore.

The fact that Nancy Lanza lived in a mansion and received almost $300,000 yearly in alimony and child support possibly indicates that these people were hard workers – spending a lot of time earning money. Did Adam suffer a loss of attention as a result of that?

Adam was described by friends as “intelligent, mild-mannered and socially awkward. He also had an aversion to human contact…”

Awkward with an aversion to human contact – red flags that his early parenting was possibly neglectful or even abusive.

And then we need to look at nutrition. How long are we going to feed our children sugar and processes foods? Are we going to continue to allow the food industry to brainwash us into believing that processed foods are healthy? I read that Adam Lanza was an “organic vegan,” but we don’t know when he started doing this. Is it possible he was already nutritionally deficient when he became an organic vegan? And in order for vegans to be healthy, they need to know a lot about good nutrition. Did Adam know how to be a healthy vegan?

In 20l5, Natural news (http://www.naturalnews.com/006194.html) published an article entitle “Lack of basic nutrition creates generation of criminals; prison system society.” They said, quote:

(quote)”A new study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry shows that children who experience malnutrition exhibit strikingly increased behavioral disorders and aggressive behavior as they grow older. The study looked at children between the ages of eight and 17 years, and found some rather shocking statistics about their behaviors. Children who suffered certain nutritional deficiencies demonstrated a shocking 41% increase in aggression at age eight. At age 17, they demonstrated a 51% increase in violent and antisocial behaviors. And the only difference is their diet. It’s all about the foods they were eating and the nutrients they were missing.” (Unquote).

In addition, the school environment, rather than fostering caring, cooperation, empathy, deep self-worth and creativity, can be a torturing experience for children who are different. If they don’t fit the mold, they often feel rejected by both teacher and peers. Bullying, of course, is a huge issue, and is involved in creating mental health problems – especially problems in mood regulation – as explained in this article in Science Daily entitled Being Bullied Changes Your Kids’ Genetics:

And by the way, you can see the links to these articles in the transcription of this podcast, (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121218081615.htm)

(Quote)”A recent study suggests that bullying by peers changes the structure surrounding a gene involved in regulating mood, making victims more vulnerable to mental health problems as they age. Researcher Isabelle Ouellet-Morin says, ‘Many people think that our genes are immutable; however this study suggests that environment, even the social environment, can affect their functioning. This is particularly the case for victimization experiences in childhood, which change not only our stress response but also the functioning of genes involved in mood regulation.'”(unquote)

It may not be mere chance that many of these violent murders occur at schools. We need to look into and understand what is happening in our schools that can result in such tragedy.

What happens when violence becomes ‘normal’ due to movies and video games? An article in telegraph.co.uk (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9752141/Connecticut-school-massacre-Adam-Lanza-spent-hours-playing-Call-Of-Duty.html) entitled, “Connecticut school massacre: Adam Lanza ‘spent hours playing Call Of Duty’”.

It states that, quote, “The Connecticut school massacre gunman Adam Lanza spent hours playing violent video games such as Call Of Duty in a windowless bunker, according to an interview with a plumber who worked at the family home.” (unquote)

Is this relevant? Did it contribute to this awful tragedy? Again, this is very important to address.

Did drugs play a part in this? Often, young people are given drugs rather than truly being helped to heal, and some of the drugs have an increased tendency toward violence as a side effect. The headline at of an article at healthimpactnews.com (http://healthimpactnews.com/2012/increase-in-school-shootings-linked-to-antidepressant-prescription-drugs/) states: “Increase in School Shootings Linked to Antidepressant Prescription Drugs”

Another article at cchrint.org http://www.cchrint.org/2012/07/20/the-aurora-colorado-tragedy-another-senseless-shooting-another-psychotropic-drug/ stated:

(quote)”Fact: At least fourteen recent school shootings were committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs resulting in 109 wounded and 58 killed (in other school shootings, information about their drug use was never made public—neither confirming or refuting if they were under the influence of prescribed drugs.)”

The headline at businessinsider.com, http://www.businessinsider.com/adam-lanza-taking-antipsychotic-fanapt-2012-12 stated: “The Antipsychotic Prescribed To Adam Lanza Has A Troubled History All Its Own.”

Obviously, the causes of this tragedy are multi-faceted, including the availability of automatic weapons. But deliberately using guns to kill 26 people is far more complex than the availability of guns. I recently heard that Germany has just as many guns as we have, yet they have hardly any violence. Why is this?

We need to address all of these issues –- parenting, nutrition, school, violent movies and video games, drugs, and the availability of guns – to fully understand why this happened and keeps happening. I sincerely pray that each of these areas is given the attention they deserve so that our society can start to engage in the changes we need to make.

We can all do something about these issues by first learning to love ourselves through our Inner Bonding practice, and then being role models of sharing our love with others. Love heals, and the more of us who come from love, the faster this much-needed planetary healing will occur.

I invite you to join me for my 30-Day at-home Course: “Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships.”

And you can learn so much about loving yourself and creating loving relationships from my recent books: