The earthquake in Japan moved the axis of the earth some 6.5 inches. In our sleep, maybe, we could feel it tearing, rending us beyond measure. "Enough," we want to shout, wanted to shout after September 11, Katrina, Indonesia, Haiti, Iceland, Chile and New Zealand. Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and now nuclear meltdowns. We are raw and hurting.
Despite what it looks like and what we've been told, we are not really separate and apart from each other. Einstein called that mistaken belief an "optical delusion," adding, "Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
That child in the iconic picture with hands up and beautiful, frightened face being checked for radiation could be anyone's child, a child we love. In the book I co-authored, "Verbal First Aid: Help Your Kids Heal From Fear and Pain and Come Out Strong," we devote a chapter to preparing children for the unexpected. How can we talk to them about being ready for the worst without scaring or scarring them?
Studies show that in an emergency only 15 percent of us may remain clear-headed. That means 85 percent either panic or wander around, dazed and confused. Experts on fear and survival point out the two skills we need in an emergency:
- The practical skill acquired by mental rehearsal
- A solid and confident sense of intuition
The mental rehearsal part is literal. It is about making a "folder" in your mind about what to do in an emergency so that if fight, flight or freeze puts you on "automatic," you have a program to follow. When you look at the instructions card in an airplane, you are more likely to move to an exit in a crash landing. In "The Unthinkable," Amanda Ripley writes that many of those who survived the September 11 disaster had been given endless fire drills in advance and knew that the Tower roof doors were locked, and knew the best ways out. She says that who survives very often depends on this mental preparedness.
So take your children on a scheduled trip to the fire department. Talk to them about 911 calls and have them practice saying their address. Remind them that help is coming to someone who needs it when you hear a siren driving by. Tell them that if you're ever separated -- say, by a fire or flood, which most likely won't happen -- you should plan to meet at a designated spot. Use "fictional distancing" (making up stories in which your young child is the fictional hero and works with a favorite character to save other children). Have a Plan B that they can practice. There are many more ideas in our book about how to turn hurts into healings and potential traumas into memories of rescue and courage. And let them know that it's easier to feel carefree when you are prepared -- that's why we wear seat belts and helmets and knee pads, and that's just the way it is.
And if an emergency happens, you model calm, talk it over with them to allay fears and clear up misunderstandings, limit media exposure, let them sleep with you if they want to, and give them plenty of ways to use their creativity to cope (drawing, writing a different ending, play acting).
In 2008 I was brought to China after a devastating earthquake in Sichuan killed 80,000 people. I was training crisis counselors in Verbal First Aid when I discovered that I was learning something about this from the children there. So many children has lost their friends in the collapse of poorly built schools, and some of those who survived found solace in art. They began drawing pictures of buildings with wings on them, buildings that could just fly away in the face of danger. Others, more practical, wrote and told of wanting to become architects and build even stronger buildings that could face down any challenge. What I saw was that they were using their imaginations, dreams and hopes for the future to give them a sense of mastery over fear.
And since we all regress to helpless infancy in moments of terror, how can we talk to ourselves? How can we help others?
Yes, we can get into action, send money, write letters about the pitifully small usefulness versus the gigantic threat that is the danger of nuclear energy; we can write blogs, form committees and well we should.
Changing The Field, Non-Locally
The second skill we need in an emergency, intuition, means tuning inward to connect with your own inner wisdom and the larger whole of which we are a part. Let me add here that what we are feeling and thinking at such times can affect not only our own safety and our memory of the event, but it can affect outcomes beyond our heads and hearts.
Cell biologist Bruce Lipton speaks of actually being able to measure that we are not really separate and apart, that thoughts are things and that what we are thinking can affect the world. "Field influencing electromagnetic broadcasts from our hearts have been shown to entangle with the hearts of others in the field," he writes in "Spontaneous Evolution." He says that using magnetoencephalography, we can read the brain's neural energy patterns outside the body, providing, "physical proof that brain activity is broadcast into the environment."
And there's one more beautiful piece to this puzzle. When Victor Frankl wrote that "self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence," he was suggesting thinking beyond yourself, which is a call to unconditional love.
So what can we do when the earth and our hearts break open? We can prepare and support our children, we can contribute time and money as we are able, and we can send outpourings from our hearts through the field to Japan and wherever there is hurt and injury, knowing that we are all connected as vessels of love, envisioning blessings and, as a bonus, receiving wisdom, compassion and, who knows, maybe even self-actualization in return.
You have something great and want to make it greater.
Maintaining the current approach hides our ability to foresee what's coming next, costing us the ability to discern from what in our current environment may be holding us back. The status quo is where we feel safe. So how do we maintain the status quo and move ahead? You can't. You have to stop being seduced by your current story. To develop the ability to see ahead of the curve, you need a new story.
Here's how you start: Take a minute to think about the last time an opportunity showed up that was unexpected. Something incredible that fell into your lap right out of the blue. Got it?
That is a great example of all the possibilities out there for you that we really have no knowledge of. We do not know what all the possibilities are. And if we believe that we have no knowledge of that, can we also agree that we really don't know what we don't know. And from that perspective, that acknowledgement in itself can change how we perceive what's coming around the corner, so we can create a new story.
My story was I had built a $24-million company from scratch in Manhattan -- where the biggest dogs eat the bigger dogs -- pioneering new thinking in one of the toughest industries there is: advertising. I was a success. That was my story. It was time to let it go and move onto my next success story. And it was hard. Why? Because I had become my story. And I didn't know who I was without it.
It's deceptively easy to be seduced by our stories, to become defined by them. They're safe havens for us, and we work hard to create that safety. The moral of our stories create our toolkits. So what happens when our tools no longer work? First, we attempt to use the old tools even when we know they are not going to work. When we are absolutely convinced that our tools are not working, we scour our old stories meticulously to see if there are any tools we might have missed. We pray and hope for something that we may have missed. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here to tell you once and for all that old stories do not create new tools. New stories create new tools. And the only way to get new tools is to let go of the old ones. There's no point in secretly keeping an old tool or two around. Here's why: When you are facing something unfamiliar, you reach for what has worked in the past. When that doesn't work, then you attempt to create something new -- based on what you already know to be true. And that doesn't work when what you believe to be true is no longer true. You have to let go of your old story completely and not depend on that story to create any tools. You want to create new tools based on old assumptions, and those assumptions are not true any more. That's why the old tools no longer work, and new tools have to be brought in. Mastering emotional agility allows you to get ahead of the moment so you can create new stories with new tools. But that's another story unto itself.
To step into your new story, start with the questions at hand: What are you willing to let go of to get ahead? Are you willing to let go of your story? Are you willing to let go of your old tools? Are you willing to let go of your assumptions of what used to be true and is no longer true? Here's a good one: Do you know where your threshold is? To find your edge, step slightly out of your comfort zone. And then back up. In that space, you'll get really clear about how much you desire something. Your willingness to go past your comfort zone, your old story, drives how much you want something. And that is what will move you into your new story.
When you know your great isn't good enough anymore, you're ready. You're ready to step over your own threshold and sharpen your edge. The most important question to ask yourself at this point: Are you ready to move from the comfort of your current story to your next big thing?
MOGILA, Bulgaria (AFP) – The first Saturday in Lent feels like any other market day in this tiny village in central Bulgaria, but fruit and vegetable stalls are no where to be seen among the milling patrons.
Instead, young eligible bachelors from the Roma community are here to find themselves a wife at a traditional "bride market".
More than 2,000 Roma travellers converged on Mogila on one of the first sunny weekends of spring, the air abuzz with conversation by men, women and children decked out in their finest clothes for one of the year's social highlights.
The "bride market" -- held four times a year on religious holidays during the spring and summer -- is a chance for the nomadic tinkers to meet, catch up on gossip and notably play matchmaker for adolescent sons and daughters.
Theirs is a deeply Christian orthodox and rigidly patriarchal society where young people are only allowed to marry within the group
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Teenage girls are strictly segregated from boys, with many even taken out of school at age 11 or 12 so there is no chance they could "bring disgrace" on their family.
So, for adolescents of both sexes the "bride market" is a rare occasion to have fun and flirt like normal teenagers.
The custom may raise eyebrows among women's rights groups, given concerns about forced marriage and underage pregnancy.
Research on the custom is scarce, and the tinkers themselves are suspicious of outsiders and reluctant to talk about the money that changes hands or reveal the exact ages of the girls involved.
One of the few who has studied the bride markets for several years is Alexey Pamporov, an expert in demographics and sociology at the Open Society Institute in Sofia -- a branch of philanthropist George Soros' non-governmental organisation focussed on improving conditions of marginalised communities. He insists they have nothing to do with forced marriages or selling under-age girls for sex, precisely because the tinkers are such a close-knit and deeply religious community.
"We can't speak of forced marriages. The girls are not abused in any way and their consent is required in 100 percent of the cases," Pamporov said.
He concedes that underage marriages may have been common in the past, but says they are much rarer nowadays. And money received for a bride plays more a symbolic role as a sort of dowry, proving that the young man would be able to provide for his future family, he added.
"You, too, would want to know if your husband-to-be has an apartment, a car, and a stable job before you marry," he said.
Pamporov suggested that reservations about the bride markets tend to be coloured by deep-seated prejudice against the 700,000-member Roma minority in Bulgaria, who suffer discrimination and often live in isolation and poverty with a high rate of illiteracy.
The girls themselves say they have no problem with the custom
"Of course I want to get married," said Yanka, a pretty 15-year-old from the nearby village of Bolyarovo who has put on her finest -- a burgundy satin dress, candy pink lipstick and blue mascara -- especially for "the market".
It's only March and there is still a touch of frost in the air, but this hasn't deterred sisters Kalinka and Galina from the village of Krivo Pole from turning up in skimpy golden sandals.
"Beauty requires sacrifice. Our task today is to shine!" they chirped as -- under the watchful eye of their father Lazar -- they shoot playful looks at young men hovering shyly nearby.
Stern-faced Lazar told AFP that he was hoping to get 50,000 leva (25,000 euros, 35,000 dollars) for both girls.
"That is my price and I will not give them away in marriage without money," he said unsmilingly.
The bride markets do have their critics, however, even within the Roma community.
"I strongly condemn it. The women are treated like some sort of commodity," said Hristo Nikolov, a Roma activist who pointed out the custom was peculiar to the tinkers and not practised by other sub-groups within the Roma community.
Nevertheless, Pamporov countered that illiteracy, underage marriages, teenage pregnancies and high child mortality were much bigger problems among the Roma who live in ghettoes than among the travellers, like those at the "bride market".
For the girls, however, it's all a bit of harmless fun.
Donka, a very modern-looking 22-year-old in jeans and T-shirt and her 19-year-old sister Mariyka insisted they felt no pressure from their parents.
"My parents are not pushing me in any way," said Donka, while Mariyka dismissed the issue of the money as an old-fashioned "gypsy custom".
"I don?t like the money bit, but that's the way of my parents' generation are," she said.
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