ACTIVELY FACILITATE THE PROCESS OF NATIONAL HEALING

WHILE WE work at solutions to stem the incidence of crime (and we must do so collectively), we may want to concurrently actively facilitate the process of national healing. Each family, school, church, business place, hospital, social club, and association needs to create a safe space in which members can vocalise their pain, horror, revulsion, and dismay. This space should encourage and enable the release of tears to wash the soul, to cleanse the inner being, and bring us back to being human again; help us to be a people that feel, and care, and interact in affirmative ways, knowing that we share comparable emotional experiences.

This recommendation is similar to support group therapy that helps participants reduce the tension and reclaim inner peace. Trained therapists could volunteer an hour each month, to lead groups through the redemptive process and teach families to re-engage and talk through their sorrow. Mothers should reorient our sons to an understanding that big strong men do cry, and need to talk and mourn as part of a positive and cathartic process.

Psychologist D.M.E.P. Seligman’s article ‘Positive Psychology, Positive Prevention and Positive Therapy’ extols the value of “narration”, a strategy of telling our stories to help us make sense of what seems otherwise chaotic. The psychologist notes that narration assists i n distilling and discovering a trajectory in our lives which leads us to a new sense of perspective and purpose. (p.7).

We are truly a resilient people. With dogged determination we can convert sadness and despondency to camaraderie and optimism, as we continue to move forward to achieve the greatness for which we are destined.