Bad behaviors

This weekly column seeks to help educate our community about emotional healing through grief. People may write questions to Golden Willow Retreat and they will be answered privately to you and possibly as a future article for others. Please list a first name that grants permission for printing.

Dear Dr. Ted:

Wow! I am in a state of shock as I watch the United States implode in Washington, D.C. with anger, rage and chaos. I try to stay nonpolitical on many issues and even in this moment

I’m not taking a political side, only wondering how human beings can be so horrendous to one another and to the country where they live. In your role, what do you believe happened to lead to such a high level of malicious actions?

Thanks, Estevan

Dear Estevan:

Your opening statement of “Wow!” says it all, as our country and the world witnessed malicious and deadly behavior in Washington, D.C., where people breached the Capitol, trespassing into the building and defying the law. A breach on the Capitol last happened in 1814 by British troops, not United States citizens. I am aware that malicious behavior such as this happens, too often, in many forms throughout the world and in the U.S.

Abuse of power that negatively impacts another, is a topic that continues to need an extreme change in consciousness and reform in many different aspects within the world. This last week’s breach on human rights penetrated the core of democracy in which the parameters of universal values were forgotten by this mob.

My hope is that through this horrendous and violent demonstration of humanity, all areas of social injustices can be improved and heal. This will take bravery, honesty, with conscious action from a place of peaceful actions.

What happened will not have an answer, but opens a chance to truly assess the systemic tensions leading to rage and malicious and dysfunctional behaviors. As emotions increase, cognitive functions decrease leading to a decrease in inhibitions, care for others, as well as an increase in impulsive behaviors without boundaries. If chaotic energy continues to increase with external frenetic energy of others, there becomes a hormonal flood of out-of-control energy in which people take actions that do not serve themselves or others.

COVID-19, delays in vaccines, negative politics, negative news lines, radical changes in everyday life, and many other events have led to a feeling of lack of control, futility, frustration, fear, anger and rage. As these unresolved emotions fester, an emotional time bomb was building and all that was needed was a catalyst to ignite and explode into the most vicious aspect of a person with radical behavior that does not have consideration for other people, values, morals, freedoms and humanity.

This travesty of the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol demonstrated the gang mentality of feeding off one another’s frenetic, chaotic emotional energy to a deadly level. Last week demonstrated emotions out-of-control and malicious behaviors that physically, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually endangered individuals and the soul of democracy.

As the days move forward and there is the chance of reconciliation, there is the opportunity to review many issues that led to this situation.

My hope is each person as an individual and as the human collective, there can be an empathetic review, as innocence of safety has been shattered; many areas of injustice can be reviewed and changed to establish safety, emotional maturity and responsible responses to difficult and complex problems. Examining what led up to the actions at the Capitol, and working with how to change what led to the emotional dysregulated behavior, will help decrease repeating the same behavior over and over again.

This time in our lives is a chance to de-radicalize thoughts and actions and come back to a humanistic view of finding commonality and community for each person. As Sam Cooke sang in “A Change is Gonna Come”: “It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come.”

Until next week, I wish you all health, healing and love.

Golden Willow Retreat is a nonprofit organization focused on emotional healing and recovery from any type of loss. Direct any questions to Dr. Ted Wiard, EdD, LPCC, CGC, Founder of Golden Willow Retreat GWR@newmex. com.