Creating a healing society
Theresa’s parents divorced when she was five; from then on, she lived with her mother and a continuous succession of her mother’s boyfriends. For the first year following the divorce Theresa saw her father a few times a month; then he was transferred from New York to another state for his work, and his phone calls became fewer and fewer. Theresa felt that she must have done something wrong to drive her father away, and she didn’t understand why different men came to live with her and her mother every few years. Some of them were violent towards her mother, and this frightened her greatly. As a teenager, she cared less and less about her studies as her boyfriends became the center of her attention; this way of life seemed normal to her, and she did not even question why it should be so. Theresa dropped out of high school two months short of graduation to marry a much older man. After five years of physical and emotional abuse, Theresa and her two young children were living in a domestic violence shelter.

On the other side of the country, Michael too was surrounded by violence. A quiet, sensitive boy, he yearned to be a scientist when he got older — if he got older. It seemed like every day someone from his South Central Los Angeles neighborhood was killed by a rival gang member. Consumed by fear, Michael was terrified even inside his house. He often had to hide in the bathtub to escape drive-by shootings. He had no one to talk to: his father had abandoned the family at Michael’s birth, and his mother had to work long hours to put food on the table. Michael turned to drugs to numb his overpowering feelings of fear, grief and abandonment. He started dealing and eventually landed in jail – the first of his many trips to the pen.

From the outside, Anne’s family looked perfect. She lived in an upper-class neighborhood, rode horses and went to a private school. But no one knew her secret: a trusted family friend had molested her throughout her childhood. Unconscious of her hidden feelings of rage and powerlessness and unable to talk about her trauma, Anne expressed it symbolically by having unprotected sex with older boys. Several years later, she fell ill; it was only then that she discovered she had HIV.

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Making the connection: The Impact of Human Emotional Pain and Trauma on Society

On the surface, these situations look different, but underneath, the same process is driving Theresa, Michael and Anne. Unconsciously influenced by their inner pain, traumatized people who do not have healthy support often engage in self-destructive and antisocial behaviors. Yet, these choices don’t just affect the individual; they also affect society and our world.

There is a commonality to human pain that connects us all. Understanding this concept allows us to transcend our superficial differences and can serve as the basis for personal, societal, and world peace.

The pioneering Creating a Healing Societyprogram is the leader in recognizing the hidden motivators of human behavior, the unseen driving forces of societal and world problems. As human beings, we unconsciously re-enact difficult or traumatic life experiences; this profoundly affects our work, our relationships, and our ability to live full, healthy, and meaningful lives.  Our society is also deeply impacted by this process, as can be seen in the ongoing cycle of child abuse and neglect; in violence and crime; in unemployment, homelessness and poverty; in the epidemics of AIDS, Hepatitis C, drug addiction and alcoholism; and, on an international level, in terrorism and war.

Combining hard scientific evidence with personal and spiritual experience and insight, this life-altering program will help participants understand why our personal and social problems are so entrenched and difficult to solve, and more importantly, what they can do to make a significant difference today!

For more information about this program, please visit our sister website, www.creatingahealingsociety.org.  To schedule a presentation or workshop, please call 661-948-8559 or email healing@thecatalyst-foundation.org.  

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