Emotional Resilience In Traumatic Times

Posted 15 April, 2011, by Carolyn Baker, Speaking Truth To Power, carolynbaker.net

While mainstream media has been encouraging collective dithering over a possible U.S. government shutdown, the chilling realities of off-the-chart levels of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, escalating upheavals throughout the Middle East, and surging oil prices have been simmering in the background, remaining the lethal environmental, geopolitical, and economic time bombs that they are. Weeks ago, I was well aware that a government shutdown was highly unlikely but would be used to distract our attention from more urgent matters, and thus, I reported only one story about it in my Daily News Digest.

I recently returned from Northern California where residents there were profoundly anxious regarding the effects of radiation on the West Coast from Fukushima. How not, when on April 1, the San Francisco area newspaper, Bay Citizen, reported that “Radiation from Japan rained on Berkeley during recent storms at levels that exceeded drinking water standards by 181 times and has been detected in multiple milk samples, but the U.S. government has still not published any official data on nuclear fallout here from the Fukushima disaster”?

In typical American media fashion, out of sight, out of mind. Fewer and fewer stories of radiation realities in and issuing from Japan are being reported. An occasional comment surfaces, usually assuring us that we have nothing to fear. It’s all so benign. Apparently, we can now move on to “really important” stories like Obama’s 2012 campaign and the royal wedding.

And yet, whether explicitly stated or not, Americans and billions of other individuals throughout the world, are not only terrified about radiation but about their economic future—an economic future which will be inexorably more ruinous as a result of the Japan tragedy and its economic ripples globally. By that I do not mean that they feel mild anxiety about embellishing their stock portfolios, but rather, are feeling frightened about how they are going to feed their families, where they will live after losing their house in foreclosure, where they might find employment in a world where having a full-time job is becoming increasingly rare, how they will access healthcare without insurance or the money to pay out of pocket, or how they will make ends meet in forced or voluntary retirement.

Obviously, these anxieties are relevant to the world’s middle classes and not to teeming masses of human beings living on two dollars per day or less. Ironically, however, it is frequently the case that for all the suffering of abjectly impoverished human beings, they have seldom known any other standard of living and have learned how to survive on virtually nothing. They hear no reports of nuclear meltdowns, and even if they did, such news would seem insignificant in the face of needing to secure food or water for today—a type of existence that contains its own traumas and yields dramatically short lifespans.

Having inhabited a middle class existence, one can only comfort oneself for so long by reflecting on the plight of the destitute in far off places. One’s immediate reality is an anomalous deprivation, a stark loss of the familiar, and the looming reality that things will not get better, but only worse, and that these losses are unpredictably punctuated with frightening events such as extreme weather, natural disasters, nuclear meltdowns, or the terrifying consequences of rotting infrastructure such as pipeline explosions or collapsing bridges. These realities take their toll on the body—sleepless nights, a weakened immune system, moodiness, anger, depression, despair, and often, suicidal thinking. Whether the trauma is dramatic and frequent such as a 9.0 earthquake in Japan followed by high intensity aftershocks, or whether it slowly grinds on amid a disquieting sense of the permanent loss of so much that one held dear, the landscapes of countless lives are forever, painfully altered, emotionally littered with charred shells of once exuberant and robust routines.

Yes YOU Have Been Traumatized

But, you may argue, I haven’t been traumatized. My life is amazingly normal. I’m weathering the collapse of industrial civilization reasonably well and feel profoundly grateful.

Indeed I celebrate your good fortune, but I must add that no inhabitant of industrial civilization is without trauma because that paradigm is by definition, traumatizing.

It is only when you understand the extent to which you have been traumatized outside of your awareness that you can effectively prepare for and yes, welcome, the demise of empire and its ghastly assaults on your soul and the earth community.

In the face of extreme weather events and earth changes, skyrocketing food and energy prices, increasingly dramatic expressions of civil unrest globally, massive unemployment, global economic evisceration of the middle classes, and the proliferation of toxins worldwide—whether from fracking in Pennsylvania or leaking reactors in Japan, we are all in varying states of emotional breakdown and breakthrough. The sands are shifting under the feet of all human beings on this planet. Nothing is as it seems. “Things fall apart,” said William Butler Yeats, “the center cannot hold.”

Call it whatever you like—collapse, Transition, Great Turning. Put a happy face on it or a terrified one, but regardless of how you spin it, regardless of how much you want to feel good about it—and there is much to feel good about, the changes are dizzying, sometimes delightful, sometimes devastating. Yes, it’s an exciting time to be alive, and it’s an excruciating time to be alive. Sometimes one feels schizophrenic, sometimes bipolar. But all of that, yes all of that, is traumatizing to the human nervous system, and if we don’t recognize that, we’re probably hiding out in the “Hurt Locker” of empire.

So how do we not hide out? How do we face our trauma, begin healing it, and protect ourselves as much as humanly possible from further wounding, particularly as life becomes even more traumatic?

The Transition movement has provided us with a treasure-trove of resources for cultivating logistical resilience in our communities through awareness-raising, reskilling, and creating self-sufficient and sustainable communities. Anyone not involved in this kind of logistical preparation is only half-awake, yet many individuals believe that no other preparation is necessary. Might that not, in fact, be one characteristic of trauma? Just as the PTSD-scarred combat veteran insists that all he needs is another good battle to make him feel better, it may be that the hunger for one more gold or silver coin, one more case of freeze-dried food, one more bucket of barley, one more permaculture class, one more emergency response training is yet another means of avoiding the emotional healing and preparation work every human being needs to do in order to navigate the accelerating unraveling of the world as we have known it.

A Few Ways Of Developing Emotional Resilience

1) Understand that industrial civilization is inherently traumatizing. Make a list of the ways it has wounded you and those you care about.

2) If you are involved with a Transition initiative, start or join a heart and soul group where the psychology of change (see The Transition Handbook) can be discussed in depth and group members can share feelings about the acceleration of collapse as well as share how they are preparing for it emotionally.

3) Become familiar with your emotional repertoire and how you deal with your emotions—or not. Imagine the kinds of emotions that you and others are likely to feel in an unraveling world. How do you imagine yourself dealing with those emotions? How would you prefer to deal with them?

4) Think about how you need to take care of yourself right now in an increasingly stressful world. What stresses do you need to pull back from? What self-nurturing activities do you need to increase?

5) Who is your support system? If you do not have people in your life with whom you can discuss the present and coming chaos, you are doubly stressed. Find people with whom you can talk about this on a regular basis.

6) What are you doing to create joy in your life? Do you have places in your life where you can have fun without spending money or without talking about preparation for the future?

7) What are you doing to create beauty? Life may become uglier on many levels, including the physical environment. How can you infuse more beauty into the world? Use art, music, poetry, dance, theater, storytelling and other media to enhance the beauty of your community and your immediate environment.

8) Consider creating a regular poetry reading salon in which people come together perhaps monthly to share poems or stories which express the full range of human emotions. Many communities have found poetry sharing events to be incredibly rich venues for deepening connections and their own emotional resilience.

9) Spend as much time as possible in nature. Read books and articles on ecopsychology and take contemplative walks or hikes in which you intentionally engage in dialog with nature.

10) Engage at least twice a day in some kind of mindfulness practice such as meditation, inner listening, journaling, guided visualization. Still another tool for mindfulness and community deepening is sacred earth-based rituals which can be done individually or shared in a group.

It is important to remember that challenging experiences are not necessarily traumatizing experiences. The collapse of industrial civilization will be challenging for those who have been preparing for it; for those who haven’t, it will constitute massive trauma. The less attached we are to living life as we have known it, and the more open and resilient we are—the more we are utilizing the myriad tools that exist for preparing our emotions, our bodies, and our souls for collapse, the more capacity we create for navigating a formidable future.

All of the above suggestions are related to releasing stress from the mind and body. As the external stresses of an unraveling civilization accumulate, we all need ways for letting go of them. My friend, Jerry Allen, of Transition Sebastopol, California who is also a Marriage and Family Therapist, recently penned an article entitled “The Importance of Effectively Discharging Accumulated Stress As Our World Moves Into Crisis,” in which he states:

Learning to effectively release accumulated stress is not some peripheral process that is needed primarily to treat returning soldiers and victims of abuse, as important as that treatment is. Learning to let go of accumulated stress and discharge new stresses is a vital skill for all of us who are preparing ourselves to face the unknown future. It is as important as doing physical emergency preparations. We have witnessed the chaos, rage and panic that can grip communities when devastating changes happen. When panic hits as someone yells “fire” in a crowded theatre, other voices need to be ready to stand aside and start singing loudly to calm the people and re-direct their energies. Such work has saved hundreds of people from trampling deaths in panicked crowds. If we are still too activated by our own build up of trauma, we will not be in a position to discharge fast and take quick decisive community initiative.

As we prepare to serve in a helping role among many, it makes sense to train a vibrant cadre of our community members on how to cultivate body awareness, let go of stress fast, remobilize our adaptive capacity and be ready for action. It also makes sense to explore and adapt the use of story, song, dance, ritual and whatever works to help our communities come together, heal together and strengthen our joint body for action.

My just-published book Navigating The Coming Chaos: A Handbook For Inner Transition is chock full of re-usable tools for creating and maintaining vibrant emotional resilience. It is also ideal for use in Transition heart and soul or study groups focused on creating emotional resilience.

I do not assume that a world of increasing crises will be a world devoid of cooperation or community building. In her brilliant 2009 book, A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise In Disaster, Rebecca Solnit notes that in most natural disasters, human beings, in most cases, unite in a spirit of cooperation to support each other. While I certainly concur and reviewed Solnit’s book in an article entitled, “Disaster: The Gift That Keeps On Giving,” I am also well aware that cooperation is not the only response to trauma. Furthermore, the collapse of industrial civilization is most likely to play out in an irregular, “lumpy” fashion in different locations at different times. How it plays out and over what period of time will dictate how humans respond. One thing is certain: Responses will not always be benevolent, caring, and cooperative.

Thus we must prepare for a very uncertain future by consciously cultivating emotional resilience. This involves addressing the myriad ways in which we have been traumatized by the current paradigm and training with intention for encountering situations in the future which may be even more emotionally challenging in a world unraveling.

For readers living in Northern California, I recommend “Readiness Amid Chaos,” a support group facilitated by Jerry Allen and Suzie Gruber, beginning May 9 in Santa Rosa. For more information, contact Suzie at suzie@suziegruber.com.

http://carolynbaker.net/2011/04/15/emotional-resilience-in-traumatic-times-by-carolyn-baker/

Chemical Reform Urgent for People of Color and Low Income Communities

Posted 14 April 2011, by Stephenie Hendricks, Native Times, nativetimes.com

Underserved communities disproportionately impacted by failed regulatory policy, legacy contamination, and resulting illness

Congress Introduces Safe Chemicals Act of 2011 to Reform Chemicals Law

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Justice & Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform is watching how Congress handles introduction of the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011 proposed today by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) to reform the nation’s chemical regulations, the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA). Senator Boxer (D-CA), Senator Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Klobuchar (R-MN) are co-sponsors of the new legislation.  The Act has provisions on some long standing environmental justice concerns, including a new program to identify and specifically address communities that are toxic “hot spots” and consideration of the cumulative exposure of chemicals.

“Scientific research has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that communities of color and people living in poverty are disproportionately impacted by chemicals that ought to be regulated by TSCA but aren’t,” says Jose Bravo, Executive Director of the Just Transition Alliance in San Diego, CA.“Senator Boxer has taken courageous leadership in protecting the health of children in hot spot areas. We commend her for taking such action. Now all of Congress must act quickly and decisively to ensure equal protection to low income neighbors of polluting facilities and the workers inside who handle dangerous chemicals every day.”

“We are happy Senator Schumer has co-sponsored the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011. We are watching other members of Congress to see if they will support addressing toxic hot spots across America or not.” says Cecil Corbin-Mark, Director of Policy Initiatives for WE ACT for Environmental Justice, a New York based Environmental Justice Organization.  Hot Spots are places of heightened air, water and soil pollution that occur most commonly in economically disadvantaged communities and communities of color that present heightened toxic exposures for residents. “Much of this pollution is well known to government representatives and imperils the health of children and adults across generations. Legacy chemicals, those left behind without cleanup by polluters who refuse to remediate their contaminated land are contributing to asthma, low birth weight, and cancers in our communities.”

“Illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer have contributed to large health inequities in environmental justice communities as the amounts of poorly regulated chemicals linked to these illnesses has increased,” according to Mark Mitchell, MD, Chair of the National Medical Association’s Environmental Health Task Force.  NMA is the oldest and largest association of Physicians of Color.“The numerous routes of chemical exposure – from polluting facilities, trash incinerators, highways, landfills, pesticide sprayings and chemical-laden products in the home – must be addressed urgently to save this generation and the next from avoidable illnesses.”

Martha Dina Arguello, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility — Los Angeles, says, “We applaud Senator Boxer for co-sponsoring the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011. We believe this legislation can address the cumulative and synergistic effects of exposure to hundreds of unregulated chemicals. It must be a top priority for ultimate TSCA reform. In conjunction with our work in California we can achieve immediate action to address known bad actor chemicals and their associated health effects.”

The Environmental Justice & Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform is working with Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, which has identified environmental justice priorities as among the essential hallmarks of meaningful TSCA reform. Safer Chemicals Healthy Families is committed to supporting EJ efforts to provide equal health protection for people living on the fenceline of polluting facilities, working people, and their families.

“TSCA reform has got to focus on the communities and families that are shouldering the biggest impact,” says Richard Moore of Los Jardines Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “Lately some members of Congress seem in the mood to put at risk the most vulnerable people through massive budget cuts. It’s time to protect workers and their families on the frontlines of chemical exposure: the people who actually make our economy go.”

Monique Harden, Esq., co-Executive Director of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, based in New Orleans and Washington, DC, adds: “For too long Congress has enacted environmental laws that don’t protect our human right to health, but instead codify the status quo of industrial operations.  As a result, the United States lags behind numerous other countries that have established environmental human rights standards.  Congress now has the opportunity to enact a law that respects our human right to a healthy environment.”

“Indigenous Arctic peoples are among the most highly exposed people on earth to toxic chemicals, because these chemicals—DDT, PCBs, brominated flame retardants, and perflourinated compounds, to name a few—are persistent, and drift hundreds and thousands of miles north on wind and ocean currents from where they are manufactured from more southern latitudes. These chemicals contaminate our traditional foods and affect our health and the health of our children,”saysVi Waghiyi (Yupik Eskimo) Tribal Member, Native Village of Savoonga, Yupikcommunity on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, and Environmental Health and Justice Program Director, Alaska Community Action on Toxics. “We call upon Alaska Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich to take a leadership role in protecting the health of our people in co-sponsoring this important legislation.”

Tom Goldtooth (Dine’ and Dakota),Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network adds: “The legacy of petrochemical plants, mining operations and manufacturers and big users of chemicals have polluted Native Nations and generations of our people. The result is cancer and other illnesses among our people, young and old. Native communities urge all members of Congress to act now on TSCA to protect our future.”

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced The Safe Chemicals Act of 2011 today. Senator Amy Klobuchar (R-MN), Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) are original co-sponsors. Environmental and Health Advocates across the spectrum are demanding a focus on under served communities most harmed by chemical exposure.

http://www.nativetimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5235:chemical-reform-urgent-for-people-of-color-and-low-income-communities&catid=56&Itemid=32

First Nations Leaders Put Governments On Notice

Canada: Statement – First Nations Leaders Put Governments On Notice

posted 15 April 2011, by Staff, Indigenous Peoples, Issues & Resources, indigenouspeoplesissues.com

First Nations governments are putting the Ontario and Canadian Governments on notice that they will be exercising their jurisdiction over the resources on their lands and vigorously defending this jurisdiction by direct action if required.

In November 2010, by Resolution 10/11, the Chiefs in Assembly mandated the Resource Revenue and Benefit Sharing (“RRBS”) Task Force to engage in discussions with Ontario on resource revenue sharing with a view to presenting a draft agreement for approval at a Special Chiefs Assembly.

The Ipperwash Inquiry Report had recommended that, as the means of avoiding violence “the provincial government should continue to work with Aboriginal organizations in Ontario to develop co-management arrangements and resource sharing initiatives.” Discussion among the First Nations leaders gathered at their Special Chiefs Assembly determined that Ontario has not engaged in this work with a comprehensive mandate to enable a successful outcome consistent with the treaty relationships and the spirit of the Ipperwash Inquiry Report.

Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse stated “We are notifying the province of Ontario that we are not walking away from resource benefit sharing discussions. The Chiefs are not prepared to engage in discussions based on a unilaterally and arbitrarily developed framework by Ontario that doesn’t accommodate the principles of partnership and negotiation. The Chiefs in Assembly fully expect to hold Premier McGuinty to his commitment to create a new system of resource benefits sharing”.

The provincial and federal governments collect significant revenues from First Nations lands and resources. “Resource benefit sharing is an issue that the general public must be engaged in. They need to fully understand the reasonable, economically sensible and justified stance that First Nations are putting forward only to be presented with ultimatums and politically motivated deadlines” says Six Nations of the Grand River Chief Bill Montour.

“Our generosity and willingness to share our resources has made Canada one of the richest countries in the world. It’s time for us to implement our Treaty rights and assert our jurisdiction over our lands and resources. The hope and future of our younger generation is relying on us, we must take government and industry to task in order to protect what is rightfully ours” stated Union of Ontario Indians Grand Council Chief Patrick Madahbee.

The Chiefs in Assembly adopted a Declaration regarding Resource Revenue and Benefit Sharing that will guide the work of the Task Force which will continue its work to present a strategy and work plan in June 2011 that will compel Ontario and Canada to respect the rights and entitlements of First Nations regarding resource development on their traditional lands. First Nations leaders are dedicated to achieving respect for the rights of their citizens to achieve social well-being and economic prosperity.

The Chiefs of Ontario (COO) is a coordinating body for the 133 First Nations located within the boundaries of the Province of Ontario.

Source: Chiefs of Ontario

http://indigenouspeoplesissues.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9898:canada-statement-first-nations-leaders-put-governments-on-notice&catid=52:north-america-indigenous-peoples&Itemid=74