Fear Control.

Unfortunately, us as a species has this impulsive ability to react to an emotion, resulting in some of the most abhorrent things fathomable. One response to emotion can be as swift as taking another's life, when if that moment were allowed to pass, it might have not happened. This could be fueled with anger or rage; deeper driven by hurt and shame. These feelings we all have causing us to react to a situation are just that, feelings, and they do pass. Like the waves in the water or a fart in the wind, it might be intense, or in my case, nauseating, as my dog Benny likes to produce, but then it passes, gone.

For both a person who commits a violent act, as well as the people's response to a violent act, our FEELS will soon pass, thus leaving in their wake: destruction, isolation, increased shame, increased anger, more fuel for resentment or some external act of change to justify the intense emotions. Unfortunately, last week, as in many cases before, there was an act of violence that the media has gotten a hold of, manipulated for their own purpose, sensationalized, and now, in the aftermath of it all, we the people are left here scrambling, trying to make sense of what we think to be a senseless act.

The sadness lies with the families who lost someone, for I can only fathom, and my prayers go out to them, however we are the ones left, we are the ones who have to cope and move on. There is power in community, and power in fellowship among its members. We have the ability to use that power to promote goodness, love, support, validation, recognition of the shame that underlies much of our corrupt behaviors, or, we could be destructive. We could continue down the path the media promotes for its own commercial goodness, continue to fuel our hearts with hate, and allow our emotions of hurt to stay converted to the anger that appears to, "demand change."

Though there is nothing we want more than change in the world, especially after something happens allowing an adolescent to come into a school with an AR-whatever and shoot the place up as he wills, common sense says something different. Common sense is there, the whole time, like a missing puzzle piece, overlooked, as we toss the almost-complete puzzle about, angry, afraid, and frustrated, demanding another puzzle. Common sense, knowing on the inside, what is really required and the effort it takes to do this is exactly what isn't promoted, but a demand, in the most emotional way, is.

Change comes from action, within ourselves first, recognizing our own emotions, motives, and intent; acknowledging hurt, shame, invalidation, and then allowing ourselves to feel and allow others to feel. We are not in charge of how other people feel or act. Even though we might desire, "change" among our fellow community members, or government officials, we have to understand that common sense lies there, waiting for us to pick her back up again. The common sense Jesus gave us as his commandments are very simple to follow.

Love is such a universal word that, much like anything else, gets lost in translation. We overlook the common sense, the deep-down response that we know is right, to love, and instead continue to fuel our emotions, or agendas, to avoid love, and promote hate. We are not made from hate and quite honestly it is not a good look for man. What we can promote is love, caring for one another, listening to those frustrated, acknowledge invalidation among those who lost, and those who felt unheard. We are a people of common sense, but as I always tell clients in my own sessions, "The smarter you are, the harder it is to listen to common sense." Our intelligence has a way of overlooking the obvious to justify behaviors and responses that intelligence distorts what we think, with our complex thinking, should be. Anxiety, guilt, shame, fear, all do the same thing, in making us response un-common-sense-like.

Another drop of rain in a sea of responses to another media-enriched event that, through use of intelligence, can be minimized as, "too passive," yet is the hardest and most active thing one can do. Doing, is what man is good at. After all, since the dawn of time we have been doing, so why not now, we try something different. Instead of actively hating, promoting negativity by putting each other down, for we are all in this together, we continue to love, support, listen, put out tweets of support for those who lost or those who are hurting, and love, like we are loved. Like two parents fighting over a bad grade their child receive about whose fault it is, the kid is losing the message, a child whom needs comfort and love is only seeing hate, resentment, blaming, negativity, thus reinforcing shame, and leaving love, common sense, in the dust.

We have really missed the mark as an entirety, due to what the media loves to promote. We are smarter than that, we are more loving than what is being depicted. Acts of violence are horrible, that is true, however they are just that, an act, based on a feeling, a feeling being the root problem to focus on, not the weapon used in response. That kid could have just as easily looked up how to build a bomb, or how effective drugs can be, or how killing himself, or sexually assaulting other people could have gotten attention, but he had a moment, with a gun, and the American public looses all perspective to fuel agendas that have nothing to do with the problem.

Ephesians 4:2: “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love."