September 11
The nation is approaching the one-year anniversary of its most tragic event in recent history, the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon. Little did we know that as a nation this was only a precursor to the many challenges we will be facing as our largest and secured institutions (the Catholic Church and Corporations) encounter embarrassment and subsequent re-structuring. While these events seem to be separate, unrelated occurrences, they are psychologically speaking, not. Each event has commonalties. So to explore one will influence the healing of the injustices of the others. With the anniversary of the terrorist attacks many of us will revisit much of the emotional repercussions we felt that warm late summer day. On September 11, 2001, millions of Americans watched on network news our country under attack. So, can we as individuals redeem ourselves psychologically instead of becoming another innocent victim of that day, unable to bring about the needed change in our world? How do we experience
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fear or terror without crumbling into reactivity and at the mercy of our emotions?
The first step in coming to terms with this tragedy is to discern the underlying anxiety (fear) that you experienced when you heard the news and the days that followed. The willingness to participate in shouldering your fear allows a new perspective and understanding to come to mind and is a major accomplishment. A way to do this is to be observant of your emotional reactivity and the situation that triggered it.
An example of this occurs in my work with individuals regarding the attacks. The commonalties were apparent. The terrorist attacks were directed at our grandest buildings in our culture representing our beliefs regarding commerce, invincibility, entitlement, power and our governing protective forces. Historically, we assume the United States government, in all of its omnipotence and power, would provide the necessary physical protection. We are safe from warring elements because we live in the United States. This thinking lulled us into the illusion of security in what is actually at times, an insecure world. Living our life from this illusion, we became exposed to extreme feelings of fear when the unpredictability of the terrorist attacks occurred.
The second step is that once the fear has been identified, then you become consciously responsible by experiencing or facing the fear with attention. Stop doing the reactive activity. Attend to the fear by becoming aware of the feeling itself. One way to do this is by breathing in the fear of life’s unpredictability2
