SELF-ARCHEOLOGY

I‘ve decided to start a series of posts about a very important topic that is emotions . And this post is an intro to the series. In it I’ll briefly talk about emotions in general and about their purpose. Emotion is a reaction to a certain stimulus. A cause for experiencing an emotion might be a certain event, an interaction with someone or something, a memory, or just a thought. "An emotion is the psychosomatic form in which man experiences his estimate of the beneficial or harmful relationship of some aspect of reality to himself." -- Nathaniel Branden Similarly how physiological reactions help us take care of our physical health, emotions help us take care of our well-being – just in a more universal, comprehensive way. If we injure our leg, we experience physical pain that says to us that our leg is injured and we need to acknowledge it, take care of it, and keep it safe for a while. If it’s cold outside and we go outside without wearing warm clothes, we exper...

A couple of days ago Nash Yielding, who runs Caring Witness , asked me several questions about intervening in situations in which people are abusing children, since I have some experience intervening. I think these are very important questions to ask ourselves, even if we haven't intervened in such situations and have never thought about doing it. I've tried to answer Nash's questions honestly and at length. Afterward, I thought that it would be useful to post some of my answers as an article for other people to read. Nash agreed that it might increase awareness of the issue, as well as possible solutions. So, without further ado, here it is. (The questions are unedited.) 1) About how many times have you intervened in child abuse (whether directly or indirectly)? Five or six times, probably more. It depends on how we define "success," "abuse," and "intervention." (See the answer to Question #2). 2) Do you think the intervention(s) w...