This is Domestic Violence awareness month and Breast Cancer Awareness month as you can tell since everything in the stores is pink, pink, and more pink. The “pink washing” of corporate America continues in an effort to make every corporation look like they care about finding cures and supporting the patients. After seeing the documentary Ribbons, Inc.
I’m not convinced there’s so much good motivation behind the “breast cancer cause” as there is an attempt by corporate non-profits to grow their donor base in an effective way.
I’ve noticed many of the same tactics among the domestic violence shelters and industry – ‘let’s gin up the fear and make the victims as pathetic as possible’ in an effort to get donors to give more.
It’s good business but I don’t know that the victims are better served by the negative associations and mindsets this creates.
The connection between trauma and physical manifestations has been studied and proven by the medical community.
For example Dr. Vincent Felitti studied the connection between childhood sexual abuse and obesity, which lead him to develop the Adverse Childhood Experiences Score (ACES) which predicts with surprising accuracy your adult relationship and physical issues, based on the abuse you experienced as a child.
The topic of male childhood sexual trauma and how it affects adults is covered in a new book by Dr. Debra Warner, His History, Her Story – A Survival Guide for Spouses of Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Trauma.
Put out by American Ghost Media (AmericanGhostMedia.com) of which I am a partner, this book is a memoir of Dr. Warner’s experiences as a spouse of a survivor.
As a resource for the mental health community, His History, Her Story compiles the latest thinking from over a dozen experts in the field of trauma and treatments.
Dr. Warner is a professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and has taken her personal experiences and turned them into a resource for the community and those effected by domestic violence and sexual abuse.
She is the founder of the annual SCRIPT Conference – Summit on Community Resilience, Intervention, Prevention and Treatment (TheSCRIPTconference.com) which happens in July downtown at the California Endowment and is open to the public for free.
How trauma effects us is one part of the problem, but what to do about is another.
There’s a new documentary out on the power of the mind to heal the body, and it’s playing at the Monica Film Center this week.
I attended on Sunday night and as an ode to the power of holistic healers, people like Deepak Chopra and spiritual guides like Reverend Michael Bernard Beckwith found it to be quite enjoyable.
You may recognize these names from The Secret. They’re back in this beautifully shot, well produced documentary called “HEAL.”
Take one very pretty blonde lady with a penchant for healthy life, Kelly Gores, put her in Santa Monica, the epicenter of all that is woo-woo recovery, amongst yogis and organic alkaline water, give her a mission to find the mind/body connection, and what you get is an enjoyable movie that explores how we can heal ourselves from compressed vertebrae and cancer.
For me the most impressive lesson of the movie was a comment made by Dr. David Hamilton when speaking about the efficacy rates of drug trials, and how often the placebos resulted in positive outcomes.
His point was that the thought of having a healing drug alone, could produce positive results in a person’s body.
As a huge proponent of positive thinking, expressing gratitude and radical forgiveness as big keys to finding one’s personal success and happiness I find his experiences to be supportive of my own life and coaching successes.
I know for myself that a positive mental attitude is what has allowed me to create the successes I have. I have overcome substantial obstacles because I continued to believe in myself, I let go my anger, believed I could survive the day, and overcome the battle.
In my coaching business, when I’ve worked with people and we were able to dig down and find the root causes of negative thinking, we were able to extract the self-defeating thoughts and move their life and their business into a more successful path.
How we think of ourselves, will express itself in our romantic life, our professional life and our physical life. As is carefully documented in His History, Her Story.
I’m no medical doctor, but I’ve said for years that cancer is a result of internalized anger.
I may be right, I may be wrong - but I know this - happy people seem to have a lot less physical ailments, and when they do, they handle them better. To some degree this is supported by the ACES survey and the work of Drs. Felitti and Warner.
The documentary HEAL is about the various tools and techniques that are available to help us reconnect with our bodies and put our minds at ease - the lessons it teaches in terms of personal health, can just as easily transfer to our professional and personal lives for greater success.
This month is almost over, but hopefully the awareness of the tools and the issues, will continue into the coming year.
David Pisarra is a Los Angeles Divorce and Child Custody Lawyer specializing in Father’s and Men’s Rights with the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He can be reached at dpisarra@pisarra.com or 310/664-9969.You can follow him on Twitter @davidpisarra
