LOVE AGAINST HATE - AND A STORY OF THE MENNINGER APPROACH

You have, I have, we have, an amazing mind - really it’s miraculous what the human mind is capable of.  You have a good heart.  I’ve never known anyone that, bottom-line, didn’t truly care for their loved ones and didn’t have compassion for suffering.  A good body – even if we are ailing, the self-healing capacity and the potential for grace in human movement is breathtaking.

So whence comes the virulent self-criticism which is so common to so many of us?  Whence the hatred – usually of the self – sometimes others?

I’m not sure.  And sometimes I am successful in doing something about it – in myself and in others – and at other times I’m stumped.

There is a natural aggression that we have as animals.  But we’ve built a society in which beating the crap out of each other or just running and chasing someone attractive on the street is frowned upon.  This natural arising aggressive energy has to go somewhere.  So we learn mostly to aim it against ourselves rather than at other people.

There is no doubt in my mind that everyone who finds themselves self-attacking needs to find a turn-around and quick!  Enough self-hatred!  Enough excessive self-criticism!

Be the change you want to see in the world – Take the change you want to make in yourself and make it also in the world.

Champion love more than hate in your body and soul.

 “Love is the medicine for the sickness of the world,” – Karl Menninger

 Karl Menninger wrote a book, “Love Against Hate” in which he explores with great intelligence and heart why it is that hate still does have the power it has.

His faith however in the power of love was manifest in his clinic from its very beginnings.

"When Karl Menninger started his clinic down the street was the Topeka State Hospital.  There only about nineteen out of every one hundred patients admitted were dismissed alive.

Karl Menninger wrote that the vital balance of these five elements - work, play, faith, hope and love - is the key to healing.  And, as it says in the Bible, 'but the greatest of these is love.'

When their new formula was applied to the treatment of the patients at the Topeka State Hospital, the nineteen percent healing rate dramatically improved. By 1969, it could be reported that eighty-six percent left the hospital within twelve months and half were sufficiently improved to go home after only three months."

May we all champion this, the greatest power, of love.