9/11 Compassion Re-set for Global Healing
By Marlisa McLaughlin
The Phoenix from the Ash
This piece is dedicated with love to all those affected by the 9/11 tragedy, and with gratitude to “D” for sharing her story. May your healing be amplified.
What is your first thought when someone says, “9/11”? The majority of people in the U.S. would reply without effort: “Twin Towers,” “World Trade Center,” or “terrorist attack.” The magnitude of devastation on September 11, 2001 was unprecedented in the United States and its immediate effects were cataclysmic and far-reaching. In the aftermath, those two numbers—9 and 11—were branded into our brains with the power of fear and destruction.
Where were you when you first heard the news? Take a breath and be with that for a moment. Time stood still for many of us…and almost instantly, the collective global shock and disbelief radically shifted our energy patterns and neuropathways to realign us with a very different reality than the one in which we had been previously living. Our memories of 9/11 play a critical role in perpetuating our fear and our hold on the energy of suffering.
Time for a Change
We need a 9/11 memory reset. We need to first set the intention that the task shall be done and then we need to find something electric and magnetic that has the power to override and replace the fear and devastation thrust upon us from that attack. We need to connect to the phoenix that rises from the ash.
From the Last Spark by amorphisss
What if we retrain our minds to pull up something beautiful and positive that will assist in the healing of these ailing souls? Instead of calling up death and destruction right away, let the mind call upon love and compassion.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive. (Dalai Lama)
Do you know someone who was directly affected by the 9/11 tragedy? Nearly 3,000 people were immediately killed in the attacks on the Twin Towers in Manhattan, at the Pentagon in Arlington County Virginia, and on the downed airplane near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Over 6000 people were injured on that day. (CNN.com) Long-term health effects have emerged as complications arising from that deeply-imprinted psychological trauma, and the numbers of fatal illnesses and chronic issues related to the release of toxic airborne debris continues to rise to this day. Further, “It is estimated that there are between four and 50 psychological victims for every physical casualty in a terrorist attack” (WBUR.org/Cognoscenti). The exponential effects of the tragedy are mind-boggling.
The Energetic Reality
Seventeen years have passed since that devastating event. For those indirectly affected, daily life may not have shifted much. The reminders and emotional triggers—the energetic connections—are likely to be random and infrequent, and to be spurred on by the media, the source from which many of us have logged our memories and established associative neural connections.
For the growing numbers of those directly affected, it may seem as though the event occurred yesterday. For these victims, life has forever shifted. So when behaviors, thought processes, and communication affected by the trauma show up, they may not be identifiable as an outcome of the event and are perhaps not even consciously related to it!
Clinical social worker “D” (a fictitious identifier to hold confidentiality) was part of a FEMA-assigned first response support team. In spite of previous training and preparation for dealing with trauma, the magnitude of the 9/11 trauma was unprecedented and, once the team was immersed in the chaos, there was no tried-and-tested way to know what to do.
D recalls that “it was a 24/7 vigil.” Every moment became a prayer, an asking for help, an opening for higher wisdom to channel through and assist. As it turned out, she felt as though the victims were helping the supporters understand how to minister to the needs of other victims through their innate state of compassion for one another.
The deep-reaching effects on her psyche that D absorbed during the body recovery and victim-support process eventually gave way to a fresh perspective, a perspective that unfolded preciously and naturally during D’s interview on Energy Amplified! The realignment was so subtle that it wasn’t until the interview was over that D realized just how much the energy of compassion had vanquished chaos and taken over the mechanics of rescue, recovery, and healing. D is now riding on the wings of the phoenix.
For most victims of 9/11, the world moved on while the fragmented pieces of their own lives came together only somewhat and at a much slower pace. The tendency for those affected by 9/11 to feel pushed to move on with the rest of the world may have placed unwarranted pressure on many of them to get themselves “back to normal.” Recovery and grief are unique to each individual, however; there is no format or timeline. Such unrealistic expectations and inaccurate measures of health create a wide separation between victims’ inner and outer worlds and make for a painful disconnect.
Our Deeper Connection
There is no way to relate to such an unprecedented event without experiencing it; sadly, there is no real go-between, only islands of separation in a universe where everything is connection.
And everything truly is connected; perhaps more so than what is commonly acknowledged. Our ancestors understood this without effort. Ancient communities knew instinctively how to foster this knowledge and utilize its presence as a threshold for developing ways and means to keep unity alive and awakened. Long before the arrival of the internet, our ancestors were living by the creed that we are all connected and they didn’t need scientific proof to believe it.
All things are connected like the blood that unites us. We do not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. (Chief Seattle)
Chief Seattle was indeed talking about the World Wide Web (and beyond), but not the one we presently pay for. And although his quote may not have directly spurred on the direction of science at the time, it certainly paralleled the discoveries and conceptual understanding of connectedness borne of the scientific minds that came forth shortly thereafter.
Albert Einstein and his colleagues were probing the constructs of our micro-world just decades after the death of Chief Seattle, and their work led to the creation of String Theory. “String Theory states that our universe is made up of tiny little string particles and waves. These strings are the building blocks of the universe we experience”(learning-mind.com). Einstein himself thought String Theory to be “spooky.”
So, given the fact that our spiritual ancestors and our scientific ancestors agree that we are all somehow connected by strands and strings, I’m proposing that we use this concept and perspective as a tool for healing, as our rising phoenix.
Tune into Energy Amplified! and listen to D’s story in The Transformational Energy of Compassion episode. Take it in. Be with it. Imagine you are witnessing compassion-inspired support. Feel the authentic, raw emotion in her recall and make it yours. Remember how she speaks of the victims exiting the train covered in ash. Then see the Phoenix. See it rising from the ash. See its wings of compassion.
Just as the negative effects of those fatalities can multiply, so can the positive effects when our first response to 9/11 is connected to the vibration of Compassion. Reset the mind. Create a new groove. With a single intention sent out into the web, we can initiate a rise in our collective vibration. Together, we can override the vibration of fear each and every time it gets triggered.
If Everything is Connected, So Am I by Jill Slaymaker
Sources in order of appearance:
https://www.deviantart.com/amorphisss/art
https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/27/us/september-11-anniversary-fast-facts/index.html
http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2017/04/17/boston-bombing-three-years-mental-health-richard-beinecke
https://www.learning-mind.com/dimensions-string-theory/comment-page-1/
https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-If-Everything-is-Connected-So-Am-I/314593/184649/view