The Health, Transformation and Spirituality (HTS)
Working Group of CSVGC-NY at UN
11  November 2010 New York, NY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Week of Spirituality at UN
Association for Trauma Outreach & Prevention (ATOP) of Meaningfulworld
Dr. Ani Kalayjian
Phone: 201-941-2266
Email: DrKalayjian@meaningfulworld.com
www.meaningfulworld.com

What does rapprochement mean to you??. Love, hope, understanding, unity, sharing, compassion, empathy, oneness, and forgiveness. This was the theme of the program organized as part of Week of Spirituality by CSVGC-NY at the UN.

Wrapping up the Spirit of the UN Week of Spirituality, Friday October 29 2010, was The Health, Transformation and Spirituality (HTS) -Working Group of CSVGC-NY at UN-program From War To Peace Ancestral Healing Transforming Generational Pain into Meaning-Making. Several insightful examples of healing and forgiveness were discussed: compassionate listening, acknowledgement, validation, and reparation, music, movement, breath, sound and art, the program was able to help the audience heal, transform, and let go of the constricting past and embrace the freedom in the present.

Dr. Kalayjian, Founder and Executive Director of Association for Trauma Outreach and Prevention (ATOP) of Meaningfulworld, and the Chair of HTS managed to; once again, inspire an audience of over hundred eager listeners with a panel of knowledgeable experts, experiential meditation, drumming for release and empowerment, and art for the aesthetic beauty and the soul. The invocation by Laurie Schwartz-Friedman opened up the morning of events with drums while Katherine Kaze, HTS Secretary, welcomed the audience and introduced Harvey Newman who opened the event with a peaceful mediation. Jennifer DeMucci, the Main UN Representative for ATOP then read the poem entitled Let Love Transform You, written by Dr. Kalayjian, and then Dr. Kalayjian as the chair of the conference presented the theme for the day: Universal Harmony through Rapprochement, from War to Peace. Dr. Kalayjian reinforced the notion of being in touch with our both Emotional (EQ) and Spiritual Intelligence (SQ). Submitting to our SQ can open up a different way of seeing things and going through our daily lives with potentially less conflict both externally and internally. Each audience member was given an index card and was asked to write down what rapprochement meant to them. Each audience member shared their responses which included (among many others): love, hope, understanding, unity, sharing, compassion, empathy, oneness, humility, and forgiveness.

The first speaker was Yael Petretti, a Compassionate Listening trainer and facilitator. Yael offered a definition for Compassionate Listening (CL) that can be found on the website “a process rather than a product… [Compassionate Listening] engages the participants in processes that have each seeing the humanity of the other, even when they disagree.” Yael has recently done some work with Compassionate Listening (CL) in Israel and Palestine. A lot of the work she does involves teaching the participants to listen non-judgmentally. She also highlights the importance of being “fully present to the speaker.” The objective is for people to not only be present for the speaker but for themselves and how they are processing the information and how they feel or react to it. Yael wants us to identify issues within ourselves “such as prejudices, rank, fear etc…and raise our awareness of projection and ‘shadow sides’ of our personalities.” So it is important to acknowledge our feelings so that we can work on them rather than negatively displaying them onto ourselves or projecting them onto others.

Takeshi Tak Furmoto shared his experience as a third generation Japanese American who was interned and released at the Tule Lake Segregation Center in the 1940s and moved back to Japan shortly after the Hiroshima atomic bombing. Having lost U.S. citizenship after moving to Japan, and later, suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder on his return from serving in the U.S. military in Viet Nam, only added to his distress and trauma.  He strongly believes in healing through forgiveness and he made an example of his own life experiences. “For me Vietnam War was a duty and obligation, and I volunteered so I don’t feel resentment toward the US government.” Often times forgiveness begins with forgiving the perpetrator even before they offer there apology. He began that process for himself and not long after was finally given an apology both in 1987 along with the $20,000 restitution, following a letter from President Bill Clinton in 1993. He discussed how the governments’ remorse for what he went through helped the continuation of his healing process, in addition to the unconditional love and support of his wife. While Tak believes in forgiveness as a key part of healing from trauma, he acknowledged that there are still many Japanese people who were not ready to open up and relive the experiences, and to therefore begin the healing and forgiveness process. Acknowledgement and remorse are important in getting over traumatic experiences especially among people who have shared the trauma & humiliation. Tak has attended pilgrimages at Tule Lake Segregation camp where survivors and their descendants can come together and discuss how they are feeling regarding traumatic experiences from 1940s. This helps him tremendously by providing him a safe space where he can release his emotions.

An Art Exhibition ‘Namaste Art,’ by healing artist, Joni Rose, was presented next in a slide show. “Inspired by my frequent trips to India, my spiritual practice has given me insight into two key ingredients of creativity: being present in the moment and the cultivation of quietude which allows the inner voice to speak…” She said little and wanted the audience to experience the transformation through experiencing her paintings. Allowing her beautiful, even sometimes considered medicinal, paintings speak for themselves, and she displayed a slide show of her work created on a recent volunteer mission to India to educate the children through the arts. Among the images were photographs of an orphanage she visited in India where she organized a painting workshop. She remarked how touched and inspired she was when she and the children were engaged in the artistic release and at the conclusion of the workshop, instead of keeping their work for themselves they all submitted their work to her as if they were each giving her a piece of themselves. Imagine how selfless an act this is coming from the innocent group of children who have nothing (material) to call their own possession. It is quite incredible to see children share their energy and love in moments such as those. It, further, shows the difference in cultural psychology. For someone who lives in a society filled with individualism and obsession over material possessions, it is quite impressive and refreshing to see orphans behave so selflessly. Also to add to the altruistic gesture was the joy behind it, the children were pleased and proud to give their work to their teacher.

After a short break of moving to the sound of drums penetrating our souls, everyone participated in a mediation session with Dr. Kalayjian’s newly released CD From War to Peace: Transforming Generational Trauma into Healing, an Ancestral Healing Meditation.  All participants sat erect in their seat with palms on their lap and feet firmly placed flat on the ground. The goal of the meditation was to help one gradually come to understand the power of one’s ancestral and emotional foot print, and to transform its traumatic generational transmission and celebrate the ancestral wisdom.  As one embraces one’s emotional history, one will learn to overcome its deeply imbedded limitations and their greatest potentials. The discoveries one makes while exploring one’s history have the potential to free us to begin a new, liberated, and meaningful life grounded in compassion. Compassion for self, for those we love, for others and for the universe at large. Dr. Kalayjian started with the original sin, being expelled from Heaven, and then she talked about the assimilation of Native Americans, then the middle passage of the slave trade and, further, the Ottoman Turkish Genocide of the Armenian and other Christian Minorities. Dr. Kalayjian built up our emotions through her description of historical barbaric events, and we could do nothing but listen, feel our emotions, and deeply relate empathically to one another’s historical trauma, but most importantly while focusing on our breath release the negative emotions This meditation tied in certain elements of the previous speakers messages; one on compassionate listening to one’s own body and breathe, 2. Thinking of how we react in unexpected traumatic situations and how it is healthy to respond with love, compassion and forgiveness, and 3. Empathy, validation, and reparation for ultimate healing.

A lively and passionate Q & A followed, where people from the audience commented that there are many other traumas that are not acknowledged such as the slavery, as well as the Genocide, and how it is essential to send this CD from War to Peace to all of our politicians, government officials past and present, around the world so they know the impact of wars through seven generations.

The program ended happily celebrating and dancing with the sound of drums that connected us energetically and spiritually, waving colorful scarves from around the globe, while embracing the person who sat next to us and further dancing with them as if we had known them our whole life, which was quite a moving and transformative experience.

For those interested to help donate a CD to a government official of your choice kindly donate through our website: www.meaningfulworld.com, or mail your check made out to ATOP to 135 Cedar Street, Cliffside Park, NJ 07010, phone: 201 941-2244.