Do we really have to look into all the details?  Is “how it happened” really the right question to ask? Do I need to study in depth all the independent reports about this event to feel the pang of exasperation, intense sadness and upset about what has happened to all these innocent and well-meaning people? Families with young children are young families of people whose hearts are beating for the joy of having their children and each other. They are in the bloom of their lives and now their families and their souls are devastated because one person’s unstable mind has snapped.

So: NO! The right question to ask is the one that gives the answer to how to prevent these random, horrifying shootings from taking place. What is wrong with us; not only with those kids who merely function as the visible symptoms of a sick society?

This article is first of all a cry to change the law that states the right to bear arms. We do not live in a time anymore that that is necessary. “What used to be of service to us in the past can turn against us” is valid not only for Early Childhood Survival Strategies but for general survival strategies as well, such as this law that dates from December the 15^th 1791: 222 years old!

This article is also intended to draw the attention to what might be the root cause that these things do happen: there are too many children whose Sense of Self is not developed. They are “NOT home” in their own bodies and their own minds! They have therefore nothing to lose; in fact they HAVE nothing, NOT EVEN THEMSELVES. They are angry, upset, frustrated, desperate because they have nothing to lean on, nothing that supports anything like an “own opinion, or taste or preference.” They do not think with their own minds because they do not even know they have one; they are just being reactionary to their gigantic rage of living a life without being present in it.

Not being present in your own life comes down to living like a ghost with a body: physically present but spiritually murdered. A gigantic, “untamable” rage is the result. These children are not the cause of their own situation – if anybody, their parents are or society-as-a whole. Too often the emphasis in our lives lies on performing well and “fitting in” so that parents can go on working on their own numerous issues, all the while pretending they are in charge of their lives, which they are not in many cases. So many parents are like “old” children with their many unmet needs. These parents themselves also live in body-only, as their essence has  never had a chance to even occupy their bodies. They have become dependent on fulfilling all kinds of conditions that have nothing to do with who they really are: performance on the job, in the relationship, for the neighbors and even for their own parents or for their so-called friends. They must keep their performance going at the cost of losing their face and identity, without which they perceive to be non-existent themselves. And who else suffers? Their children.

Children are a burden to their struggling parents and are ignored or forced to behave in such ways that they cause the least amount of upheaval in the lives of the adults. Developing their own sense of self and manifesting their presence is not wished for so these children’s very souls are smothered in their own bodies. Is it surprising that they rebel against society and their parents?

I am appalled by what has happened – I am deeply and emphatically saddened for these children, the adults and their family – for humanity even. But that does not help enough! I was in shock when I saw a picture of a military man and a gunman determinedly walking up to the scene, gun in hand. My God, isn’t that the same? Don’t you see it then? Put down your guns! Sit down and talk!

We have to help humanity, the children and wake up to a new era: no guns but a healthy Sense of Your Self: we are all the same, just in a different position. Let us, parents, not kill each other but deal with our own psycho-emotional issues, practical issues at hand by restoring our sense of self. Then our rage and desperation disappears and can we raise our children and truly care for and about them. Only then can we instill a healthy Sense of Self in the younger generations and change the destructive ways of the past into a strategy that is not about who is more powerful or more lucky but in a way that leads to real change for everybody.

Only when we effectively get started on the journey of  restoring our own sense of self we can heal the world from rage and violence.