Rape and Consent. Stanford University Athlete given six months

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2016/06/03/stanford-sex-assault-victim-you-took-away-my-worth

You may have read the account of the girl who was unconscious and raped behind a dumpster at a frat party at Stanford Jan 17th 2015. Her assailant got six months possibly down to three for good behaviour.

The father of a former Stanford University athlete convicted on multiple charges of sexual assault has said his son should not have to go to prison for “20 minutes of action”.

Brock Turner, a former swimmer at Stanford University, was on Thursday sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and probation for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.

I went to Stanford.
I read the girls statement and I am sobbing. 
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2016/06/03/stanford-sex-assault-victim-you-took-away-my-worth
I am sitting here sobbing. I was a student at Stanford but I refused to live in a frat house and I don't drink and I loved my time there.
  I feel ashamed that my university still has this awful attitude to rape. I went back to Stanford last summer and walked around remembering how wonderful it was for me to be there. then I went over to Berkeley campus and there were rape education posters/consent posters everywhere. I agree with this survivor. 

As a survivor of rape myself, it can take seconds to rape someone, but those seconds have changed the last three decades for me. I have been damaged in ways I never thought was possible. The message should be loud and clear: it doesn't matter who you are, how successful or entitled you feel you are, if you rape and sexually assault someone - you don't get leniency. the only way this man can really convince me he is serious about changing is if he manages to change the view of drunken students about consent. If she can't say yes to a cup of tea, then don't make her tea. If she can't say yes to intercourse, don't make her suffer intercourse - just like you wouldn't pour tea down her unconscious throat. 
see the video that we have in England: 
http://metro.co.uk/2015/10/28/this-new-sexual-consent-and-tea-video-from-the-police-is-brilliant-5466392/

Neuroscience Training Summit May 2016 organised by Sounds True

I listened to a whole ten days of neuroscience talks this month, 30 hours of information and many of the talks were really interesting.
Linda Graham, whom I have often quoted on here, was speaking on learning to bounce back from trauma and difficulty. I still find her work exceptional.
Janina Fisher talked about healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors
http://www.janinafisher.com/tmodel.php
and David Grand talked about Brain Spotting, the modality that he says treats multiple trauma clients better than EMDR does.
https://brainspotting.pro/page/what-brainspotting

This last one is really intriguing and I have ordered his book so that I can try to understand it better.

I haven't written on here for a while. I actually forgot that I started this blog!

I have been working on inner child healing and doing a few teaching sessions voluntarily and the occasional conference presentation on compassion.
I have been working on self compassion at an intensive level and trying very hard to create a nurturing and healing daily routine for myself.
I have just completed the neuroscience training summit by Sounds True - 20 ninety minute presentations on the latest cutting edge ideas on how to heal trauma and attachment issues. It makes me realise how backward the UK is in this field on the whole.
I have a plan to train as a teacher of the self compassion 8 week course. I would feel good passing that kind of information on, especially as I have learned to do it at the coal face so to speak. 

There is much contradictory advice about suffering out there.
I have encountered buddhist teachers who laugh when told about rape - in fact the actual words were 'So?'
I have heard buddhist teachers say 'don't get upset, it will create a deeper emotional reactive groove in the mind. Don't indulge it'
This would a little more understandable if the person in question was a drama queen addicted to rehearsing the same old story over and over again. 
but what if the person in question was an abuse survivor who needed to be heard for the first time, needed their suffering to be allowed and acknowledged? Needed a heart open response rather than a heart closed response?

I have a story to tell. It is unfortunately a true story. 
Once upon a time there was a Trickster. He loved being seen as wise and insightful and could get very sarcastic and cruel if anyone crossed him. One of his students, who loved him very much, kept feeling uncomfortable when the Trickster was manipulative or bullying to others and pointed this out to him. He started bullying her and creating an atmosphere of sarcasm and nastiness. Some of his cronies joined in. The poor student was eventually broken by the Trickster who let rip and told untruths to destroy her. She told his own teacher ( a truly good man)  who replied :  His mind has a huge crack in it. If I challenge him to see himself as he truly is, he will probably break and go over the edge. I have to proceed with caution. It is only the adulation of his groupies that is keeping him going. 
Meanwhile a family member of the same good teacher, came to the student and told her she had been sexually assaulted and attacked and nearly raped by one of the monks.  So the student went to the head of the monastery and told him. He said that they would not do anything and that he would move the errant monk to a city instead. Eventually that errant monk murdered the good teacher and two others. All this suffering is happening in an organisation where compassion and kindness and forgiveness and self control is taught. It is a very sad example of how people are just people and keep playing their ego games no matter what ....

How to deal with suffering: your own and others

http://www.ramdass.org/suffering-as-grace/

Accept Others - Allow

Less judging