On this week’s 51%, a psychotherapist talks about healing and self-love, a Nobel laureate marks her birthday by opening a school for girls, and an essay on storytelling after the shooting at a Charleston church.
Psychotherapist Carole Morton experienced torment and pain at a very young age but was able to heal through the development of self-love. Morton's first book is called Entering Your Own Heart: Guide to Developing Self Love, Inner Peace and Happiness. It's a psycho-spiritual healing guide that seeks to illustrate a new and in-depth understanding of who we are, while detailing how to remove the blocks to connecting with the love and peace that already reside within each of us. I asked her why she wrote the book.
That was Carole Morton, a California licensed integrative psychotherapist, mind-body-spirit medicine professional, teacher, and public speaker.
Peace in general is the hope of Malala Yousafzai – the Pakistani teen who was shot by the Taliban in 2012 for asserting her right to an education. She celebrated her 18th birthday July 12 standing in solidarity with Syrian girls in Lebanon. The Nobel Peace prize winner posted on her blog that she was there on behalf of the 28 million children who are kept from the classroom because of armed conflict. She marked her birthday by opening theMalala Fund’sMalala Yousafzai All-Girls School near the Syrian border, which will provide secondary education to more than 200 Syrian girls. And leading up to Malala’s birthday, people around the world participated in her #BooksNotBullets campaign to highlight the importance of quality education for girls around the world. Together with leading education groups, the Malala Fund is calling on world leaders to invest an additional $39 billion in education – which she says is the equivalent of eight days of military spending – to ensure that every child gets 12 years of free primary and secondary education. The online campaign culminated on Malala’s birthday.
The shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina in June left nine people dead, allegedly at the hands of a 21-year-old white gunman. Authorities called it a hate crime, and the mass shooting sparked a discussion about racism and prompted the South Carolina governor to sign a law to remove the Confederate flag from the state house. Writer Dr. Jeri Burns offers her view.
Dr. Jeri Burns is a storyteller, writer, and educator living in New York's Hudson Valley. You can find her at www.storycrafters.com.
And that's our show this week. Thanks to Katie Britton for production assistance. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock. Our theme music is Glow in the Dark by Kevin Bartlett. This show is a national production of Northeast Public Radio.