Domestic Violence Does Not End with October

By Jillian Maas Backman

Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new social condition means a radical change in conscience. -Walter Lippmann, journalist (1889-1974) 

The time has come to say goodbye to the yearly blog posts designated to highlight Domestic Violence Awareness for the month of October. My fellow authors did an exceptional job describing the highs and lows of this formidable social opponent. As heart- wrenching and warming as the posts were, I’m afraid it’s going to take a lot more than underscoring this public epidemic once a year to influence long-term change.

As famous journalist Walter Lippmann stated long ago, not everyone’s conscience is filled with virtuous truths or principles. For some, their scruples resonates with less than impeccable verities and act accordingly towards mankind/womankind.

So how does revisiting this open-ended dialog every year at this time help solve or combat this societal issue? For the very reason Lippmann pointed out way back in the day. This is the only way to keep moving forward and grow in our social life, set new social conditions and patterns to achieve radical transformation.

I realize we would all like to snap our fingers and make this social deviance magically disappear, but that’s not how “radical change in conscience” truly occurs. It’s slow and steady -- like the turtle and the hare. One small step at a time. If we keep pushing the issue to the top of our concern list, this will eventually lead to the conscious shift we so desperately seek.

Domestic Violence Achievements

The victories may seem minuscule in scale to other social problems we have right now, but I assure you, if we don’t keep this conversation going past this month, we are going to have bigger challenges down the road. Relationships are the brick and mortar that keeps our social structure together in one cohesive, conscious group. Every time another case of violence is afflicted upon another, it blows a tiny pinhole into this edifice. Eventually, if we accumulate enough pinholes, the entire consciousness will collapse upon itself. And this, my friends, is the biggest threat we have at the moment.

The part Mr. Lippmann didn’t get to experience in his lifetime are the achievements we’ve made towards a new awareness when it comes to this issue. Yes, our walls may be filled with tiny pinholes from aggression towards another, but we are making significant advancements towards plugging up those nasty holes with a new type of mortar.

Thriving survivors and their supporters are reforming social conditions using words and legislation to fill these pinpricks with a new kind of eternal verities. A vessel containing social plaster, mixed with the right amount of integrity, inspiration and hopeful principles that are leading us down the enlightened change Lippmann envisioned.

Change for Peace

As we close this month out, I want all of us to commit ourselves to staying on task to honor those who have lost their lives bringing forth this change, and stay diligent in assisting those who need help in finding their way through dark times far beyond this month of October 2014. My hope for us all is when we convene again next October our posts will contain less stories about tragedies and more about: Peace dear ones, peace!

The kind of peace one finds in hearts, minds, and best of all, relationships we treasure the most.

Please keep life SACRED!

Jillian Maas Backman is a professional speaker, award winning author and radio host. She is an innovator in the realm of creating personal paradigm shifts integrating established methods to augment communal objectives through leadership training and private consultations.

Website: JillianMaasBackman.Com