Anxiety: The Great Virus that is Destroying the World Today With Dr. Fergus Heffernan


Ms Fiona Temple, Principal of Mulroy College, welcomed parents, teachers from other schools, and the guest speaker, Psychologist and Educationalist Dr Fergus Heffernan, to the College. A large crowd attended to hear him give a talk on “How to Create Resilience and Happiness in Tough Challenging Times.”


Dr. Heffernan opened the talk with recent figures released by the World Wide Health Organisation on suicide and self harm among young people showing that Ireland has risen from sixteenth place to second place in the last fifteen years. And according to a recent survey done in Maynooth among young people, it showed one in every four are presenting with Self harm and anxiety.
Dr Heffernan  went on to say how Cancer has gone up 3% every year for the past ten years in the younger population and Neurological disorders among young men such as M.S. and Motor Neurons Disease has increased by 900% in ten years.“Our theme tonight is family; the one thing we all have in common. All our greatest heartbreaks come from family and our greatest joys come from family.Now in Irish culture there is little understanding around family, which would be ok if there was balance and awareness but today there is little or no awareness and many families are out of balance.“We have this great ability in Ireland to pretend everything is ok when it’s not ok.Why? Because of values we learned in our family of origin.The golden rule in many Irish families is ‘You don’t talk about what goes on in our house.’But if we don’t talk about it, how do we learn to deal with guilt, anger, shame, hurt, regret, and resentment?If we as adults have never learned the language there’s no point in telling our young people today - you have to talk about it.”
“But what is it?.What are we supposed to be talking about?How do we express our emotions when we have not learned a language to put on it?”

There was plenty of humour in Dr Heffernan’s talk as he went on to say ‘how as an Irish family what we do is sit at home and talk about our neighbour’s family; we projected our disappointments and don’t take responsibility for our own issues in the home.
Dr Heffernan then asked the audience if they were aware that most children today go to school to get a sense of belonging.“It’s a new phenomenon and it’s because often school is the only place left with structures and boundaries. Many families don’t have structure or boundaries and no fault to the families but we have got sucked in to a world that is so busy, we pass like ships in the night. We most of us are just trying to pay the bills in reality.“We live in a more isolated world today, no ones lives in the same space anymore. There are screens in every room of the home and no one is talking to each other. There is also a noticeable rise in the desensitising of violence and to add to the anxiety we now live in a threatened world. Where this leads too is us living in a world where we are learning not to depend on self or communities and this is putting families under great threat. And sadly we have become a blaming culture and a culture of dependencyDr Heffernan spoke of how we have a plan for everything, a policy for everything and how everything is driven by results and performance. Even our education system has been high-jacked by industry; look at the grinds for example. We are all driven by results and perfection on every level in our culture..“As a nation we have learned not to trust in ‘you’ that inner voice or the feeling that we listened to naturally in the past. This disassociation is what leads to a feeling of ‘Anxiety’ the great virus that is destroying the world today.We have lost our sense of connection, our sense of spirit and our sense of community. Today our young are not being taught that ability to survive when the going gets tough, to depend on self and a community for survival.“We are in a world were we are all racing someplace, a world were you can’t make mistakes any more and everything has to be perfect. We don’t make decisions because there are guide lines or policies for everything. We are teaching our young no resilience on how to deal with their emotions.They have no sense of self, no instinct and they are only connected to the world in their head, there is no soul connection. They don’t know to stop take a breath and that it’ll be ok.“What keeps that anxiety growing is not being able to live in the present or live in the moment. Much of our days are now filled with thoughts and fears and anxiety over something that hasn’t happened yet or might happen. We are so busy holding on to past guilt, anger resentments or loss there is no space to enjoy the present moment“Not all anxiety is a bad thing, a level of anxiety is a normal response needed to increase alertness but it must be balanced. But in today’s world we live in that anxiety mode today 1200 time a day four times more that we need to be. Why? Because we have forgotten to live life in the moment.” said Dr Heffernan
“So what can we do about it? What can ‘we’ as a family do about it?” asked Dr Heffernan.He went on to tell the audience that although we live in a world where there is little time for change and that with the internet changes are coming so fast now that our brains aren’t coping.There is  simply too much information in the world and not enough wisdom anymore.“So what can we do about it? What can ‘we’ as a family do about it?” asked Dr Heffernan “We can make the changes but it takes Honesty, Courage, Commitment and Consistency and with them we can change anything. And to do that we need to raise our self awareness.It doesn’t have to be everything all in one go, just take one little thing at a time that you can do should it just be going for a walk every evening and talking to yourselves as parents, as partners. Then you find another small thing and another and as the old saying goes from small acorns do mighty oak trees grow. And from this you build trust and the home becomes the safe place it should be.You need to live life in the moment, enjoy the moments of family and know that no family is perfect; no life is perfect that’s what makes all those moments special.”Finishing off his talk Dr Heffernan said “We have made life about results and destinations. These do not matter it is the journey that counts and enjoying the journey. It is about doing your best in life and knowing that your best will always be good enough even if that isn’t good enough for someone else.”On asking Dr Heffernan about his own personal battles on his journey of self discovery he said “It has been massive, I’ve had two attempts at suicide, one at 23 and one at 29 and really it wasn’t till my own son not being well, that I made the inner connection. That was the final piece in the Jigsaw for me.”When asked if he practices all the things he talks about himself “Yes, 100%, you have to work at it, you have to believe it and it has to be part of your life. If I didn’t I couldn’t stand up there honesty” was his reply.Although there were serious and emotional moments there was also laughter and learning as people could related to his stories and afterwards Dr Heffernan was happy to talk to many individuals
Dr Fergus Heffernan PhD Psychology, MSc Counselling Psychology and Family Therapies. Member Associations of Family Therapists, IOC, IIPT.
Fergus has spent much of the past 33 years working with the Irish Defence Forces, the United Nations and NATO based in New York.He has worked with soldiers and their families in Theatre of War locations from Afghanistan, to Iraq, from Central Africa to East Timor, from The Balkans to the Middle East. He is a visiting lecturer and Workshop Director in Trinity College Dublin, Columbia University New York, and Boston University USA.




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