America’s Struggle with Success

Barack Obama has poignantly described his great need for a father which still defines him to this very day. As we have recently learned from the deeper intelligence—going far deeper into our psyches than ever before—major emotional traumas have much greater influence on us than we previously knew. They exist in our psyches like “holes filled with pain” as Obama characterized well.

Let’s take a quick review of his past. His white mother, originally from Kansas, was three months pregnant by Barack’s black Kenyan father (Barack Sr.) whom she then marries and Obama was born born on Aug 4, 1961, in Hawaii. When Obama was 2 years old, his father returns home to Kenya permanently. Following the divorce his father marries another Kenyan who gives birth to Barack’s half-brother.

His mother remarries an Indonesian, takes Barrack to Jakarta where he entered a Muslim school when he was 6 years old. At age 10, Barack requests to live in Hawaii with his maternal grandparents, and his mother acquiesces. At some point, his mother and stepfather divorce and his mother returns to Hawaii to raise Barack and his half-sister as a single parent. By age 10, Barack has suffered the loss of two father figures.

Newsweek magazine tells several first-hand stories of Obama’s recollections of Jakarta including, “He didn’t know what to make of the leper who came to his door, who had a hole where his nose was supposed to be and made a discomfiting ‘whistling sound’ as he asked for food.”¹ Stories from childhood often reflect key personal issues of a traumatized person. Children in therapy—to deal with their pain in a way they can face it—frequently tell key stories which are essentially parables of their lives. We will consider Obama’s childhood story here a parable about the “Beggar Lepers” revealing his inner angst. We can look forward to seeing patterns from the parable in his adult life. Certainly the story was connected to his early issues of abandonment and his father/stepfather issues, including his mother’s contribution.

We can see how well this story—depicting a severely damaged person with a hole in him—matches Obama’s earlier reference to a hole existing in him. Translation: Obama confirms he’s a damaged person deep down—and notice the context of the story which occurred after a move to a foreign country with a new foreign stepfather. By age 6 Barack had experienced two foreign fathers, and a move far away to a faraway country—and by age 10 the loss of another father figure whom mother will eventually divorce.

Two other aspects of this story speak volumes. The leper is needy, very needy, and dangerous in a way, carrying a horrible, contaminating disease. Obama is revealing that he is the needy one as life had deprived him of something solid inside. Later, we will return to the potential self-image of being a destructive contaminating force like a leper carrying some God-awful disease. Don’t forget, people damaged by emotional trauma often see themselves as “bad”— even “sinister and evil”—to have “deserved” such mistreatment as being abandoned. We must see this story as a warning from Obama about how he sees himself as a “leper,” a contaminating threatening person.

The Newsweek story of his time in Indonesia continues with the same striking images,

“He had to learn to deal with street beggars of all types. Obama’s big-hearted mother gave easily. His Indonesian stepfather, an unsentimental man with a more practical view of the world, counseled the boy that the demands of the needy have no end; it was best to be strong because ‘men take advantage of weakness in other men.’”

Again we find a story of needy people—of all types—who have incessant needs with “no end” who will try and take advantage of weakness in other people such as his own mother.

Is Obama describing himself? Does his “blink mind” admit that he’s unbelievably needy like someone with a bottomless hole in him, so needy that he secretly begs to be taken care of to the point of manipulating others, preying on their generosity?

Clearly Obama linked this story of neediness to an erstwhile stepfather and his own feelings of uneasiness in a foreign country—both powerful abandonment/separation issues for him. Is it possible that Obama is describing his own unhealthy need to be excessively dependent—played out in a lifelong political career in which he lives off the government and his supporters? Obama has been accused of never having had a “real job”—an accusation also made of Bill Clinton. 

Are we seeing that the Obama’s political philosophy—his preoccupation with the poor and needy, and his plans to increase entitlements including possible reparations for racial injustice—originated in his personal pain, out of that huge hole in him? If that’s the case then he is warning us that his political program will be filled with excessive entitlement demands sure to drain America’s strength. He’s unconsciously trying to make America weak, just like he is. In such a case he would be a begging leper who contaminated America after knocking on its door for votes.

We can hear the echoes of Obama’s pain—and his unhealthy political plan for repairing it—in the recent Saddleback interview when he told the Rev. Rick Warren,

“We still don’t abide by that basic precept of Matthew: that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me. That basic principle applies to poverty. It applies to racism and sexism; it applies to not thinking about providing ladders of opportunity for people to get into the middle class.”

Could Obama unknowingly but manipulatively be pushing his entitlement plan for America in the name of Christianity? For one thing we hear his familiar self-images stemming from his overwhelming trauma: he’s the least of human beings, he’s poor, he has been discriminated against, he’s lower class. More importantly, we hear the continued entitlement refrain: people need to do more for him in his deprived state—he needs a ladder to get out of his hole. Such incessant demands certainly fit his stepfather’s comment, “the demands of the needy have no end.”

Obama also suggests that he will take advantage of weakness in sympathetic people who enable the downtrodden to be overly dependent and overly gratified. We must strongly consider this possibility when we examine his qualifications to be president. Already he has instructed us to be on the look-out for unhealthy entitlement in his character—and called out in his story for someone to stop unhealthy neediness. If indeed Obama lacks the credentials to be president, if he’s trading on excessive sympathy, then clearly his deeper intelligence is guiding us to prevent that from happening. It’s warning us not to vote him in office.

Already, he has told us he’s too weak and lacks the internal strength of character to be president. It’s likely that he has spotted another important reason why he should not be elected—neediness and sympathy. We can keep this in mind by asking ourselves, “Is there any significant way that Barack Obama could play on our sympathies as a presidential candidate?” For sure the last thing we need is a sympathy president instead of a real man or woman strong enough for the job. Obama’s own deeper intelligence also warns against the danger of entitlement programs suggesting it turns people into welfare lepers and beggars—damaged helpless people.

If we think the powerful early traumatic events that Obama suffered don’t continue to shape his life, we’re uneducated and uninformed about the way the mind works. Taken together, his stories are really the narrative of his life at a deep personal level—stories his deeper intelligence wants us to hear so that we know who we’re contemplating as out next president. As a deeper intelligence therapist, I take these stories very seriously and I am certain these deep self-images would emerge in therapy. Barack Obama is simply putting his stories out to the American people who, in a presidential election, function as a surrogate therapist to whom he must tell the truth.

The most basic impression he initially wants to convey is just how needy he is because he has so been so badly damaged. Of course anyone else in his shoes would also be just as needy, but—as his deeper intelligence counsels us—that’s certainly no reason to make him president.

When we consider extreme neediness in a leader we can learn lessons from a recent president and see how he inflicted his deep personal pain on our nation. There are striking similarities between that president—Bill Clinton—and Barack Obama.

Summary

• Barack Obama has poignantly described his great need for a father which still defines him to this very day.
• Children in therapy (or in everyday life) frequently tell key stories which are essentially  parables of their lives. Obama told powerful story of “Beggar Lepers” suggesting striking painful self-revelations—pointing to patterns in his adult life.
• He recalled moving to Indonesia at age 6 and having leper beggars with holes in their face coming to the door pleading for food. His mother was overly sympathetic but his step-father told him to stand up to beggars or they would manipulate and control others.
• We can see how well this story—depicting a severely damaged person with a hole in him—matches Obama’s earlier reference to a hole existing in him.
• Obama suggests his political philosophy-- his preoccupation with the needy, his plans to increase entitlements--originated in his personal pain.
• He strongly appears to be warning us that his political program will be filled with excessive entitlement demands sure to drain America’s strength—another reason he suggests McCain should be president.
• Obama reflects a deep down understanding that to really help people become strong, it’s crucial to undercut entitlement and build independence.