It's not normal to dismiss the massive trauma and collective grief world events have thrust into the foreground of our everyday moments.
Online connectivity is a wonderful way to meet our global village. At the same time, it can be hard to process what passes for normal elsewhere while surrendering our own judgments and assumptions.
It's not normal not to care. It's not normal to ignore the wellspring of concern that blossoms when you meet the pain, sadness, and loss of another.
Normal, if we call it that, is to support and succor. It's a hard-wired capacity. One that is easily tapped. Even if something or someone messed up your brilliant default wiring. You care when confronted with another's pain.
It's been a wild ride for a few weeks now. There is a lot going on in the world. There's a lot going on in your world too I bet! Processing it all requires space and compassion for yourself.
I'm feeling it. And feeling the natural desire to make MORE space. Creating space as a default response helps me to notice the movement, and my capacity to partner with it. That means saying, “No” to more things.
Sometimes I wish there was one way, phrase, or practice that would shift you to a better feeling space. There isn't. These darker experiences are still here. They live in you and me (not only in Palestine and Israel, the Ukraine and Russia, Republicans and Democrats).
You get the picture, right? On some level, we all contribute to the illusion that what happens over there doesn't matter over here. It does. We are all connected. This is so obvious today. Look around.
You and I need to find our way through our own darkness, to open to our light.
There are so many ways you can do this. There is no this way or that way. There is only your way. Find, explore, try. Keep what works, toss the rest.
Bit by bit you begin to recognize what helps you get clear, what supports your seeing things as they are, and how you can move with it (not against it).
The more space you create around your perceptions, the sooner you hone in on your projections. Your power and possibility live in taking responsibility for them. Shift the ones that harm. That's the playground. That's the work of waking up. This is how the world changes.
When you change the world changes.
It's the adventure of a lifetime. Honored to share it with you.
What a beautiful approach to a delicate topic. My emotions have been all over the place recently. There are so many people hurting, so many at risk, and there is so little I can do about any of it. So I pray and contemplate and do my best to rise above the darkness. Your suggestion to create space is spot on and encourages me to say "no" to what doesn't resonate with me. I find it to be the best way to open myself to light and love in the midst of chaos.
Sometimes all these wildly clashing emotions can isolate us. The more I connect with you and others willing to explore the sooner I discover we are feeling a lot of the same things. Tapping into this sense of connectedness and lightness helps to ease my heart. Most of us are aware, at some level, of our collective humanity. I think we can move more gracefully by acknowledging it, especially amid the chaos. Thanks for helping me land some more bits of this, Sandi.