This is such profound deep wisdom for these dark and traumatic times. Thank you, Jeff Foster. Deep bow. 🙏Molly
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| Photo by Molly |
“How do we go on living our ordinary, comfortable lives while knowing that terrible suffering is going on every single day for so many people around the world? Can we ever make peace with that suffering?”
It is a brilliant question.
I have struggled with it myself for years.
I do not think you “make peace” with cruelty and violence.
Not today. Maybe never.
And why should you.
Look. I cannot tell you how to grieve or how to fight. I cannot tell you what to do. But I can suggest the following.
Let the suffering of the innocent and the oppressed move you. Let it break your heart. Let it hurt. Deeply. The pain itself means your heart is still working! You are not numb. You are not detached, cold, or indifferent. You are not bypassing your humanity.
You hurt because your brothers and sisters are hurting. You belong to the same river of humanity.
At the same time, you must accept a limit to your hurting, if you can. Remember, you did not cause this horror. You cannot carry all of it without being crushed by it yourself, without being destroyed by the weight of the world’s suffering. You can only carry what is truly yours.
So you choose how and when to engage, as much as possible. When to read. When to watch. When to talk about world events. When to listen. You do this consciously, deliberately.
Grief and anger have to be held in presence, not poured endlessly into your nervous system all day long without limits. That is not compassion. It is a fast track to burnout and helplessness.
So you breathe first. You find your ground. You return to your real responsibility each day. How you speak. How you treat the people around you. How you love your child, your partner, your neighbour. How you refuse to pass unconsciousness onwards. How you refuse to fuel numbness, hatred, or violence in your family, your community, your workplace, your town or city.
You do your own inner work. You look honestly at the violence and prejudice in yourself. You attend to your own childhood wounds. You look at the log in your own eye before pointing at the splinter in your neighbour’s. Healing your own trauma is not a distraction from saving the world. I truly believe it is part of how the world is saved.
And yes, of course, you can still protest. But not as permanent outrage. Not as more hatred layered on top of hatred. You act where action is possible. You show up. You speak. You vote. You give generously. You withhold consent.
And you do not let protest make you cruel! If your protest costs you your capacity to love, the damage has already spread.
And you rest too. You rest when you can. Rest is not a luxury. It is fuel. It is the source of all things.
And you allow joy, without apology and without guilt! Joy is not a betrayal of the cause. Joy is how you stop the violence from taking your soul too.
You shine your light, even when it feels impossibly dark.
And remember, there is no clean or easy way to live with all this. Anyone who says there is is being glib, or trying to sell you comfort way too cheaply. Being deeply affected by the world does not resolve neatly. It does not offer easy closure.
You may never be at peace with all the suffering in the world, but maybe you can make peace with THAT.
Finally, I’d say that it really is fucking brave to choose to stay awake, tender, open-hearted and curious in a world that keeps asking you to shut down.
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