Reflections On Meeting These Traumatic Times With Courage, Compassion, Wisdom, Grace, and Love

It is so important to not lose sight of beauty. Photo by Molly

Reflections On Meeting These Traumatic Times With

Courage, Compassion, Wisdom, Grace, and Love

My life is very full. And today has been busy for my husband and myself as we prepare to leave for Oaxaca early tomorrow morning. Still, it's felt important before being gone over the next week to stop and create the time and the space here to once again acknowledge these times that we are living in.

Just over the past couple of days... There has been another horrific mass shooting, marking America's 565th this year — and the deadliest. A tropical storm developed into a monster category five hurricane within hours — pummeling the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, killing at least 27 people, knocking out power, and destroying infrastructure in the city of Acapulco. The latest news from climate scientists is also that it is likely too late to prevent significant melting of Thwaites, the "Doomsday Glacier" — stating that we have "lost control" of the West Antarctic ice shelf melting over the 21st century, and that its melting could cause global sea levels to rise by about 10 feet. The American government is also now day by day being increasingly infiltrated and controlled by extreme right-wing fascists who, if given more control, would halt all efforts to address the human caused catastrophic warming of the planet and other issues critical to the well-being of our nation and to all of life on Earth. And then there's the atrocities and genocide occurring right now being perpetrated on the Palestinian people — the war crimes of which are also being justified and funded by the American President and the American government.

I could go on.

The words "record breaking" and "unprecedented" now seem obsolete. These nightmares are unfolding day in and day out in our families, our communities, our nation and all across the world. They are real. They are heartbreaking and horrifying and relentless. The madness and the great sorrows of our times do not go away or diminish. They are with us.

The question is: How do we cope with so much suffering and violence, cruelty and criminality, ignorance and injustice, destruction and death? How can we stay open rather than stuck in being shut down, walled up, numb, angry, addicted, and/or depressed?

There is obviously no one answer. Each of us will respond in our own unique ways. And we are all on this continuum, I believe, with ignorance on the one end and consciousness on the other. And that, in part, will determine just how much we are capable of letting in without letting it be too much or too little. 

I am aware of the enormity of the struggle that humanity is facing. And, because we are all connected, no one is excluded from the impacts of the traumatic times that we are living in. To be empowered to cultivate the strongest and healthiest coping skills possible to meet these great sorrows, this comes to me as being of critical importance:

• Our experience of community and connection
• Our awareness of beauty and love
• Our spiritual practice, whatever that is for each of us
• Our commitment to our own ongoing healing and transformation
• Our capacity to hold both grief and gratitude
• Our conscious intentions
• The depth and breadth of our circle of caring
• The strength and the tenderness of our hearts
• Our commitment to our ongoing growth and the dismantling of the obstacles to love that we've built within ourselves individually and collectively

It is my lived experience that we are all growing either more expansive or more contracted as we grow older. Unhealed, unaddressed, denied or minimized ancestral and cultural trauma can be a heavy load to carry. And it is very hard if not impossible to embody healthy coping skills to meet the pain of these times if we are ignoring what we carry in our own hearts...

I'm going to be a grandmother again. Our sixth grandchild is due this winter. And all that I know is that I must act in every way possible on his behalf and on behalf of all of our grandchildren and children and all of the children of all of the species on Earth. One of my bumper stickers reads "Our Descendants Are Counting On Us." So true. So true.

We all need each other. We do. Because we are all connected, all related, all family. And each of us has something to add to the higher good of us all. As Bill McKibben has said, "Activism is the antidote to despair." And what activism looks like can vary greatly. 

May more and more of us come together to support ourselves and each other. It is way too painful to try to cope with the deep trauma of our times without support. And it is this path, this path of caring and connection, that helps us grow our hearts stronger and deepens our capacity to meet both the sorrows and the beauty that we are part of with courage, compassion, wisdom, grace, and love.

Bless us all, no exceptions...

💗 Molly