Healing Ourselves and Our World
I feel a passionate desire to help turn our world around from our self destructive path into one where we express more beauty and love and acceptance of differences. The good news is so many of us do. How to do this has been an insistent question in my being. I would like to share with you what my life has revealed to me.
Let’s start where we are. Most of us are fragmented. The world is fragmented.
We have cut ourselves off from our feelings that are too much to bear, and from parts of ourselves that we were taught were unlovable and unacceptable.
A lot of us are also cut off from community, and feel cut off from the world at large. Most of us feel it’s unbearable to face what we are doing to the planet, to children of indigenous or immigrant races, and the hate that is rampant.
As unbearable as it may seem, coming back into connection with our hearts is what we need to heal ourselves personally and heal our world.
I had an experience of this recently. I was feeling anxious and having trouble fully connecting. I knew it was because I was afraid to face the pain I feel about what’s happening in the world. It seemed overwhelming and unbearable. I enlisted the support of a safe person to anchor me, and I let myself open to feeling that pain. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. I allowed my deep sadness and anger to come out through my voice. After being present with all these feelings, I felt a deep sense of compassion for us all. The anxiety that came from trying to avoid the feelings I thought were unbearable softened into compassion.
Most people in this world are traumatized, and come from traumatized ancestors. The state of the world is in crisis because one generation after another has either frozen, fought or run away in reaction to trauma. That has built and built and built until we are on the verge of destruction. I personally come from a Jewish lineage with its own profound sense of trauma.
To heal our world, we need compassion. Yes we need to stand up for what we believe in. And we need everything we do to be based in compassion for how disconnected we have become from generations upon generations of trauma.
The source of this compassion is in our hearts. The source of connection and wholeness is in our hearts. The healing balm of love and tenderness is in our hearts.
We can heal ourselves and our world by having the courage to face our pain and fear while in the presence of safe people. We can heal ourselves and our world by coming back into our hearts. In our hearts, we’re not in reaction. We are not running or fighting or freezing. In our hearts, we feel our connection to our own Essence, to each other, and to our beloved mother earth. In our hearts is the strength, courage, knowing, love and compassion we need to become whole once again.
