Trauma warning: This post references recent violent incidents in the U.S. If you have a personal history with violence and easily feel activated and retraumatized, you may wish to skip reading this post.
My heart is in such pain!
I find the daily news that greets me each morning lands with a heavy thud upon my experience of the new day.
Today with MORE NEWS of yet another mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, not even 24 hours after the one in Allen, Texas…
Four mass shootings* in the U.S. in these first four days of August alone!
According to Wikipedia, as I write this, these four incidents resulted (thus far) in 103 victims, with 35 killed and 68 wounded. Four days!
The non-profit Gun Violence Archive reported that there have been more mass shootings in U.S. in 2019 than the number of days in this year.
Certain leaders in our country, our President among them, not only fail to call out but encourage white racism and xenophobia.
Increased violence associated with access to automatic and semi-automatic weapons results in these mass shootings and killings.
So, here I am, with two lovely days on a beautiful lake, kayaking and taking in the morning’s quiet beauty around me. The morning is quiet, the water smooth.
Yet I feel so heavy with sorrow, I am astounded that my kayak is able to keep me above water.
I think of all of the people who are greeting their first days with loved ones dead or severely injured from such violence.
And the ones who went through this inestimable grief some months or years or even decades ago…It never really remits.
I note my own seething rage at the people who have encouraged this atmosphere of violence in any way.
And, as someone studied in the consequences of developmental trauma, I feel such dismay and hopelessness at how to heal such deep alienation and pain that prompts someone—too many—to commit murder, especially on a massive scale.
So what DO I tell you?
First, I don’t really know. Nothing is sufficient.
And then, I remind myself that I must continue to build my compassion and self-care so that I can BE with others holding such pain—CRITICAL!
Healing happens in relationship, so when you enlarge your own capacity to sit with what seems too big to endure, you grow your ability to be fully present with those on a very challenging healing journey.
I kayaked way upstream, back into the marshes. I paddled under a small bridge, and came to some shallow waters, surrounded by deep woods…
Where a brook bubbles down…to become part of something much larger.
That small trickle contributing to this lake that, in my second year of kayaking here, I still have not fully explored.
Big trauma never goes away.
It leaves massive holes in our lives.
How can we be our own bubbling brooks, emptying into a larger body of flow?
The more you and I can be fully present with others facing the worst that life can bring, the more we use our empathy in service of building connection and love.
* While there is no universally agreed upon required number to qualify as a “mass shooting,” most sources cite having either three or four people shot, excluding the perpetrator.
P.S.
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