How do we begin to traverse the trauma...?

It is hard not to be enveloped by the slippery despondency of heartbreak as we witness the acute eruptions of violent, angry unrest befalling our nation right now. In its most recent—yet, eternally shocking and senseless incarnation—America’s racial violence has, once again, threatened to eviscerate the very fabric of freedom—the hopeful, optimistic premise—on which this country was inherently built. It has been heinous, overwhelming, terrifying.

In light of all that we have experienced recently, it stands to reason that the response-wave of fear, outrage and aggression has spread across this country, this world, in an eerily similar symptomatic momentum to that of the virus. The world has been inflamed and throbbing with a cellular sensitivity that has only heightened its speed of conductivity. And it is understandable.

The feelings that have compelled some of us to march, to protest, to riot are legitimate. They are valid. It is vitally important for all of us to take the time to grieve, to acknowledge, to feel the heightened emotions that have come in response the the egregious circumstances, situations, incidents that we have witnessed, that we have experienced individually and collectively. This entire year has thus far been filled with radical change, consummate unrest, rapacious chaos. There are dynamic, dramatic things that we must exorcize from our wounded spirits so that we can mend our hearts—our connection—to ourselves and each other. There is no life hack around human emotion—we have to journey through to feel better. And in order to find a better feeling place, it is vital to discover and acknowledge how we feel, now, in the present moment.

It is important that we—individually and as a collective—find a better feeling place than where we are now.

If where we rest our attention is where we focus our energy—and if what we focus on gets bigger—then scientific law dictates that the longer we stay in this cycle of violence, disempowerment, fear, the more we stay in this chain of pain, the more we will create opportunities to feel pain. The longer we stay in this acutely raw and wounded realm, the more practiced we become at compounding that within ourselves and eliciting that from others. For, it is truly only hurt people who intentionally hurt people.

It is so important to feel the heart-wrenching despair, the guttural grief, the cellular sorrow that incinerates our expectation, and punctures our belief in humanKINDness. We are sentient beings, brilliantly equipped in these physical bodies that were built for emotional communication between our soul and our selves; instruments meant to play the music moving between energy and matter.

...And MOVE it must, lest we get caught in the endless loop of aggressive and misunderstood axioms that someone else holds endowment over our own feeling of empowerment.

As we navigate the profound emotional topography of hatred, fear, separation and intolerance, I cannot help but hold space for us to move through the tumult of trying so hard to rationalize the “whys” of our most recent friction using our brains, and instead, move further down into our heart space. I cannot help but hold the intention that if we can somehow choose to migrate through this portal to that place at which we are all one, we will rebuild from the emotional and physical rubble an inclusive, compassionate, loving framework to embrace, encourage and support every single person that inhabits this beautiful country, this beautiful world.

Honor your fear, swell with rage, sob with sorrow over what has transpired. Allow your heart to cleanse its cluttered cardiovascular system with tears of utter exasperation. And then let us each, when we are ready, make an intention to save that heart space for the construction of a new, better, brighter tomorrow.