This week has felt especially draining, and there’s a tangible lack of order to the routine that I’ve fallen into the past month or so. For the past couple days, I’ve said no to glass and no to regimented workouts and no to writing these very notes because running through the motions just to run through the motions would be missing the point of why I do these things entirely. A lot of the things that we just have to do, are simply obligations we assign too much arbitrary weight to.
I’m going to eat with my family instead.
And this means not bitching ‘n moaning either when things don’t go as planned, and you don’t get to do what you want to do (regardless of how long you’ve been looking forward to it). This is something I am (and will continue to be) endlessly guilty of: “...not right now, I have work to do”, or some snarky semblance of this. And it usually follows a simple request like: “Can you feed the dogs?” or “I need your help running to the post office” or “Can you please finish up X, Y, & Z?”.
If you’re unconvinced of my selfish tendencies, just ask my mother, and she’ll gladly enlighten you.
This fits beautifully with this week’s theme: honoring.
Sometimes honoring other people just means putting your head down and saying yes.
Yes, period. No commentary. No bitching. And especially no inner begrudging.
This connects especially well with a three-and-a-half minute self-titled animation I came across recently called “Brené Brown on Blame” (an all-too-real must watch, along with the clip linked below).
On another note, I think we’re all fatigued by the atrocities against people of color in this nation, especially with its growing media coverage. It’s all largely unprocessed in my head, and the question of how I even begin to process it remains unanswered.
It’s incredibly abstract and faceless in my head and the unrelenting pace of our news cycle sure doesn’t help.
I think the difference is that when we experience personal tragedy or trauma in our lives, it’s expected that we take time to mourn and process the event(s). But when it’s a series of widespread national atrocities, or global ones, we lose (or at least, I lose) this sense of “mine-ness” or ownership, so-to-say, over the event, making it feel like I’m not in the position to feel as deeply as those more nuclear to the event.
What makes suffering unique is that usually we are alone in our suffering. I’m the only one experiencing this, though many others struggle with similar things. And in this, I think it makes it easier for us to feel what we really feel, because we acknowledge I’m the only one feeling these feelings, so no one can tell me otherwise.
And for those reading this that know me, don’t be concerned about my wellbeing, I’m writing this for the pure sake of exploring thought. If I was drowning in some unnameable pool of suffering, you’d surely hear the gurgling.
Anyyyywayssss….
There is no end to human suffering, as there is no cap to love. It’s not a zero sum game. The capacity for the collective human (and might I offer, non-human) experience is infinite. Hurting is hurting, period, regardless of its scale. In order for us to honor the gravity of our emotions, we must not tie the validity of our hurting (or uncertainty or whatever we might feel) to its worldly relevance. There is always going to be someone, some population suffering in a greater, more inconceivable way than you, and additionally, it is not your duty to bear their burden for them.
We are not responsible, nor should feel obligated, to aid in someone else’s evolution. That is their journey, and their journey alone.
But this does not mean that we don’t practice empathy or action.
To put it as Brené Brown does in another one of my favorite clips of hers, “On Empathy” (also a three minute animation), “empathy is feeling with people”. To reference my word of the week again, this is the purest and most whole way we can honor each other’s humanity. She continues, “in order to connect with you, I have to connect with something in myself that knows that feeling”. It’s not enough to recognize someone else’s display of vulnerability. The act of empathy, as Brené describes, is bridging our own humanity to others in an act of building collective integrity.
Note (Added 5/30): In light of recent events and to hopefully prevent misinterpretation, I’d like to clarify a few points above. First being that when facing systemic issues and injustices, it IS our place to step in, and step up, in whatever capacity we have. To at least display solidarity. And sometimes that means we are of great, direct action, and sometimes that means supporting someone in that place, and sometimes that means taking a moment to understand what it all means for ourselves before moving forward. What I stated above: “it is not your duty to bear their burden for them” is to follow in the line of personal/spiritual growth, and is not a statement of how to react (which, regardless, I have no jurisdiction of advising) to how one should deal with civil unrest and injustice, in fact, quite the opposite. What I was urging in the statement: “We are not responsible, nor should feel obligated, to aid in someone else’s evolution,” (which on second thought I should’ve phrased in the positive), is that we will never be able to take away someone’s hurting by doing the work for them. Again, someone else’s evolution “is their journey, and their journey alone”. Our job is to not fix our friends and loved ones. At the end of the day we only have control over our own evolution.