What {Really} Matters?.
I recently attended the book tour of We Can Do Hard Things, in Denver, CO, and the following was a reflection of that time:
Hard things: Turning on the news and hearing the unthinkable—children, unrepresented, standing trial… only wanting to know where their parents are in a world too big and too scary. Propaganda that somehow sows debates about whether “some” deserve access to basic human needs- food, education, healthcare, … human dignity.
Witnessing the systematic dismantling of protections for our Earth and nature, which is strained to nurture all the building “needs” we seek as a human species. As if she is a limitless machine, instead of our shared mother, straining to meet the insatiable demands of human “progress”.
Not hard things: Sitting shoulder to shoulder with a dear friend in a room of 1,870+ humans—of every gender, background, and story—united not by sameness but rather by longing. Hearing from [FREAKIN’] Abby Wambach, Glennon Doyle, Amanda Doyle and Tish Melton, and being reminded that We. Can. (MUST) Do. Hard. Things.—
Such as:
Continuing to hold hope for those who need to be reminded that we don’t have to agree on all things, but we do need to treat each other with dignity, respect, and trust.
By showing up in small ways when the world feels split open.
By engaging in places of our privilege, on behalf of those who society is scripting a narrative of trying to coerce us to be either afraid of them or to erase them.
By choosing dignity over division.
By trusting others to live their stories without needing to control, fix, or advise from our limited lens.
By witnessing them into being by offering safe places to simply wonder.
I believe, with the threads of my being:
No one person holds access to “The Truth”. That healing, personal, and collective- will not come until everyone has access to enough. And the safety to share with one another from our limited perspective, with curiosity as our tool- to keep growing, learning, unlearning, re-learing, forming, becoming…. and holding truths. When we erase some, we erase parts of us all.
As a mental health counselor, I hold the sacred seat of witness.
And what I’ve seen again and again is this:
Transformation doesn’t emerge from perfection or performance.
It grows from the wisdom of our wounds.
When we stop hiding the parts of ourselves we’ve tried hardest to cover—
In exploring and examining the crevices of our own pain, we come to discover- that we, too, belong.
It is here where we can release the grasp to protect others from knowing what we have tried hard to cover up- that which actually unites and can teach us.
If we linger for a moment longer, we begin to connect threads of story, ancestry, and history—
Threads that reveal we have been both recipients and participants in generational harm and trauma.
And that means this:
We all have a role to play in collective healing.
Not one of us is exempt.
In my practice, I often say:
“Counseling is for everyone, because growth is for all.”
We belong to a larger story, and we need everyone to join in on the act of healing, or we will never collectively heal.
That which we refuse to name, we cannot transform. And we need everyone to show up and courageously enter the shadows, where we find the most exiled parts of ourselves—
And those are often the ones most capable of radical love and deep empathy. For self. And for others.
That is where healing lives.
That is where bridges begin to form across fragmentation.
That is where compassion overtakes hatred.
That is where fear dissolves into the freedom to respectfully say:
“I honor your way” …. even when it’s different than my way.
When we offer respect and generosity instead of power-over and singularity—
We cultivate a remembrance that even our “enemies” who are acting out of fear, are full of love- it’s just manifesting as a FIERCE SHIELD to try to protect something deep within they are terrified to dis-cover. Under the difference, there is a kin whom we must reconcile to, first in the part within our-selves.
Here is a pathway where humility and empowerment marry,
Follow that wild trail where your curiosity leads the way, and we begin to trust, one step at a time… not to engage first with fear, but rather the image of the very best and most beautiful parts within one another.
We create a safe space, first within & then more generously offered out.
Like the tides, we start to sync back into rhythm of harmony. Of the way it “ought” to be.
And from that space, we remember that at the end of the day, at the end of this wild and precious life:
The only thing that really matters in this lifespan is that all. beings. matter.
How did you let them know that they mattered?
#WeCanDoHardThings