How to Heal from Collective Grief and Trauma
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Challenging Times
I, like many of you, had a hard couple of days this week. Wednesday morning, I woke up feeling "off." I woke up very early in the morning with a racing heart and a feeling within that I needed to "let go." It resulted in cathartic journaling, and I thought the feeling had passed. It didn't. I remained raw and unsettled as the morning progressed.
Later in the day, I was able to join the Gateway Farms restorative yoga class we've been sponsoring, and as I nearly melted into my mat during the sound bath, I felt okay; maybe I'm OK now. But when in the office later, I found myself reaching for words, my brain fuzzy and my nerves misfiring.
It wasn't until I was back home that I heard the news. Two headlines of tragic gun violence. The second mass school shooting since the school year began. My body started rebelling. I felt nauseous, clammy, weak, and ill.
Today, as I write this on Thursday morning, I still don't feel better. In fact, I feel increasingly sick. I can absolutely attribute this to back-to-school season germs, sure, and carry on. However, I sense there's something deeper here as I tune into my intuition. I wonder if I'm feeling into the collective unwell - the sickening of America.
How do we heal from collective grief and trauma?
We all know what's going on and see it blasted on our feeds every day. I don't need to repeat the same triggering headlines. It's disheartening, discouraging, and exhausting. That is the part I want to address. Because when you're living in a constant state of crisis (which it feels we have been globally since the pandemic began), the emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical fatigue has real consequences.
When we fatigue through trauma - collective, indirect, or direct - we start to lose our grasp on hope, gratitude, and compassion. The sustaining crises zap our empathy reserves and serve as a motivational kill-switch as we witness failure after failure. What I also see as anger and rage - blame, throwing rhetorical vitriol, cutting people off - is actually grief. In fact, I'd go out on a limb to say that grief is the overwhelming tone of our current state.
Reflections on Grief and Loss
And yet - grief isn't something you can fix. Grief doesn't ever go away. It's persistent, everlasting, and so painful. It hits you at predictable and unpredictable moments, can shake you to the ground, and make you wonder about faith, fairness, and justice. Because grief is so nuanced and omnipresent, we have a hard time even admitting it, and so we instead respond with anger.
Grief, when we can name it, is a beautiful thing because it reminds us that we lost something worthy and essential. Right now, I believe our collective rage and violence are, in fact, the unrealized loss of what once felt safe, human, and loving. There has been so much uncertainty in America - from climate change, to mass deportations, to political fighting, to gun violence and raging disease - it's terrifying.
There is loss in that enduring uncertainty. The American Dream feels so off-base when there is so much suffering and unrest, and a future without hopes and dreams is devastating. And when unrecognized grief gets channeled into blame and violence, we're only spiraling downwards - towards more disconnection, more dissatisfaction, and more despair.
Self-Preservation is Community Care
I think you all know by now that I do not pretend to have answers. These are complex times. One note that is essential: your self-preservation matters. Each individual who is mindfully taking care of themselves and their mental health makes a difference. Ripples of compassion matter when the collective is unwell.
When we tend to ourselves, we open up the capacity within our heart to be receptive and loving of others. When we get out of our own stress spirals, we are responsive instead of reactive, aligned with what is of the highest and greatest good for all.
I believe and have witnessed the fact that the only way out is through. We have to be human. We have to feel. We have to stop desensizting ourselves to tragedy. While acceptance can be a powerful tool, it’s not the answer now. In times like these, I reflect on the work of David Hawkins, who talks about his Map of Consciousness. Grief is reasonable but also paralyzing. Anger feels purposeful but it is divisive. As we move up the map we can move into a willingness to engage with intention and optimism. We then give way for forgiveness and understanding. It is by feeling these feelings and moving through them - not staying stuck in them - that we make progress.
Slowing Down
But how do we experience this grief and anger while aiming for engagement and hope, even love as a currency? We must address the trauma and grief we're all carrying.
I see so many people trying to jump straight into action without acknowledging that we're genuinely mourning real losses. We each need to slow down and sit with the sadness, allow ourselves to be human and not robots, before we can figure out what to do next. In this season of my life, I've learned again and again how important rest is. And sometimes the most civic thing I can do is rest and return when I'm restored. More than anything else, our future depends on people who can engage for the long haul.
The answers are not in a bullet point list or written by someone else. The steps forward come from dropping into your heart - to travel towards the tender parts, the hurting parts, and to center in the most loving and wise part. It’s only from that deep well of peace that we can process what is occurring and know how to act next. This is the real work of our times.
And learning and practicing the harmony of compassionate collective responses while also tending to ourselves is one step towards maintaining our hold on what we value most deeply. When I think about the future I'm grieving I realize what I'm really mourning is the loss of a world where we could trust that our children would be safe at school, where our neighbors felt like neighbors, where hope felt realistic. Those things are worth protecting, worth the gentle, sustained work of showing up for each other and for ourselves.
Because again, the mental health of citizens IS the health of our democracy and our future.
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This week’s Tools, Gratitude, Innovation, Feels
Tools: Energetically, when you feel depleted and dragged through the mud - carrying others’ big feelings - I use the tool of an Energetic Drain mini-practice. I picture a warm, glowing light coming from the sun or moon, and as it passes through me, it cleanses me. Anything that is not mine or does not serve me gets to drain out through my feet, and the Earth absorbs and alchemizes it. I repeat to myself, “only love and light flow through me”. It’s been helping tremendously.
Gratitude: I’ve started creating space for myself once a week to have a me-date. My dear spouse has his golf on Mondays, but for me, it’s about a quiet community and connection to myself. I’ve found myself on those nights gravitating to spending time in the waiting rooms of our offices. Getting to be around our team, catch them between sessions while quietly working in my pjs on the couch, is a joy I’m so grateful for.
Innovation: When I couldn’t articulate my feelings this week, this post did a pretty good job at it. Feeling something deeply is wrong and naming that things are not okay allowed me to feel validated. For all its nonsense, there are moments of ingenuity and helpfulness on social media.
Feels: I think the hardest part about these times is the balance of “things are really awful” and “I want to have a joyful day.” I’m not in the camp of accepting things the way they are, but I also want to feel joy amidst it all. I’m still learning how to put this into practice but I know that tiny mindful moments of seeing glimmers, embodying gratitude and connecting with nature and others helps.