Keeping Your Heart Soft in a Hardened World
Y’all, it has been a hot minute since I’ve written anything. The last 6+ months have been so busy for me — both personally, at work, in life, etc. The world also feels like it is totally spinning out of control on most days. For a while, I’ve wanted to write something, but honestly don’t know that I’ve had the words. The last few months in particular have been really hard for me and for people in my life — setbacks, disappointments, hatred, division, racism, oppression, and misogyny showing up in the world on a daily basis on the national stage, the sudden loss of young people who have left us too soon, a shooting at Brown (a place that will always have a special place in my heart), relational shifts, an endless to-do list, and the list goes on. Do you ever just feel like it is all too much? It has all felt super heavy and overwhelming for the last few months.
The state of our world and particularly our country makes me deeply sad and deeply angry. It feels so overwhelming and I’m not sure how to find my footing in terms of what I’m supposed to do. I’m seeing real ways that the national landscape, harmful rhetoric, and outright hatred of fellow human beings is showing up locally and in our communities. It isn’t just an “out there” problem, but a problem showing up here too. People are experiencing things that are just simply not okay. I still don’t really have an answer to those big questions about what I am supposed to do here, or what any of us are supposed to do. I wish I had more clear answers. In the meantime, I have tried to focus my efforts on showing up for the people in my real life, in my own community, and in the interactions I have everyday. I feel like I am stumbling through that imperfectly, but I’m trying. When the world feels so big and overwhelming, I feel like it is an invitation for me to focus on the micro things, as that is where I have the most “control” in terms of how I show up. It means I want to treat people better, to try to do some good in the world, to listen well, to empathize. In order to do all of that, I keep reminding myself that I need to take good care of myself. I am leaning back into my routines to keep me grounded and centered and in a place where I can give my best to the people around me. It’s really hard work.
The other thing that does feel clear to me is that I keep being invited to keep my heart soft in this season. I have cried more at things I see on social media, my own life and stories I hear about in the world over the last several months than I have in a while. Although it may feel overwhelming at times, I am trying to look at this as a beautiful invitation to keep my heart soft. The world we are operating in right now is largely functioning in a state of fear, of hatred, and I find that to be such a cold way to live. I was given a heart for a reason — it feels things, it longs for things, it can look at another person and see the humanity of them. It is such a gift — a beautiful and terrible gift sometimes, but a gift. The last thing I want to do right now is have my heart be so hardened that I stop feeling. It feels like a tricky balance, because our nervous systems can only handle so much destruction, devastation and division in one day (so it’s okay to protect yourself too), but I don’t want my heart to stop feeling things. This is what makes me human. I also want to acknowledge that letting your heart feel the weight of everything doesn’t mean that we just sit at home and sit in our feelings (there is certainly a time and a place for that). But I think that my feelings and my own humanity can be the place that my action in the world comes from. My action in the world is much more meaningful when it comes from a deep place of love, of longing, and of hope for something better.
I don’t know how to hold the weight of the world right now — I don’t have the answers, I don’t know how we proceed here. But I do long for a world that is tuned into the needs of another, able to see each other’s shared humanity, able to operate out of love and not fear, and can create something better than what we have now. I keep hope alive because it keeps me going everyday. I have hope when I look in the face of a child, when I have a conversation with a college student who has big dreams and plans for themselves, and when I look at the ocean. There is still hope and feeling our feelings matters. I think it is the only way we survive in a world that has become so hardened towards each other.
