Breathing Through
The Pains of This Moment
One thing I cherish about my community is that it is full of people who love our world and want to change it for the better. To see it become more just, more life-affirming.
For people like us, it has been a year full of particularly painful news, seeing families and communities being targeted and torn apart by agents of the US government. I won’t (and can’t) list all of the current horrors we’re living through—I will specifically name the ongoing war on the people of Gaza as one atrocity that has weighed on me heavily, every day for the past two and a half years.
As I take in what’s happening, I feel myself swing back and forth between rage, fear, grief, and sometimes, numbness. Thanks to the work of the late Joanna Macy, I know that there’s no such thing as partial numbness. When we numb painful feelings, it always numbs our joys as well; “flowers are dimmer and less fragrant, our loves less ecstatic.” (Macy, 1993).
This is because our heartbreak from the pain we see in the world is intimately intertwined with our love for the world. They are two sides of the same, profoundly human coin.
When we are connected to our deep love for the world, we are courageous and creative, two qualities that we greatly need to call forth and contribute to navigate these times in which we’re living. I am blown away by the people of Minneapolis and Gaza (among many others) demonstrating these qualities, day after day, in brutally harsh conditions.
A Resource for Keeping Our Hearts Intact
Left unaddressed, our heartbreak and anger can get in the way of us showing up coherently with our values. It’s a courageous choice to be willing to look at, let alone touch, our anger, grief, and sadness. So I want to share with you a resource that has helped me greatly with this choice: Breathing Through.
This 13-minute meditative practice is led by Joanna Macy, and this recording comes from “We Are The Great Turning,” a podcast created by my friend and mentor Jess Serrante in collaboration with her friend and mentor, Joanna.
Breathing Through supports us to open our hearts to the painful feelings that arise as we see what’s happening in our world. And—crucially—not to hold onto them. To let this pain into our hearts, to breathe it through, and to send it back out into the world in the form of love. This is not a practice of wallowing or over-identifying with our pain, but of honoring it. If we let it, the pain will alchemize into something we can use to strengthen us and guide our actions.
Joanna also reminds us that this work of honoring our pain “is not a solo venture, no matter how alone we may feel. It is a process undertaken in the context of community even if a community of like-minded peers is not physically present.” (Macy, 1993). If you choose to join us in this practice, thank you! I’d love to connect to hear about your experience.
“To experience anguish and anxiety in the face of the perils that threaten us is a healthy reaction. Far from being crazy, this pain is a testimony to the unity of life, the deep interconnections that relate us to all beings...
For all the discomfort, there is healing in such openness, for ourselves and for our world. To accept the collective pain reconnects us with our fellow beings and our deep collective energies.”