Healing in Community
I’ve been struggling for a long time with grieving the state of the world. I now have a lot more awareness of how it has shown up in my life, but for a long time it was simply an unnamed numbness or despair. Grief for the state of our planet is a lot more common than people would think, however until recently we culturally have not recognized it as valid. When not expressed in community, grief becomes anxiety and depression.
I volunteer at a youth group on Sunday’s and a few weeks ago we had a conversation about the invasion of Ukraine. The kids walked into the room fairly agitated and anxious. They were all kind of joking about it, but underneath I sensed that they were pretty nervous. I asked everyone to raise their hand if they were scared about what was happening and everyone did. I then lead the kids in a trauma release exercise where we all shake and breath. They started laughing and the energy in the room immediately changed. I felt a great weight lift off of me. Later in the day I was spending time with some friends and as I was turning to leave, their 5 year old daughter ran up to me and gave me a hug. In that moment I felt a profound love for her and her family and a commitment to do everything I could to protect her future.
The week before I had been on the verge of having a nervous breakdown over everything going on in the world and felt completely powerless. Yet seeing the vulnerability of these kids, I felt stronger and more able to carry on. When I am feeling like it is me vs. the world and am only thinking about myself and my own needs, I feel overwhelmed and powerless. However, when I think about all of the people I love and how precious life is I immediately feel stronger and more empowered to act.
Building personal and community resilience
In life we all go through emotionally challenging experiences. When people and communities face repeated hardships and tragedy, something can happen called empathy fatigue. This means that we diminish our capacity to connect with others and struggle more to address the pain we are feeling.
On the other hand I have seen so many amazing ways people have come together in crisis. Studies have found that some individuals handle major life challenges and upheaval differently. Emotional Resilience is one’s ability to navigate these events and come out stronger on the other end. Difficult experiences like the death of a loved one, divorce or experiencing a natural disaster. The most important defining factor of how successful we are at navigating new situations and upheaval is the strength of our relationships and connections with our community.
Many studies have shown that communities which have gone through a disaster can actually strengthen social bonds and be motivated to make positive changes. In moments of loss and heartbreak we all have the choice to come together as a community and support each other or turn away from one another. Pink Floyd says it well in their song ‘On the Turning Away.’ “Don’t accept that what’s happening Is just a case of others’ suffering. Or you’ll find that you’re joining in The turning away.”
Do we let trauma and pain diminish our capacity to love and connect or do we let it open our hearts more? Today we are exposed to an extreme amount of violence and negative news in the media. Because human beings are highly empathetic, it is possible to develop a trauma response to events without being directly exposed but just by seeing or hearing about it in the media. Instances of suicide, depression and anxiety are skyrocketing and emotionally charged media coverage could be one major cause.
There is also a widespread amount of emotional numbing and dissociation happening to individuals as a natural response to the hyper levels of stress we are exposed to, making us less capable to connect and move forward from tragedies and create positive change. In today’s day and age widespread tragedies that impact entire communities, like natural disasters or mass shootings are becoming more and more common. These events have the potential to further isolate communities and drive more antisocial behavior, or to bring them together making them stronger. Several studies have shown that in times of disaster the recovery of the community was connected to the personal connections and ties in the community and their shared sense of belonging to that community.
Researchers have also found that it is possible for the experience of a traumatic event to create positive long term outcome in individuals like greater appreciation of life, increased appreciation and strengthening of close relationships, more compassion and altruism, identification of new possibilities or a purpose in life, greater awareness and utilization of personal strengths, and enhanced spiritual development and Creative growth. A person’s emotional health before the trauma and how they respond to trauma after the event impact their recovery and growth afterwards.
The defining factor for developing PTSD and having repeating, long-term negative life experiences has a lot to do with the communal support someone receives and how they view the experience. Most cultures throughout history have had community rituals and traditions allowing community and individual grief to be expressed. Psychologically if grief is not processed on an individual level it can lead to emotional repression and numbness, loss of motivation, depression and anxiety, or anger and a desire to blame something or someone.
On a community level unprocessed grief is the cause of war and violence. When two sides cannot grieve their losses and forgive each other it can lead to generations of hatred. A good example of this is the Israel/Palestine conflict. With each tragedy and act of violence each side becomes more entrenched in their viewpoint and bitter towards each other. Finding ways to communally express grief is essential to creating healthy communities.
Undeniably we are living in a time of unprecedented change. Our communities and environment are stretched to the breaking point and the world is calling us to action. In the midst of this I think a much more important question to ask than “what are you afraid of?” is “what do you love?” Action is so much more powerful from love than from fear.
Personally, I love this amazing planet — I love the mountains, the ocean, the trees, the amazing diversity of life. I love my family, my friends, and the people around me. All of the silly and beautiful things humans create out of love — our incredible works of art, compassion and beauty. When we frame our problems in terms of survival we naturally shut down. I would argue something vastly more important than our survival is at stake. This vast and amazing world of beauty and life. I am so grateful to have so many amazing, beautiful, and powerful people around me that are already willing to live the change they want to see in the world. So, I ask you: What do you love? What do you have to protect? And what kind of a world do you want to create?