Right now as individuals we are suffering, and so as a society, as the collective, we are suffering. When one suffers we all suffer. What we have been doing, how we have been in a relationship with ourselves, our relationships with one another is not working. We are all suffering immensely.

Take time to look inside. Get to know your light and dark, get acquainted with your trauma and suffering. Spend time with each of them, lovingly tend to them with compassion. When you look inside and allow all that is present to be, the war raging within will come to a ceasefire and inner peace will follow. When you acknowledge the light and dark inside, the suppressed emotions stop making such a racket. When you find acceptance the suppressed emotions stop making so much noise.

Heal yourself, and you will start the process of healing your community, the whole. When you begin the noble quest of healing yourself, when you become intimate with your pain, you are able to see how connected we all are. Look inside and realize we are all the same. Your love and compassion for others with multiple once you realize the stranger, the other is a part of you. You begin to recognize that if you don’t look at your darkness, if you don’t acknowledge your pain you spread it to others, like a virus infecting all you come into contact with. You realize we all have trauma, we all have a darkness that we are battling within. As you heal yourself your connection to the whole grows. As you open to your true nature you begin to open to others.

How we treat each other is not working. We are not United as a Nation, we are individuals disconnected from our emotions, our suffering, disconnected from each other, and the whole. We are a Nation of individuals filled with fear choosing to self-medicate, suppress, and minimize rather than acknowledging the suffering within. In our resistance to acknowledge the pain, we spread our self-denial and self-hate, like a pandemic. We have normalized the behavior of projecting our individual trauma onto others. We blame, point fingers, and criticize. When you look at your pain, your darkness you can learn from it, so that when we fail again we can fail better. If you don’t look at the pain, if you don’t talk about the trauma there is no growth or learning. At current, our culture is a fertile environment for trauma to give rise to more trauma.

Let’s change the environment. What if our cultural environment fostered our individual healing where trauma begets healing? The time to look inside, the time to heal is today. Avoiding, suppressing, projecting, is not working. It is time to try something new- address the uncomfortable, look within, accept all that you are. Befriend fear, hold your fear in loving awareness and begin to witness your entire self. When you fully accept yourself you can fully accept others. We are all being called to bring about change. Change comes in small and big ways, from individuals and communities. Make time for change today and look inside.  Befriend your uncomfortable emotions, witness them, and allow them to be. Terminate the spread of your suffering to others. Heal yourself so you can show up and support others who are in the midst of trauma.  Today you can make a change for social justice by acknowledging the darkness within. When you heal yourself you help heal the whole.