Powerless.

Helpless.

Scared.

Dissonance.

Grief-stricken.

The energy this week has been thick…these were words shared with me as I made space to check in during client sessions about how the state of the world is landing in their hearts.

It’s hard to not check in, to not bring it up, though some want to turn away; others have a lot to say.

Everything, absolutely everything, we are doing in our day-to-day lives has changed context and feel.

The impact landing differently as the reactions to the impact of war move differently through each system.

I notice, beneath it all, a kind of shame about feeling powerless or helpless, afraid of what may come, grief over the losses, or confusion due to the dissonance of war happening more loudly via our screens while life remains completely the same around us.

It’s confusing. Everything is not fine.

And, depending on who we are and where we are on the globe, everything is fine, also.

It doesn’t help that, at least in the Western world, it’s generally not acceptable to feel powerless or helpless.

People on social media preach all the time about not being afraid, not being a victim, not giving in to fear-based thinking, that no one is ever truly helpless. It’s pitched as a false narrative or negative belief.

What this does is shame valid, honest experiences and reactions to war, trauma, and loss.

It creates more tension, not less fear.

There are things in this life that we simply do not have control over.

We are human; we are not omnipotent.

War.

Trauma.

Death and loss.

These are things, among others, we do not have control over.

These events often trigger feelings of powerlessness or helplessness because of old traumatic experiences, natural reactions to horrific situations, loss, personal crisis, memories of past experiences of war, and so on.

It’s okay to feel scared; it’s a perfectly scary thing.

Life is like this sometimes.

It has been too much of a lot of things and and too much of not enough of other things for too long now.

It’s natural to question where there is goodness in the world, if there really is a loving God who is helping us all in this life or how this loving God could let something like this happen.

Questioning one’s beliefs is a natural progression of processing and metabolizing grief connected to these experiences.

There is power in feeling powerless, a deep help available inside a sense of feeling helpless.

We always, always land in a place of reassessing what matters the most to us when we admit we don’t know, feel scared, don’t know what to do, or feel powerless. Much like rock bottom is filled with a lot of fertile soil.

Hurt people hurt the world.

The horrific wars that happen are a result of human beings who are terribly unstable and have a tremendous amount of psychological issues.

This is not God.

If we look closely enough, parallel to the horror, there is also good happening as life is organizing itself against the war. It might not look how we want it to, not now in the world anyway, or in the moments of our lives where we ourselves are grieving losses or healing from traumas.

There is tremendous wisdom and loving mystery to the Source of life and we don’t get to understand it, no matter how much we want to or think we do.

But it is there, in the small and larger pockets of good, weaving itself like a golden thread, doing what it needs to do.

With the New Moon in Pisces, we are called to contemplate in what and where we will put our faith.

One of the deepest ways we can repair our hearts from trauma, loss, and war is mending our relationship with Source and looking toward where we can take refuge, draw nourishment and nurturing in a trying time.

Prayer, ritual, and contemplation are always for us first, for refuge and sanity.

The depth of feeling we share when we empathize with what happens around us offers us transformation.

It’s so important to make spaces to allow ourselves to feel the impact of life, to keep our hearts open and allow love (grief) to work its magic so we become more compassionate. As much as we can or have the capacity for in any given moment of time. The more we make space, the more capacity we grow to have.

When we metabolize our pain, this grief is an active ingredient that turns into creativity, kindness, care, wisdom, resilience, aligned action, and a rooted openheartedness that is stable and safe in times of change.

Sitting with our powerlessness ultimately brings us into surrender, where we find not only a power greater than ourselves, but a kind of refuge in something loving that we’ve been looking for all along.

We can offer what we cannot handle ourselves to the earth, to our ancestors, to the tree people, to the animal spirits, to guardians of our lands—there are many spirits longing and ready to carry our messages and offerings to fuel the fire of change we cannot yet understand.

Let us pour more care into our bodies than ever before. Even more than we think we need.

Our bodies live only in this present moment.

When our minds are racing and taking in more information than our systems can process, it already causes stress.

But, vicarious and/or secondary trauma from witnessing traumatic situations is stressful. It triggers old traumas and a stress responses in the body.

Discernment is so key in our consumption of news, especially in a time when reality is up for grabs.

These are daring, mind-boggling, heart-shattering, and potent times.

We are all also humanning the best we can, loving, working, living, caring, tending, and doing all the things we long for to create purpose, beauty, and meaning in our lives.

It’s not one or the other; its all in the wholeness, all in the context.

Some of it brings us to our knees…and may we land softly on our knees with humble offerings to the land, asking her to help us open the way for safety, peace, healing, and love for us all.

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it—always.” ~ Gandhi

More love.

Not less.

And…also, chocolate.

~