Women at Rest

Quote of the Day

Just sit there right now.
Don't do a thing, just rest.
For your separation from God, from love,
Is the hardest work in the world.
~Hafiz

The Slippery Slope of Empathy

To say this has been a heart-wrenching month is a massive understatement. I myself have been obsessed with following Katrina-related news, sometimes checking MSNBC and CNN every few minutes. No, that's no typo--I really actually truly mean minutes. Still. Even today. I'm pretty sure you'll agree that frequency at this point is less than healthy if not stark raving bonkers. Particularly taking into account that it has:

• Blocked my flow and stopped my writing (hello, it's 2+ weeks since my last post!)
• Slashed my productivity and cut into time spent with family and friends
• Fueled my feelings of rage, despair and helplessness

Enough is enough, but more than enough is too much. I'm officially on a news sabbatical for the rest of the weekend. Even HappyNews.com is gettin' the heave-ho.

P.S. Would someone please email me if Seattle gets evacuation orders today or tomorrow?!? ;} <---tenuous smile with a half-wink

5 Ways to Overcome Helplessness

Today a woman in our Women at Rest Inspiration Group asked us an important question. I'm sharing it here along with my response. This is the first time I've been able to write since last week's disaster began to unfurl and seized my heart.

Her Question: I was just wondering what techniques people are using to cope with the general feeling of depression that most people I know are experiencing right now? The aftermath of Katrina is horrific and even friends who have limited their news reading have been feeling down. It makes sense to me that anyone with an ounce of sensitivity would be affected with the raw power of all the feelings going on right now--rage, helplessness, despair, grief.

My Response: I’m certainly cycling through all the feelings you mentioned: rage, helplessness, despair, grief and depression. Witnessing, praying about and feeling the pain of all that's happening (or not happening) down south is exhausting work which, both spiritually and emotionally, has a lot of us simultaneously on our knees and up in arms.

I keep wishing I was physically in Louisiana, Mississippi or Texas so I could funnel these emotions into ACTIONS that immediately help others. For me, it's the sense of helplessness that leads directly into a big black hole of rage.

There will be plenty of time to address the rage. Right now I am trying to stay focused on how I can help. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

1. Rather than making one big donation, every morning I donate $10 or $20 to a different organization. It makes me feel like I'm doing something tangible and useful EVERY DAY. Here's a bunch of meaningful places to donate. My husband, a former U.S. Army Ranger, and I are also huge supporters of Veterans For Peace giving personal, immediate, hands-on aid throughout LA.
2. Keeping a list of other ways I can help, such as heading south to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity this winter, celebrating Christmas by donating toys and clothes instead of swapping gifts, socializing with friends by attending concerts and benefits that raise money for the relief effort (my church has one this month), honoring commitments to help in my own backyard (I volunteer weekly at Seattle Children's Hospital).
3. Practicing self care by resting, getting enough sleep, exercising (I don't do it often enough but boy does it release some of the stress), soaking my feet at night, getting a new haircut + color, giving more hugs and snuggles. Lots of emphasis on the physical helps balance and no doubt distract the emotional, mental and spiritual drain.
4. Limiting how much I talk about this. I think about it all the time. I follow CNN, MSNBC and independent news pretty closely, but am neither ready nor have the energy to verbally process what’s happening. And I simply cannot -- cannot -- handle stories about the animals. :(
5. Seek out wisdom. I’m desperate for wise words and guidance. It’s why I posted this article on my blog and eagerly welcome your links to other voices of wisdom.

Blessings to us all and this fragile, needful world.

"We Were Made for These Times" by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times.

I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The luster and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking.

Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes.

For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency too to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear.

Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely.

It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing.

We know that it does not take "everyone on Earth" to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire.

To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these -- to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are act of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.

If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do. There will always be times when you feel discouraged.

I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.

The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here.

The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here.

In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for. This comes with much love and a prayer that you remember who you came from, and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D
Dr. Estés is a psychoanalyst; Member Hispanic Journalists; Post-trauma specialist, Columbine High School and community, since massacre, 1999-2003; Board member: Author's Guild, New York.