Dear Friends,
I am struggling with a sort of quiet despair. It is triggered by the news, and I am not sure if it is driving my compulsiveness or vice versa. I just feel so low about the evil and hatred that our society and our species is not only capable of, but allows and even celebrates. It is so disheartening.
I am not seeking political opinions. I am expressing the anguish that I feel. I am sharing the sadness that my sensitive heart can’t help but absorb. As a vulnerable person who relies so heavily on others, as an immigrant, as a hyper-sensitive brain, all of the news of abuse and abductions and injustices is so heartbreaking. I also feel so keenly how unfair it is that I am seen as a burden on society while so many in power choose to effect direct and indirect harm on society for their own greed.
It is a lot to cope with. I am so swirling in awful feelings. I am not sure how to cope. But expressing it helps.
How do you all handle such grief and anger?
Your Friend,
Danny
Danny With Words 
Thank you for being so real, vulnerable, and honest, Danny, and for putting into words what so many of us are feeling. Please know you are not alone. You captured it much better than I could ever have, and I’m glad expressing it helps a little. I also worry about how to explain these things to my kids, and what their future will be like. I wish I had better advice on handling it. I really don’t know. But what brings me comfort is knowing for certain there is a much higher power of love and good out there that is for sure stronger than the hatred. This quote helps me too. I think I’ve posted it before, but here it is again, from WWII veteran and historian Howard Zinn:
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
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Hey Danny, I don’t want you to despair. Try remembering how much you help people. I’m going to start right now sending up a prayer for you and I’m noting that it’s 8:00 pm. So I’m going to do my best to remember every night at this hour to send up a prayer for you and especially thanking God for you. Maybe this sense of solidarity will help somehow. –Melissa Martz
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I like to shift my mood by watching the Fred Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” or reading Maxwell King’s biography “The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers” or watching one of Fred Rogers’s commencement speeches on YouTube. I just finished reading “The Heroes Within” by Carol S. Pearson. I am finding her archetype framework super-useful for calling on “allies” when I need a solution to something that’s vexing me. I think (neurologically), going down the human-animal path of being triggered by all the ‘threats’ or ‘opportunities’ being flung in our faces every day is hard to avoid. It takes a lot of capacity to step up the ‘ladder’ (so to speak) and express ourselves from our human-spirit side. Learning to organize my daily life to enrich me and add to my energy/capacities takes effort – and it’s a skill that’s not taught.
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