Your Broken Heart is Not Enough

June 1, 2020 - If the events happening in our country right now are breaking your heart, it is not enough. Our hearts might break but what truly needs to be broken is the cycle of hatred. What will YOU do to break the cycle of hatred and bigotry? What will we all do to break the silence of racism and social injustice?

The scenes playing over and over again on the news and on social media weigh heavy on me because it is clear that so many people in this world are in pain and are crying out for help and for attention. The attention they seek is to shed light on the travesty of apathy that we have fallen under the spell of.

Not one of us can be free until we are all free. Free to live, free to dream, free to walk, free to love, free of oppression, bigotry and hatred. Having power is not having control or force. Standing in our power is to stand in truth and dignity and in love and compassion for all of humanity. I believe we are all here to be a light. To be teachers and students and to give glory to our Creator. For me, God is real and He is alive and he has given us our very breath to spread love and compassion not hatred and darkness. When one of us hurts we all hurt.

Open your eyes! Look around and take notice of the things that are happening around us. I believe everything that happens to us is happening for us, for a reason. If we do not learn from our mistakes we will continue to see history repeats itself over and over again. This violence against our black brothers and sisters has to end! The brutality and supremacy is criminal and it is inhumane.

And I do not, for one minute, as a middle aged privileged white woman, think that I can possibly understand the fear of what it must be like to know that just the color of my skin offends someone and therefore makes me a target. It is unfathomable that this is the world we live in, where any of us are in fear of our lives just because we walk down the street, or go for a run or spend a morning bird watching in the park.

Yet, I want to believe, I choose to believe that we have the power to change things. We have the ability to be the change we want to see in the world. It starts with us and it starts with how we think. No one is less than anyone else. We are all enough. We are all equal. Yet we are all hurting and it is time for healing.

How can I heal the world, you ask? By starting with the reflection in the mirror. When each one of us takes responsibility for who we are and how we show up and how we treat each other then we begin a movement. We become change agents when we start with our own transformation. When we stand in our own power to claim who we want to be in this world and allow ourselves to be more compassionate and more peaceful and loving to all humanity then and only then can we say we stand for something.

Who are we here to be? Who has the Divine created you to be? Are you living up to His expectations? Are you a beacon of light and a reflection of God's love? Or are you participating in hateful speak and pretending that you are not privileged? Or worse yet, are you silent and standing by with your head down saying things like "this is terrible" with no actions or plans to create change in your own world?

Perhaps you or I are not meant to lead a walk or start a national movement. I may not be an iconic leader who can gather people together to see things differently. Or can I? Can I start with myself and impact those around me and believe that together we create a collective consciousness that CAN change things one small step at a time. I choose to believe that because I refuse to give up hope for the human race.

I acknowledge the fierce amount of work there is to be done to begin reversing what has been allowed for way too long. I understand the centuries of oppression and racism and the systemic problems that need correcting. I am not naïve. I am just refusing to throw up my hands and say "there is nothing I can do to change this. It is out of my control!" Please don't be silent and don't give up your personal power by looking away or believing that your existence is so small that you alone can not create positive change. We must try.

The positive change we can create in the world starts with how we think, how we feel, how we speak and how we act. We must be compelled to be the change we wish to see in the world. We need to use our gifts and our talents for the greater good of the planet and the human race because it is not us and them. It is WE.