What breaks your heart?
You can hold yourself back from the suffering of the world, but maybe this holding back is one suffering you can avoid. Franz Kafka
The world is on fire. This is not new. But somehow the crises keep piling up: ecological disasters, increasing racist attacks, the exposure of the truth about the residential school system and the Indian Act, the threat to democracy wrought by the complete lack of consequences for lies and disinformation, increasing authoritarianism, and also, a global pandemic. It’s my belief that turning our backs on all of these issues is a failure of citizenship, a failure promoted by those who advocate a view of the world where personal happiness trumps all else, and that proclaims we should “send love and light” to the suffering and leave it at that…or we should avoid thinking about them altogether.
It’s easy to become paralyzed. It’s overwhelming. Where do you even start? I listened to a yoga teacher/activist yesterday who shared some good advice. He said, “What truly breaks your heart? What lacerates your soul? Choose that one thing, and work on that. Because if you try to work on everything, you won’t do anything.”
For me, the thing that breaks my heart is the destruction of the natural world. The place I go to soothe myself whenever I’m stressed is outside. At the very worst and most difficult times of my life, walking outdoors has given me the greatest relief. I grew up on an acreage, just outside of Schomberg, and usually in the summers we went outside after breakfast and only came home for lunch or drinks (Freshie as I recall…ugh). Being out in the wild all the time gave me an intimate connection with natural cycles of birth and death that informed everything in my life that came after. At various times I’ve been an avid camper, paddler, hiker and cyclist. Beyond yoga, nature is my passion.
Everyone is aware that we’re in an ecological crisis, but some of us are feeling it more deeply than others. My garden is feeling it now that every year there seems to be a new invasive species chewing it up. We now have to worry about ticks, Japanese beetles, and Gypsy Moth caterpillars that we’ve never had in these parts before. On a hike this spring my friend Barb and I noticed hundreds of dead Ash trees that were alive and thriving a year ago. It was hard to witness.
Throughout history there have been extinctions, as well as man-made and natural disasters, but what we’re going through now is different and on a much bigger scale. I won’t go into the details as there are numerous places you can go to do that (although there is a lot of deliberately-placed disinformation out there too). What I’m interested in is how to deal with my grief and frustration.
Recently I joined a new group in Stouffville called The Changent Circle, a forum for anyone who wants inspiration and ideas to address environmental challenges, but isn’t sure where to start. I wrote a blog post for them called Dealing with Eco-Grief. I hope you will check out what they’re doing and consider joining their events.
I feel like this blog post is part of a much bigger exploration, and I’m interested to hear from you about your best strategies for dealing with eco-grief and worry. Yoga provides many tools and techniques, but we have to practice them faithfully to feel the benefits. And also, I don’t think that there are any “pat” answers. For example, I know many people who cope by ignoring the news, which might feel helpful on a personal level but it’s one of the reasons we’re in the mess we’re in. And how do we balance day-to-day coping with ethical responsibility to future generations? In any case, this is the arena where I’m doing my yoga these days. The physical practice helps to pull me out of the fetal position I feel drawn to, mindfulness practice helps to get me out of my head, and studying the texts gives me fresh perspectives. For the time being that’s where I’m at, and I’ll keep you posted if I gain any new insights.
Looking forward to hearing your wisdom and ideas,
Elaine
PS If you are interested in issues of nature, ecology, and environmental health I am going to set up a separate mailing list to post items of interest (resources, fundraisers, articles) and tips for coping (as I explore them). Please sign up below if you want more information. If not, no worries. Next blog we’ll go back to the usual programming.
