MY WEEKLY BLOG<\/p>\n
What Do You Do When There\u2019s Nothing You Can Do?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I usually avoid writing about politics. It can be a slippery\u00a0slope, rife with misunderstandings, arguments and resentments that divide us
into \u201cthem and us.\u201d When I write my blog, I generally search for our commonalities\u00a0instead of our differences, but I need to address the state of our democracy\u00a0right now, in the way that I see it. How can I not? As much as I remind myself\u00a0to focus on the good in the world, when evil rises up and becomes loud and\u00a0menacing, it\u2019s hard to think about anything else.<\/p>\n
We are in rough shape these days. Wars. Malignant narcissism.
People putting on the blinders and refusing to keep each other safe. The threat\u00a0of deadly back alley abortions. The inability to have a civil debate over differing\u00a0opinions. Although these current problems we are facing are labeled\u00a0\u201cpolitical,\u201d I think they go way beyond politics. There is nothing vague or\u00a0symbolic about them. There are no rules or logic involved.<\/p>\n
My heart sunk when I heard about the Supreme Court\u2019s imminent
decision to overturn abortion rights. I felt fury and despair. My peers and I\u00a0fought hard for many years to win the right for women to make their own\u00a0decisions about their bodies and to avoid harming themselves. And now, the\u00a0fight is starting all over again. It\u2019s exhausting to even think about it.<\/p>\n
I know I\u2019m not alone in my feelings of hopelessness, rage\u00a0and disappointment. So how do we accept the unacceptable? How do we make peace\u00a0when we can only see conflict? What do we do when there\u2019s nothing we can do? I\u00a0try not to go overboard with wise quotes when I write but since our current\u00a0challenges are astronomical, I\u2019m making an exception as I look to our great leaders
to point us in the right direction.<\/p>\n
Martin Luther King said, \u201cDarkness cannot drive out\u00a0darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do\u00a0that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEach one of us has to find his peace from within,\u201d said\u00a0Mahatma Ghandi, \u201cAnd for peace to be real, it must be unaffected by outside
circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sounds good, but how do we remain unaffected by outside
circumstances? How do we find love in the midst of so much pain and blatant\u00a0power grabs? It\u2019s a challenge to be kind and hopeful when the world feels so grim,\u00a0but there are ways to do it. In the words of Pema Chodron, \u201cCompassion becomes\u00a0real when we recognize our shared humanity.\u201d In other words, you and I are the
same. What you feel is what I feel.<\/p>\n
I keep in mind that there has always been strife and suffering.\u00a0It\u2019s nothing new and here we are again. The key is to find a way to be with\u00a0what is, and not go down with the ship. Sometimes I feel guilty if I\u2019m enjoying\u00a0myself when innocent people are being shelled and have to flee the only homes\u00a0they ever knew. But guilt won’t heal anything. Awareness and compassion are a\u00a0better way to go. At times, instead of taking the pain into my mind and my\u00a0body, I try to imagine myself standing off to the side, being curious and witnessing
the events that are happening without a heavy emotional response. At other\u00a0times, creativity can be a great distraction, an avenue to express feelings in\u00a0a non-aggressive way. This is what art is all about.<\/p>\n
I try to forgive myself when I go on a self-shaming tangent\u00a0(that\u2019s a part of finding peace in chaos) and I also try to forgive other
people by stopping and listening so I can understand them. When Ang Suu Kyi,\u00a0political activist in Myanmar, was released from house arrest after 15 years,\u00a0she said, \u201cIt was a time for listening.\u201d How stunning is that? She wasn\u2019t\u00a0bitter or filled with revenge. If we want to emulate this kind of behavior, if\u00a0we want to demonstrate grace under pressure, we have to strive to BE the acceptance\u00a0that we seek, no matter what is going on. If we can’t make peace in our daily
lives and treat ourselves and other people with kindness, there\u2019s no chance of achieving\u00a0it on a global scale.<\/p>\n
Life isn\u2019t fair. Violence strikes the innocent, illness topple\u00a0the healthy, but while we know these things are real, we can still do our best\u00a0to allow the light in. It\u2019s always there, even when the cloud cover is dense\u00a0and foreboding. The late Leonard Cohen wrote, \u201cThere is a crack in everything.\u00a0That\u2019s how the light gets in.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the state of the world is a reflection of the people who\u00a0live here (I believe that it is), let\u2019s take responsibility for our part in it.\u00a0If we really look, you and I can find ways to shine some light into a troubled
world. Even a little bit will be a gift and perhaps inspire someone else to\u00a0shine their own light. However small or unimportant we may feel, we matter and\u00a0we can ask for and offer help. We can talk each other off the ledge. We can find a modicum of humor in the toughest circumstances. We can seek out beauty,\u00a0speak gently, refrain from dumping our anger on someone else and forgive them\u00a0instead, even when it hurts. We can forgive ourselves for acting like human\u00a0beings. When we do these things, our reflection will change and so will the\u00a0world. One person at a time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
These are the things we can do when there\u2019s nothing we can
do.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MY WEEKLY BLOG What Do You Do When There\u2019s Nothing You Can Do?\u00a0 I usually avoid writing about politics. It can be a slippery\u00a0slope, rife with misunderstandings, arguments and resentments that divide usinto \u201cthem and us.\u201d When I write my blog, I generally search for our commonalities\u00a0instead of our differences, but I need to address […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2128,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127\/revisions\/2128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}