The Four Words Everyone Longs to Hear

I’ve been trying to dedicate Fridays on this blog to something that will help you feel good about the world we live in. I call it “Feel Good Friday.”

And as I sit down to write this week, I am not sure exactly what to share today.

I heard a few people characterize the past week in America as “a perfect storm coming within a perfect storm.” It’s been a challenging time for many, especially for people of color. Especially for the black community.

What can I say to help you feel better about the world we are living in?

Emotions are raw, tensions are high.

We are being asked to look at the most uncomfortable parts of ourselves, individually and collectively. Our prejudices, biases, fears. The built-in conditioning, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, behavior, language.

Our habits of being.

Almost all of our conditioning about racism is in our blind spots; racism is a habit deeply grooved into the neural pathways of our collective unconscious.

[Side note: If you think you don’t have habits, that’s your first blind spot.]

When I Zoom Out, I can see clearly that the chaos unfolding and the pain it is awakening is the start of our collective healing.

Healing in the real sense — not in the fluffy woo-woo “all is light” spiritual bypassing way, but healing as in excavating the damaged foundation of our society so that we can rebuild from a stronger place. It’s disruptive and uncomfortable and it’s supposed to be that way. This is change.

But I realize that it’s not always comforting to know that pain is really a sign that things are on the road to getting better.

Sometimes positive memes make us feel good. Other times, they feel condescending and out of touch, or, even worse, they can block the voices that are struggling to be heard.

What we often need in moments like this is to give voice to our emotions: scream, shout, cry. We need to be witnessed in our grief and anger and confusion.

We seek to know that we are not alone.

This is everything. These four words are what we all long to hear: You are not alone.

So I want you to know this: in whatever you are feeling this week, in your confusion, anger, pain, joy, grief, fear, frustration, or anything else…

You are not alone.