Brokenness and Healing

After the drama and trauma of yesterday, it’s natural to cast about for distractions (this is painful!), information (who’s to blame?), and justice. I check the news, look at social-media messages from respected people, and scan email for nuggets of good. Yet here I am still in pain, confusion, and dismay.

The answers aren’t external. The fix does not exist. This is a time to unplug, sit, and feel. What is grief and loss? What is whiteness? What is hate? What is love? What is justice?

I feel these in my body. Constriction or expansion. Resistance or ease. Heaviness or lightness. Then I wonder: What actions (or non-actions), speech (or silence) lead to expansion, healing, and change—within me and society?

This is messy, complex territory. The emotional landscape is rough. And our mental landscape can be narrow, angry, and judgmental. So, I continue to ask: How does my body feel? What am I resisting? How can I open my heart?

In the words of Resmaa Menakem, “We tend to think of healing as something binary: either we’re broken or we’re healed from that brokenness. But that’s not how healing operates, and it’s almost never how human growth works. More often, healing and growth take place on a continuum with innumerable points between utter brokenness and total health.”