[#wellbeing + distant conflict] I had all these things lined up to share with you this past couple of weeks, All these learning out loud moments. Some quirky posts about productivity. But they began to feel rather trivial.
Instead, ironically, it’s taken a quiet kind of discipline to hold myself back from posting.
And in the background, I have been reading and learning.
About a place that was placed on top of a place, and all the pain and problems that go along with doing that.
I am recalibrating myself. I want to be useful to you in this.
But I know if I am feeling this much sadness individually, then collectively the grief is on another scale of what I may have experienced. And with that there is a great deal of work to do to recover.
It worries me. Are we ready for that? As a learning community? For teachers? For students?
And amidst a mounting death toll, are we doing enough to protect the energy we need to contribute effectively to stopping this catastrophe?
I am thinking deeply about what I can do about that. For myself and for others.
Gladly, some are already onto it. And while I grapple more with what I can do, some things that have helped me so far:
1: food from mama’esh.
The tiny place I go to has been totally full each time recently. Others are in on the goodness. ✨
2: decluttering.
A mentor, who reminded me how psychologically helpful just tidying up and decluttering can be. Makes you appreciate all you have.
3: finding the others.
The absolutely worst thing to be in all this is alone. Finding the others both nurtures and catalysed me into action. And they help pick you up when you’re reeling from another shock, which just keeps happening in this crisis.
4: solitude, meditation, reflection, prayer.
🤍
5: talking about it.
6: being teachable. Learning to find out where you stand and being prepared and ready to navigate this world with others knowing where you stand.
7: letting my money speak. Avoiding purchases of things that feed a tapeworm.
I still believe the power really is in the people and we are many. And I am still optimistic, because “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
🤍
What has helped you, your family or your learners in this? I’d love to know and invite you to share. Maybe it’ll help someone else.
Still reading?
This post was in part unpaired by this article, shared with me, right when I needed it, by a dear colleague:
“Resist, rest, resist: surviving a distant conflict”
