Witnessing the rage and grief over the murder of George Floyd has left many of us speechless, helpless, terrified, confused and ….

At a loss for words, I almost didn’t want to send a newsletter this week. I started with just wanting to spiritualize it away, you know, to put a nice bow tie around it and be done with it. And then I heard myself mutter “Bullshit”. (This is a messy newsletter, much like the mess I feel within. No conclusions here, just some conversation starters, I hope)

The raw, messy process is part of Spirituality; our willingness to be aware, to acknowledge and to allow the “what is”

We can’t bypass it. We can’t go around it. We must go through it. Only when we go through the process, we can hope to come out at the other end a little more whole, a little more healed.

This is hard, to say the least. But not going through it will create all kinds of hard that we can’t imagine…

We can only use a band-aid for so long; wounds erupt through eventually. And the wounds of our world, our society have erupted through, evoking our own personal wounds. To say that we are in this together would be correct; we are together in ways we don’t’ even know.

When life does not work for everybody, it does not work for anybody.

Pandemic creating the perfect storm? Yes!

Let’s acknowledge!

That there is blatant racism in our country, in our world. And right now, the racism against black people is what needs our attention.

This is no different when clients tell me the most painful things and shyly say, I am okay, I guess’’. No, you are not, I call them out; this sucks and it’s NOT okay.

Giving words to our experiences and feelings is a way to validate the reality of our experiences and a way to move forward.

All Lives Matter, or Do They?

Yes, they do according to GOD, not according to humans, because we kill animals for our pleasure, for food and just because they are a nuisance to us. So, No, all lives don’t matter to us. Saying and Living are two different things.

Apparently black lives don’t matter – hence the thousands of years of oppression, slavery, brutality and cruelty and now George Floyd’s murder. That’s why the slogan “Black Live Matter” to draw our attention to the fact that they haven’t mattered so far.

Secondly, this is a cliché we are using to deflect away from the problem on hand. It’s kind of like the victim of abuse saying, “But he/she is really a good person”. The abuse is a problem regardless of how good he/she is.

It would be like saying, we really are a great country except we discriminate against black people. These two things don’t go together.

We have a problem here in our society. That problem is racism against black people. Yes, there is racism against other people, but let’s focus on the racism against humans with black skin because that’s what’s staring at us right now.

If we can truly go inside one problem, we can solve all kinds of other problems.

Black people are the wound created by our world, by us humans. This is what needs healing. Yes, the humans with black skin need healing.

Writing this has been painful; more tears and less words.

George Floyd’s murder was the last straw that broke the camel’s back; hundreds of years of slavery, cruelty, brutality against other humans because of the color of their skin??

To talk about his criminal record or to say all lives matter is to deflect away from the problem on hand.

I understand why we deflect. It’s too painful, too big, too overwhelming and we don’t know what to do. (I will never believe that we don’t care; it’s not possible for us not to care even when we don’t know it. It’s our nature to care; buried deep in our hearts; to care deeply is to hurt deeply – hence we dance around the heart afraid to go in)

What has been showing up for you?

That’s a great place to start any kind of healing process. Awareness of what is and what it means for you individually.

Just like the pandemic, we are all affected by it differently and in many different ways. Let that be ok. What are your thoughts? What do you really feel? This is the time to look at our own personal biases and self-inquiry.

Don’t judge the judgment!

Its’ worth repeating; don’t judge the judgments. This is where we recreate that which we are protesting. Remember, for many of us, judgment is part of the process, not the end result. We all live by our beliefs and our beliefs are a product of our conditioning – these are deep grooves hard-wired in our psyche that needs our compassion, empathy, patience and kindness. Don’t make those who feel different from you feel bad. Let everyone go through their own process.

We are all hurting. We have enough divide in our country – let’s not create more.

Say less, listen more. The world does not need another opinion. Let’s not fuel the fires! Let’s hold space for our people, our world.

Like a mother who processes her children’s wounds through her own heart; let’s open our heart to the suffering and pain of our black community. This we can afford to do. Our biggest asset is our ability to feel deeply and to care deeply. Our world needs that kind of care and love right now.

To truly know the struggles of our black brothers and sisters is to look deep inside their heart and mind and imagining walking in their shoes for even a moment. Feeling abandoned by love, abandoned by God?

So, we are called to be compassionate, kind, accepting, tolerating, humble and to hold space for them; just like when a member of our family feels abandoned by love, we must look at what we have done as a family to create that.

How do we heal?

Awareness and acknowledgment are the first steps in healing.

Then there is a need to love our wounds; holding the wounds deeply in our hearts; holding our black communities in our hearts and help process their wounds.

When we can do that, our wounds become our greatest gifts, for they become the chariot of our highest potential as human beings, carrying us to wholeness.

Let’s continue to learn, have open conversations, continue to breathe, meditate, and lean towards that which is uncomfortable with curiosity, acceptance and unconditional love.

We are in this together. We will find the rainbow; the world is healing; don’t mistake the process for the end.

I am holding you in my heart; please reach out if I can be of service to you.

Meena