Dear America,
I know that half of us are celebrating and half of us are angry and hurting. In full disclosure, I am in the camp that is celebrating. For the first time in a very long time, I am proud of what our country has chosen. But while it would be very easy to sit in the gloat of what feels like winning, I do not believe that we have won anything. I believe that we chose to want more empathy in our existence and our society. I believe that we stood up against what we saw was the deterioration of it. But I do not believe that we won anything, because nothing is actually over. In fact, so much must now begin. And wanting something to be so is not the same as making something so. That takes time and effort and a lot of hard and perhaps ugly work. And the first thing we must work for: is our healing. All of us. Those of us who are celebrating and those of us who are hurting. Now we must do the hard and unglamorous work of healing what brought us to this moment in the first place. Now we must look ourselves in the eyes and ask what it is that needs to be healed within ourselves? We must ask the question, what did my family of ancestors hand down the line to me, that I still carry with me today and call forth into the world, that is no longer serving the greater good? And while I am positive that the healing required spans all races and cultures, I can only speak fully to my experience as a white woman in America. As a member of a family who hears other family members call people that cross our border “Illegals” and can dehumanize in an instant with their words, unflinchingly. Who can place their vote solely for the health and well-being of the economy while able to completely ignore the health and well-being of other humans, likely ones who look and live differently from them. I’m not singling out my own family, I share honestly because I know that mine is not the only one. I can tell this story to just about any one of my friends and they can tell me a similar story right back. This is no longer the story of a relative you see only at Thanksgiving. This is a story that is weaved into the fabric of our country and the reality is, it isn’t new in the last four years. It has been there for centuries. We are only just waking up to it now. And while it is great that some of us are finally beginning to wake up, we cannot go back to sleep once the celebration dies down. We cannot for one second believe that we are free from anything or anyone who yesterday threatened to keep us in the darkness of our past. It’s all still right here, sitting in our laps, waiting to be healed. What we have won is the chance to actually pick it up, take a look and go to work on it. We have to take it seriously. We have to be ambitious about it. We have to recognize that the same family member who voted differently from you comes from the same line of people as you do. And while you may be the one to wake up first, while they may never wake up in this lifetime, your healing is your family’s healing. It is what you will pass down so that when your ancestors look back, you will be the link that broke the chain. And the reality is, even as “woke” as we may be, as “right” as we may feel, we are not done. Nothing has been won and the work is only beginning. Please let’s remember this. It’s Monday. It's the beginning of a new week at the end of a very long one. It’s a new era that is being birthed from the belly of an era of shadows, much longer than four years of time. There are a lot of possibilities, but we have to keep choosing. Our vote didn’t end anything on that ballot, our vote simply gave us the power to begin again. We have to choose our healing, every single day. From racism, patriarchy, and deep self-loathing. It will be the very thing that centuries from now will have made the difference. It will be what will heal our families. It is the choice that will breed empathy far and wide because we will stop seeing ourselves as separate from the whole. It’s time to make empathy cool again, by way of our own healing. Let’s get to work. In addition to all of my other offerings this week, I want to invite you to a workshop this Saturday called Gather. I am collaborating with my dear friend, Integrative Teacher and Healer, Audra Malerba. We will be leading a discussion on how we now move forward in our healing process and offer techniques on where to begin. 4-6pm MT/6-8pm ET Register HERE. Also this week: Monday 8pm - Meditation Circle Thursday 9:30am - eMOTION30 Friday 12pm - Meditation Circle Sunday 11am - eMOTION
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Sara Packardis a Mama, Wife, Yoga and Meditation Teacher, Coach, Writer and Activist. You can read more about her here. Archives
September 2021
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