EN ESTE TIEMPO DIFICIL,  NECESITAMOS UN MOMENTO JUSTO POR LA PAZ…

After the #BuffaloMassacre – we are flattened, angry, overwhelmed, fearful, grieving, and enraged! After so many have suffered centuries of trauma from White Supremacy, Patriarchy, economic oppression, war, violence, and more, comes another shooter, comes another tragedy, comes another assault on our children, our beloveds, and our safety. How can we continue functioning, parenting, nurturing, and caring for each other?

Of course, how can we not? We know our beloved children, families, friends, neighbors, and all our relations – need our support. So we must continue to Stay Strong!

We must act for real change regarding gun violence, White Supremacy, hatemongering, and more…  — topics we’ll pursue!! However, to make any progress, we must also practice self-care.

Remember, in an airplane, the flight attendant says, “If you are traveling with children or other dependents, please take care of your needs first, so you are better able to assist.” If we struggle to get another’s mask on while losing oxygen ourselves, disaster looms.

The Wonderful and the Terrible are so very present in our world and indelibly intertwined. We have seen – and continue to see – the Terrible. However, the responses include the wonderfully loving generous, and even heroic actions of so many. The s/heroes on the scene, the s/heros in the back rooms, organizing community support – in crises as well as in attending to every day often desperate needs. The natural community leaders; the natural nurturers, comforters, and defenders…. They persist. Often in shifts, spelling each other off – sharing inspiration, energy, and strategies for coping and acting for the community.

We must pace ourselves, take breaks when feasible, and above all put some joy and beauty in every day. We each know what renews our strength – music, laughter, children, community, nature, the Creation, the Creator – and we owe ourselves – and each other – those activities and sources of renewal!! That’s how we can continue, stronger together, Juntos – Si, Se Puede!

Don’t forget to: Deep Slow Breathing. It brings more oxygen into our bodies, a known and proven stress reducer. Even mere conscious breathing relaxes us – just the mention of our breath puts us on a different wavelength. (Didn’t it?)

And if we develop a certain comfort with focusing on our breathing, we can pick our saying, akin to a mantra – a short prayer, affirmation, or saying that makes us feel the way we want to feel – and use it to time our breathing. We repeat it to ourselves as we breathe in; again, as we hold our breath; and then twice as we breathe out (sometimes called square breathing).

The repetition allows us to feed our spirit, as we are feeding extra oxygen to our bodies. And the more we practice it, the more it helps. It can be practiced virtually anytime, anywhere.

Above all, we must turn to the sources of our strength, our faith: Truth and Love, as Rev. Dr. King said. And the Beloved Community. Siempre: Juntos – Si, se puede!