I?ve spent a lot of time in silence this week, most of it just listening because I wanted to understand what was happening with the Black Lives Matter movement. The thing I recognized is that underneath all the anger and the protesting is real pain, the collective pain the black community has felt not just for decades, but generations.
So I listened a lot and I learned so much. I watched how so many people, including me, are supporting black lives and black stories in different ways: from protests to donations to educating themselves and also sharing and promoting black stories and voices. I was encouraged by the mass efforts to pause and reflect and listen and absorb the powerful experiences and feelings felt by the black community.
I?m an advocate for sitting with uncomfortable topics and facing and acknowledging pain. I try to practice that in my life and it’s been especially relevant this week. If painful experiences are swept under the rug or ignored or dismissed, that pain festers and it never goes away until you shine a spotlight on it and bring it out in the open. Pain can only be healed when it?s seen and validated and addressed, and once that happens, the healing begins. We will only be able to fix this problem when we face it, when we sit with their stories and feel real empathy. If we return to love, it will see us through. Sometimes we just don?t know what to say so we can only default to ?I?m so so sorry you?ve had this experience. I’m listening, I...