Healing our Collective Wound
For these past five months, maintaining these monthly posts has been a challenge. Like many, I'm grappling with the complexities of being human amidst a brutal genocide of thousands of Palestinians. In a world marred by complicity in dehumanization, fascism, and fear, how do we gather the strength to pursue justice and peace? How do we rediscover our humanity and acknowledge the interconnectedness of all life on Earth? And how do we maintain our own resilience while bearing witness to such immense suffering?
I was deeply touched by the Palestinian storyteller Jenan Matari and what it means to bear witness right now. In her Instagram reel posted on March 5th, Jenan shares:
“When we talk about bearing witness, we need to ensure that we understand that obligation appropriately because, again, it's not just watching the atrocities and ‘taking in the trauma’. Bearing witness means connecting yourself to that suffering to a point where it moves you into action, mobilizes you, activates you. It means understanding that this suffering is not far from you… There is so much focus on the 'individual' in Western societies because the more disconnected you feel from everyone and everything around you, the less likely you are to understand that what you are watching is not far from you; it could happen to you tomorrow.”
For many of us, bearing witness right now is challenged by our reactivity to trauma. The influx of images depicting violence and death can immobilize us, evoking our own intermingled traumas. Numbness and dissociation may arise as we struggle to maintain presence in overwhelming circumstances. It can trigger comparative suffering, when we don’t feel like our group or our suffering is being witnessed, often perpetuating behaviors that disconnect us from the present moment. The rage response, centered on shame and blame, and the freeze response, marked by feelings of helplessness and isolation, can dominate our ability to react from a place of interbeing, sometimes perpetuating more violence or complacency.
On a collective level, we can see how the imperialistic industrial complex weaponizes dissociative disorder (DID), by perpetuating exploitation, racism, inequality, and environmental degradation through denial and fragmentation. Healing from systemic trauma requires collective action with interbeing at its central motivation.
Interbeing, found in Eastern traditions like Buddhism, emphasizes the interconnectedness and interdependence of all beings and phenomena. It recognizes that individuals are not separate entities but interconnected parts of a larger whole, deeply influenced by their surroundings.
How do we navigate the world when we understand our suffering is not unique? How do we mobilize towards justice, centered on interconnectedness, empathy, and collective action?
Witnessing becomes a profound act of interbeing, prompting questions about how we hold suffering, both our own and that of others, without judgment.
Indigenous knowledge underscores the importance of cultivating respectful relationships with the natural world. If we find ourselves caught in the trauma loop, we must start there, moving towards interbeing as our primal nature. Our care for ourselves impacts our ability to care for the suffering of the planet.
When we feel rageful, may we channel that energy towards thoughtful anger, untethered from hate and fear. Only then, can anger can be transmuted towards actions of peace, resistance and protection of the vulnerable. If we feel helpless, despairing, or numb, we can start by nurturing relationships in our immediate circle. This includes attending to our own basic needs (i.e. sleeping, hydrating, eating, feeling the earth), enabling us to return to this present moment so we may witness again.
The state of our planet and the suffering experienced by each being impacts our existence. This serves as a call for us to practice humanity, acknowledging our interconnectedness and the profound impact it has on our lives. It starts with the ability to bear witness.