Why I am Unable to Write This Week

Only tears come, no words.

The image of the young woman and her boyfriend running with their 18 — month old injured baby wrapped in a blanket into the hospital in Ukraine keeps coming back to me.

Their blood-stained clothes, the terror in the eyes, the little innocent life in his father’s arms. The little baby died. Just there, in front of the young parents. What words can I use to describe this? I don’t have any — only tears come, and the tears seem to have wiped out all the other things I could write about this week too.

Tears and a feeling of helplessness are the opposite of what I want a reader like you to be left with. I write about self-growth, better living, being kinder to ourselves and others. About empathy, wellbeing, and self-love. All these good things. And now all I can think about is how many lives are being destroyed, again and again, minute by minute. The contrasts are heartbreaking to see: Courage and helplessness, love and loss, safe and unsafe, child and grandparent, smiles of reunification and tears or separation, life and death, those staying and those leaving, whole and destroyed.

Feeling helpless the way I have this week makes me unable to write and work. Partly why I think it has been so hard to write or do any work these past days is being reminded of human suffering in other parts of the world too and how violence is always present. It feels like guilt. How can I write about personal growth and not even consider all the violence that makes it impossible for people to grow the way they could.

Violence happens all over the world, on so many levels. A while back, in a different life, I lived and worked in a conflict area, in Palestine. My friends there have lived with violence and military occupation all their life. I know they feel forgotten and done wrong by the world. And it’s true. I’ve even forgotten them.

Over the last ten or so years as a teacher, many, if not most, of my students have been refugees. Their stories, faces, and loss have also come back to me this week. It had to take a war in Europe, and so much closer to me, to remember, to even start watching the news again. Now I cannot believe how it’s our neighboring country that’s attacking another country and making so many people flee, lose people they care about, and everything they know. Our neighbor is creating new refugees — people who I might meet in a classroom soon, where they’re learning a new language they shouldn’t have needed to know anything about, in a country they’ve should have been able to visit as a tourist, not a refugee.

Today, I don’t know how to go back to writing about living and being well. Right now I cannot get the image of the young mother out of my head. All the emotional wellbeing and mental fitness tips I talk about with clients and write about aren’t enough.

Maybe only acceptance works — not acceptance of the things going on in the world, but the radical acceptance of Tara Brach teaches — acceptance of oneself and the feeling that “something is wrong with you” for reacting the way we do. And from that place, maybe start finding our words again. And when words are not enough — and they aren’t now— finding ways we can support and be in service of other human beings who are in need.

I hope some of the other writers here are able to provide some more hope and encouragement because I haven’t been able to. Not this week.

Words only seem to come out in tears right now.

As a new writer here on Medium, a follow would mean a lot. Thank you! :)

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