Every week I write a short blog post to share with my email and social media followers. Usually, I try to keep my blog relatively light and hopeful, but this week I am not feeling light and hopeful. Usually, I love doing it. I love to write, to connect, the vulnerability, the creativity, all of it. I’m not sure if my posts make me any money, yet they certainly make me feel more connected to others and to my own growing awareness and consciousness. I can’t imagine not doing it, but this week I’ve been struggling to write this post.

The world feels ugly and cruel. Over 100,000 Americans have died of a deadly virus and yet we argue about wearing masks to protect each other. That in itself seemed challenging enough, and then the murder of George Floyd by a police officer happened and the world got much darker and much uglier. Add to that a president who leads through name-calling and vitriol on Twitter and you have a country in despair. 

I’m usually an optimist, a glass half full kind of person. I can find the good in almost any situation, and I’ve been accused of finding the good in people who might not be so deserving of my optimism. Yet life is short and fragile, and I want to enjoy it and to see the beauty in our world and in each other. I’m struggling with that right now. I’m shocked by the comments of people I thought of as loving and kind as they belittle the feelings and actions of a devastated Black community.

People using Martin Luther King quotes to judge the behaviors of others, a dreadful lack of compassion, and most of all an unwillingness to listen to the pain and heartache of others. While everyone has a right to their own opinions and feelings, now is not the time for white people, like me, to center themselves. Now is the time to listen to Black America, to focus on their feelings and experiences. None of us, NONE OF US, knows how someone else feels. EVER. 

We each experience things from our own unique history and point of view and when we say, “I know how you feel,” we don’t. I will never know how it feels to be Black. NEVER. I will never know how it feels to fear for my life because of my skin color, and I will never know how it feels to have suffered hundreds of years of racism, violence, and abuse. NEVER. The best I can do is to shut up and listen. To listen without judgment and without trying to fix it by talking someone out of their feelings is one of the most important things I can offer. No MLK meme or subtly racist opinion will turn this country around. I have to listen to the pain of the Black community and let them tell me what they need. Only then can I take the next step to constructive action that will help our nation heal. 

I’m trying to sit in my own feelings this week. I’m working on listening and avoiding the hateful words of so many that I know. It’s not easy. Most of all I’m trying to listen to those who are in terrible pain. I’m trying to hold non-judgmental space for them and I’m working on my internal biases as well. It starts with me; it always starts with each of us. I’m working on myself; I’m working on being present and loving people through all of this. I’m struggling. If you are too, I hear you.

Love,

Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC