Caring or coping?

Burned out or numb?

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room.

Not this cutie-pie, but a far less pleasant specimen.

You talkin’ about me??

We live in a world our nervous systems were never designed to handle: screaming headlines, global suffering in our feeds 24/7, claims and counterclaims about the rise of fascism and the "lunatic lefties".

(Apparently I fit into that last category, because *checks notes* I believe everyone ought to have equal access to a decent living, a home, education, and healthcare. But I digress...)

None of that is the elephant.

The elephant is the bind it puts us in.

We don't want to turn our backs on the suffering we see, because we're not assholes.

But we also can't keep pouring ourselves out, until there's nothing left.

So most of us end up either doomscrolling until we're jangled, worn out and frozen; or choosing numbness just to survive.

Neither of those feels right, because they're not. 😬

We can't ignore our hearts and we also can't Do All The Things ourselves. ❤️‍🩹

I think there's a third way that keeps us connected AND protects our hearts; a way that lets us face some harsh realities WITHOUT breaking our spirits.

I've been sitting with it for a while, and I'll be sharing more about it over the coming weeks.

For now, though, I'm curious: which side of that bind do you catch yourself on more often?

Are you consuming too much, or have you gone numb?

Or maybe both at once?

Drop it in the comments; I read every single one.

(I’ll go first. I’m a lifelong activist, so my brain can easily fall into the old belief trap of ‘if I can only get informed enough, I can create change’. Although I know intellectually that piece of nonsense is a fallacy, my brain has been so well-programmed that if I leave it to its own devices, I’ll end up doomscrolling to the point of overwhelm, hopelessness and paralysis. Doh! That’s one reason I’m doing this work now. How about you?)