For the past few weeks, our society and social media have been bogged down with a heavy fog of rage, repression and racism. Fear and terror permeate our lives and homes. Is there any escape? Perhaps not.
Nevertheless, while searching for an epicenter, perhaps some answers, but more often running into further questions; I came across a brilliant Ted Talk (Ted Talks are my first, second and last resort for nearly everything). Curious about the topic of peace throughout history and within our own time, here and now, I was ready to dive into the minds of these ingenious, innovative and intriguing Ted Talkers.
I was confident I would find something worthwhile, and surely I did…
“Because you have felt me, I can feel myself again …”
I heard these simple yet life changing words about half way through Inge Missmahl’s talk titled “Bringing peace to the minds of Afghanistan.” Missmahl is a Jungian psychologist who, by chance, found herself in Afghanistan in January 2004, on an assignment for Medica Mondiale.
Jungian psychology is analytical psychology that emphasizes the importance of the individual psyche and the personal quest for wholeness…"The personal quest for wholeness." Aren't we all on this quest? PERSONAL QUEST FOR WHOLENESS. Maybe capitalizing it will make it more tangible within this foggy time.
Have we found it yet?
Nonetheless, let's get back to those brilliant and beckoning words.
“Because you have felt me, I can feel myself again …”
If we were to boil down these words to one single pure and powerful word, we would end up with empathy. Missmahl recognizes this, and recalls these words from a transformational conversation she once had with an Afghan woman, broken and numb like many other Afghan men and women of her time. After spending some time listening and talking with this Afghan woman, Missmahl claims that the woman found liberation through empathy. She began to feel her own existence and validation within the world. Because she was felt, she began to feel herself again.
Within her talk, Missmahl states that “everybody needs a sense for the future and the Afghan sense of the future is shattered.” This sense is shattered because of terror and trauma. As an Afghan-American woman, I couldn’t help but become introspective. Where does this leave me? Yes, my homeland has been terrorized and traumatized by war for the past 30 years, but now my current home, America, is being terrorized and traumatized. Will we shatter?
After repeating those unsettling words, Missmahl states that the key to alleviating the effects trauma and terror is empathy. She explains that somebody has to bear witness to what has happened to you. Somebody has to feel how you felt. Somebody has to see you and listen to you. Somebody, in fact everybody, must know what you have experienced is true. So everybody must be able to say, "This happened to me, and it did this with me, but I'm able to live with it, to cope with it and to learn from it.”
What will make all of this true, valid, real, yours and mine, is our ability to empathize with another. Empathy is simply listening to another, holding space for another, withholding judgment of any kind, emotionally connecting and openly communicating this incredibly healing message of "You're not alone.” The power of empathy is derived from the simple act of somebody becoming a witness to what has happened. This is how we heal. We are not alone, it has happened, it does exist, we are hurt and we will heal.
We must recognize empathy as a superpower we all humans have, yet seldom utilize, to save ourselves from terror and trauma.
“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge…is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.” – Bill Bullard
When this Jungian analyst visited Afghanistan, she witnessed the inner wounds of a war-ridden country, its widespread despair, tangible trauma and deep depression. In the Ted Talk, Missmahl talks about her work efforts in building the country's system of psychosocial counseling, which promoted both individual and even national healing. Now, if the power of empathy can slowly but surely heal this deeply broken country, I cannot help but believe that it can help heal the terrors and traumas of our generation, of our time.
Yes, #ALLLIVESMATTER, #BLACKLIVESMATTER, and we should #PRAYFORFRANCE, #TURKEY, #AMERICA, #AFGHANISTAN and so on. But please, don’t simply hashtag your way through everything that is happening in our world. Do not allow a hashtag to replace your superpower of empathy! You are so much more capable of posting your opinions and hashtags. You have the power to feel what someone else has felt. You have the ability to awaken another soul. You have the potential to validate another life.
Our personal quest for wholeness lies within each other. We can help each other heal and we can help each other feel real. Bullard had it right. Empathy “requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world.” It requires a profound purpose. Let us live within each other’s worlds; let our profound purpose become peace.
Practice empathy and you will practice peace.
