clues in the overwhelm

“You don’t have to save the world, just connect to what matters to you.” - Rev. angel Kyodo williams

Given the myriad of overlapping crises that humanity is facing, many of us feel incapable of helping in a meaningful way. We are painfully aware that there is so much needing to be done. We can be paralyzed by the sheer enormity of it all.

Not everyone is an activist or need define themselves in that way. But we are all citizens of the world. We are all called to contribute to the whole, to participate in this interconnected life force on the planet. “What is mine to do?” is one of the most important questions we can contemplate.

Joseph Campbell’s famous instruction to “follow your bliss” gave us, collectively, a greater appreciation for the inner knowing. Campbell encouraged the individual to name that specific bliss, to trust that it is sacred information, and to say ‘yes’ to the unique adventure of that bliss.

Andrew Harvey, another mystic of our time, has added a second instruction: “Follow your heartbreak.”

Each of us has a personal sensitivity (or outrage or fixation or grief) when it comes to a particular need in the world. And, like the bliss that lives in each of us, that heartbreak is asking to be named, to be followed. It, too, is a clue to self-actualization. It, too, is sacred information that can be trusted.

You may be fiery about voting rights while your neighbor weeps about the plastic in the ocean. Your son may be devastated by the prison industrial complex while your spouse passionately finds solidarity in her labor union.

Perhaps a sister question to “What is mine to do?” is “What uniquely breaks my heart?” If each of us treated that heartbreak like a precious clue, guiding us toward our specific way of contributing, maybe we could – together - love the world back to health.

Citizens marching together in L.A. because Black Lives Matter. June, 2020.