Reflections on Freedom, Peace, & Healing

Freedom & Peace

I’ve been reflecting on freedom and peace and what aids in them being more or less available to all beings without exception. As part of my practice, I’ve been increasingly taking in stories of people around the world sharing their pain of systemic discrimination, persecution, widespread violence, poorly contained viruses, environmental crises, and more alongside the comments people leave them that range from being deeply compassionate to deeply dismissive. I’ve noticed the waves of reactivity and presence arising and passing within myself and lean on practice, community, and ancestral wisdom as some of the supports to help me to stay open to listen, be present, and turn towards suffering. I’ve noticed that my direct capacity for being present with suffering with openness, understanding, and presence, or with reactivity, collapse, and aversion directly correlate with the amount of freedom and peace present.

In this time of recurring violence and injustice, can there be freedom and peace in daily life? Do they come in moments, flickers or can they sustain themselves depending on the moments and lives we inhabit? And as we navigate all of our different positionalities with the various forms of violence and injustice present, how do we advocate for what we believe is right with others who may believe the exact opposite is right without replicating violence and injustice? Does having a fixed belief on right and wrong obstruct freedom and peace?

I really appreciate how as I practice with this questions are arising. Maybe questions sometimes are the answers and a quality of not knowing is what can offer freedom and peace through the openness and curiosity not knowing invites in.

Restoration & Healing

I came across this quote by trauma psychiatrist Judith Lewis Herman in a post by psychologist Jennifer Mullan aka @DecolonizingTherapy: “Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.”

I’ve given a lot of reflection on this — remembering and telling the truth as prerequisites for restoration and healing. I really appreciate this. It feels true and yet it feels incomplete. What would it be like to encourage a form of deep listening as a third prerequisite? A deep listening that listens beyond words to fully be present with and aware of all that’s arising and passing beyond one’s view or one’s perspective so that we are capable of connecting with a collective truth over an individual truth. Deep listening could keep us from becoming distracted by guilt, judgment, fear, anger, greed, confusion, a need to be right, or a need to escape discomfort in the face of recurring instances of violence and injustice that impact us all.

If we come together to remember, tell the truth, and listen deeply, could we take in the truth about the heartbreaking harm occurring globally and cultivate restoration and healing? Maybe we can start by coming together in community spaces (or create new ones if needed) to remember, grieve, cry, move, breathe, and be seen, heard, held, and heal. What if our power lies in our connections. And what if one important truth we remember is that there will not be freedom and peace for any of us if there is not freedom and peace for all of us. We need freedom and peace for all beings everywhere without exception.

—Lissa E.