What is it for me to be me-ing?

It’s common to feel helpless in the face of suffering. We always want to jump to the part where we do something about it to solve the injustice or the problem, but we don’t know what the action is. We easily forget that there’s a step before that. There’s a step that entails acknowledging the entity, a type of acceptance of the scenario. It’s an active recognition that there is something to despair about and the act of naming it gives us something to grasp onto in an otherwise dizzying experience. Then maybe next time we feel helpless in the face of suffering, we can take the first step of acknowledging that this is happening. Now I know this isn’t the most comforting to hear when the world feels out of our control. Comfort may not be the goal right now, so grounding into something graspable may be more accessible to ease the pain.

I’ll share this: The most impactful thing my therapist said to me last week was “the world is worlding. And it’s ok to crawl into a fetal position and sob.” This evoked a question within me that I return to time and time again, “What is it for me to be me-ing?” In other words, what does the unfolding of me in this lifetime - in all its bliss, misery, pain, joy, pleasure and grief — have to learn from the way the world continues to unfold? It won’t always be comprehensible. Sometimes it’s as dizzying as staring into a kaleidoscope on too many psychedelics ….. it hurts, it bleeds, it screams, it blossoms, it evolves, it sings… the world will world. This is me, me-ing. How will you be you-ing?

This isn’t an easy question to answer. The point is to make it an easier question to ask. Start there. Allow it to be a question as you live out your day, as you wake and prepare the coffee, or prepare your lunch, or commute to your workplace, or grab your groceries. It lives in the ordinary, mundane, day-to-day more than we know. When things feel too big because the world is worlding, maybe we can start by looking at the small parts of our day to show us more of what us , us-ing is and what we can do when the big bad world inevitably tests our capacity to withstand it.