Crisis as a Call to Attention
Care as an Act of Resistance
We are living in times that feel overwhelming, destabilizing, and at times unbearable.
Someone is gunned down.
A partner does not show up in the way we long for.
A child is struggling.
A diagnosis arrives.
Someone we love dies.
Work becomes unbearable.
The world feels unsafe, unpredictable, unfair, unjust.
For some, this is their lived experience. For others, it is a looming possibility, an unknown. And that is a vulnerable place where ego (fear) can get us.
What we are experiencing now feels unprecedented, and at the same time, crisis has always been part of the human condition. What differs is how close it feels, how constant the exposure is, and how little space we are given to metabolize what we are taking in.
Every crisis, every disappointment, every devastating event shows us something essential. It reveals what is happening internally, what is asking for our attention, what has been waiting to be seen.
Again and again, what is screaming is not only the event itself, but our relationship to it.
Where We Locate the Source of Our Suffering
Until we recognize that what needs attending to first is our relationship with our own internal experience, we will continue to believe that what is happening outside of us is the sole cause of our suffering.
This belief is deeply understandable. Often, what is happening outside of us is truly awful. Murder. Betrayal. Illness. Loss. Injustice. These things are not imagined. They are real. They are painful. They are unjust.
And yet, if we only orient toward the external, we remain trapped in reaction. We chase relief, resolution, or safety outside ourselves, and we rarely find it there.
I once had a therapist say to me, “There is no such thing as fair. There is one fair, it’s called the Del Mar Fair, and it happens once a year.”
The idea of fairness keeps us stuck in a victim stance. We may very well be victims of circumstances, diagnoses, decisions, or harm. Naming that truth matters. And still, if we stop there, we lose access to agency. We lose access to choice.
Our suffering is shaped not only by what happens to us, but more importantly, by the internal programming that interprets, responds to, and carries those experiences forward. In our language of CBAT, we call that egocentric karmic conditioning. Other language used in psychology & neuropsychology: multigenerational transmission process, epigenetic programming, maladaptive processing, predictive processing (and others).
Automatic Pilot and Survival Mind
When we are living on autopilot or in unconsciousness, what we have been describing above, our responses are driven by whatever once kept us alive.
The brain was wired for survival, not for ease, joy, or connection. Its job was and still is to detect threat and respond quickly. That wiring makes sense within a survival system that has no guide.
And it also means that many of our reactions are outdated, conditioned, and unconscious. Without a conscious, compassionate guide, we are left doing the best we can with the tools we know.
We do have the capacity to use the brain’s intelligence on our own behalf, but that requires awareness. It requires learning how to be with what arises, rather than being run by it.
As relational beings, we are wired for connection. And yet, for many of us, the most primary relationship, the relationship with ourselves, was neglected early on. This was not our fault. It was shaped by socialization, culture, family systems, and for many, trauma or abuse layered on top of that.
Whatever you survived, your nervous system, whose job is to assess for safety, is doing just that.The brain, being predictive, can only work with the information it has. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in reflection and choice, requires safety to come online. When we are in survival mode, that part of the brain is simply not accessible.
Essence Cannot Be Damaged
Here is an essential truth.
The essence of who you are has never been harmed. It cannot be harmed.
As a sentient being born in human form, the human form can be harmed. Bodies can be injured. Nervous systems can become overwhelmed. Beliefs can be shaped by shame, fear, and threat.
But essence does not need healing. It is intact. It is untouched.
Each of us came into the world with our own uniqueness, our temperament, our interests, our way of being. You can see this clearly in children, and even in animals. Two puppies from the same litter can be entirely different. One energetic and mischievous, another slow, observant, and tender. Neither is wrong. They simply are.
Children are the same. One loves drawing. Another stacks blocks. Another spins and dances. They are not trying to be perfect. They do not even know the concept of perfect. They are simply expressing what is alive in them.
We lose touch with this not because it disappears, but because survival required adaptation.
The Most Important Relationship
Here you are now, reading this.
The most important relationship you will ever tend is the relationship with yourself.
When that relationship is safe, connected, and compassionate, your relationships with others emerge from that ground. When absent or fractured, relationships become places where we unconsciously seek to meet unmet needs.
Relationships are essential. We are not meant to do this alone. And relationships cannot be asked to fill a deficit that only self-attunement can address.
We are here to meet our own needs first, and then to share ourselves from fullness, not from depletion.
Care as Resistance
The news continues to be heartbreaking, enraging, and unthinkable.
The question becomes; how do you care for yourself so that you can respond in ways that are aligned with your values? Speaking of values, where do you exist in your values? Do you live in a way that reflects the truth that you matter too? When doing this work, we often find this is at the core of our suffering, believing we do not matter (and hoping someone will show up and treat us in ways we don’t know how to treat ourselves).
For some, that may mean going to a rally. For others, calling representatives. For others, feeding someone, donating, gardening, resting, or stepping back.
Attending to your own well-being is not selfish. It is the least selfish act one can do. And this is not about self-care as indulgence, pedicures, brunch, or buying something new. Caring for your own well-being is turning into what is happening within you and learning how to care for what needs caring.
Do I need to slow down and take fuller breaths?
Do I need to tune into the strong emotions that I’m feeling in the body through strong sensations, rather than going into doing to avoid them?
Do I need to move my body in a way that safely releases intense energy?
Do I need to rest? Slow down?
On my way to an event, what can I practice that will support my nervous system?
How do I support my body while I make 20 posters for this protest? Maybe I need a better chair, my favorite beverage, or do it with a friend or ally.
Caring for our own human in this way is an act of resistance to the very hate that we are being alerted to in the news.
When we are talked into NOT caring for ourselves or pushing past the care that is needed, we are identified with the voice in the head that spews hate at us. When you see that same hate directed at others, the essence in you says, “NO, that is not okay.” You can feel the care for another that you have been talked out of applying to yourself.
This is a very important piece that often trips us up into confusion because it is the fundamental propaganda that the voice in your head uses to keep you from ever seeing the truth that you matter.
What you are resisting is not action, but internalized hatred. For some it is clear as day, for others it is hidden. You are saying no to becoming consumed by rage, despair, or collapse.
Sometimes the most aligned action is turning off the news. Sometimes it is not going to the rally because your nervous system is already flooded. Sometimes it is resting so that you do not get sick or burn out.
The old metaphor still holds. You put the oxygen mask on yourself first, not because you do not care about others, but because it is the only way you can remain available to what is in front of you, what is here in the moment.
Crisis will continue to arise. That is part of being human.
The invitation is to notice what it brings up in you, to tend to that with care, and to respond from connection rather than reaction.
