I Cannot Hold it All...

...but perhaps I was never meant to

Hello friends and readers,

Wherever you are in the world right now, how is your heart?

What kinds of needs are you witnessing around you?

What feels too heavy to carry?

There’s an anxious part of me that feels overwhelmed, simultaneously activated and frozen. I want to be a helper, but I can’t quite figure out if what I’m doing is enough. How does one know such a thing? I also believe in the importance of leaders in spiritual spaces using their voice to speak truth to power, but I feel like mine is so small. Who would listen to me?

When fear feels loud and waves of anxiety undulate through my body as yet another tragedy reaches my awareness, I’m recognizing how much responsibility I’ve taken on for the feelings, suffering, and shortcomings of everyone around me. Now, I am working in ministry and it feels like the feelings, suffering, and shortcomings of the entire world are my responsibility to make sense of, journey with people through, and speak to.

How often do we as caregivers, social changemakers, faith leaders, educators, healthcare healers, creative makers, and community builders feel like we come to the end of ourselves, only to have little to no reprieve built in to our systems, and so we continue giving? There is simply too much to be done, and we must be the ones to do it.

This story is really weighing heavily on me. Every struggle my kids face, every shitty system that keeps some people down while elevating others, every senseless tragedy I see in the news feels like a problem that must be solved, and if I’m not engaged in the solution, then my silence is part of the problem. So I tell myself that I must keep going, even when I have nothing left to give, for fear that if I stop, it simply proves that who I am and what I offer is not enough.

While I believe it is true that we must be engaged with change in the places we find ourselves, I am being reminded right now that it is not my job to fix everything. My friends, it is not our job to respond to every need that we see or even be aware of all that’s happening in the world. Many of us know that we cannot hold it all alone, but I wonder if we also struggle to have a vision of what it would look like to carry the load together.

While my anxious part feels very loud and agitated sometimes, there’s another part of me that feels more steady and secure. It’s the voice that says connection is the way forward in all of this—to our children and partners; to our neighbours and friends; to our communities and natural world; and, perhaps most importantly, to ourselves. When I listen to this voice, I feel assured that any act of kindness, any space that promotes listening and understanding, any ways that we support one another is exactly what’s needed to respond to what’s happening in this world.

These things are simple, yet they are wildly profound in creating meaning, authenticity, and belonging. The more I am grounded in the work I do in journeying with young people and young families, the more I see transformation happen as each person is affirmed and accepted in the fullness of who they are: their struggles, gifts, passions, wounds, quirks, joy—all of it. As they are given a safe space to strip away the armour that protects their most authentic selves, they find the courage to step in and cocreate these spaces of reciprocity.

This is the birthplace of communal care: when we witness the light that each person carries, hold a mirror up to reflect that light back to them, and entrust them with a portion of responsibility that fits within their capacity. At the heart of it is trust, choosing to believe that other people will take up their share of responsibility when given the tools and encouragement to do so. We must debunk the myth of hyperindividualism and move through our fears of “the other” in order to embrace a much more expansive vision of how we do life together.

May we move into the places we find ourselves with a renewed sense of compassion for our limitations. May we allow others to hold our burdens with us. And may we know that we are not alone; glimmers of beauty, goodness, and love are all around.