The past few days have been a bit surreal. When I was a teen, I spent a good part of my life with my father who lived a short drive from Thousand Oaks. My Grandmother lived in Camarillo. My husband grew up not far from the area as well. We have many friends who live there currently. I happened to be up late at night watching tv when the Thousand Oaks shooting occurred and thought there was a good chance we would know someone connected to the event. Unfortunately, a childhood friend of my husband from church and boycotts lost his son that night. Ironically he was a survivor of the Vegas shooting but murdered in Thousand Oaks. I am friends with way too many people grieving with other connections to the shooting.
And then the fires came.
A clergyman friend was in the process of providing counseling to the families and victims of the shooting Thursday at an emergency center when he was re-routed in the afternoon to help evacuees from the fire. He later needed to evacuate his own family from their home and went back to counsel evacuees.
Another friend on Thursday received an evacuation alert for her home in the evening and fled with her family to her parent's home. Her sister received an emergency alert at 3:00am and evacuated her family as well to her parent's house. Her parents then needed to evacuate themselves. Additionally, this same friend happens to work as an administrator at a Jewish resident camp and institute in the Malibu mountains. The camp needed to evacuate on Friday. Staff, horses, other animals and their 2 torahs made it to safety out. Saturday she found out there is substantial damage to the camp, the extent not fully known because they have not been allowed back in.
Many other people I know have fled their homes and are awaiting word on when/if they can go back home.
So. Much. Heartache.
However, the beauty of the human spirit shines as well. People volunteer their land to house horses, their temple to house Torah's, their homes to house friends and their arms to supply hugs. They supply trailers to pull Alpacas stranded on beaches and arms to rescue bunnies surrounded by fire. They help strangers hose off their roofs, feed first responders and rescue someone's family portrait from burning houses.
I will say it again because I see it once again. We are all connected.
I now know how I will honor my friend Jackie's cousin who was killed in the Pittsburg shooting. In his memory I will donate to help rebuild Camp JCA Shalom in Malibu.
We are all connected and love binds us all.
Lovendures... How my heart goes out to you. I am a native Californian, although now I live in New Mexico. When I was a child growing up near beautiful Yosemite, I delighted in the diversity of the landscape and the great wide-open beauty of California.
And now, with 40+million people living there, it has really become someplace that I don't even recognize anymore. The fires from '17 and through today are heartbreaking, the loss of life and home.... devastating.
But yes, as you said, people are really coming together to help each other and that is the single most factor in coping with all the trauma that will be the saving grace for everyone.
Angels of love all around you dear...... walk in your strength.
Stargazer thank you. Angels of love, I am humbled in ways I really can't describe . Though I am not the one dealing with this tragedy first hand, I appreciate your thoughtfulness and message..
How blessed you were to live near such beauty. I loved my visit to Yosemite 25 years ago. 40 million nearby people now? Wow.
Here is another "we are all connected "moment. A friend who had evacuated Thursday (she is back home now) just posted on FB about fire crews heading over to her neck of the woods to help fight fires. Where are they from? My city in AZ. Possibly from just down the block from where I live.
My firefighters are helping my friends in another state.
I just heard from a friend that she saw one of our firetrucks. How awesome is that??
Disgusted! I just found out the mother of one of the victims of the Thousand Oaks shooting was labeled a "crisis actor". Her husband ( father of the vicim) was a Boy Scout/ church friend of my husband while growing up. I CANNOT imagine the added horror this evil act has caused this poor grieving family. I don't understand why someone would create these horrible conspiracy lies again and again.
A few days ago, in another thread, some body said Don Jr, and Jared Krushner , being Capricorns were headed into troubled waters. I am a Capricorn and have had pretty bad month and a half. I had to have a pulley and both ball joints replaced on my car,. Then I stepped on my glasses and broke them, my monitor went out, my bedroom TV went out. My living room Tv got blank circles and lines running down it, so I'm sure it will be gone soon. I had another scare with my car, but it was minor, so maybe things are starting to ease up. It's mean, but I hope Don Jr. and Jared's troubles are ten fold what mine have been.
Want to share this fifth skill for dealing with these times and with the ups and downs of your life:
5. Learn to accept, not judge, and listen to your negative emotions.
Being happy all the time is not normal, especially these days. Our emotions rise and fall throughout the day like the weather. They are messages from our psyche that something is not right with us. If we ignore them or cover them up with fixes, then they don't go away, but just stand there behind a closed door shouting louder and louder to be heard. The longer we put them off, the bigger they get until they become the elephant in the room.
If we listen to our emotions rather than smother them, we will see that the psyche is talking to us about what it needs from us in that moment. So listening to negative emotions provides valuable inner guidance for our lives.
Sometimes, however, we don't even know we are feeling a negative emotion. We reach for a fix before we ever know we were upset about something. There are so many fixes these days that it is easy to keep avoiding bad feelings.
I know I'm having a negative emotion when I start craving sweets. I get sick when I have large amounts of sugar so I have to sit with the cravings, and up come the negative emotions like methane gas rising from the muck. It's always old stuff, old undigested or partially digested material from early life that comes up.
If I indulge my cravings, I feel temporarily lifted but, like all addictions, other problems arise and worsen and I never feel really better.
But not indulging my cravings brings guidance about what I was doing that led to the craving and what was that bad feeling underneath it all. This practice teaches and heals.
So if you've suffered from cravings or other forms of addiction or you just have some bad feelings you don't know how to handle take a moment to breathe and ask yourself, "What is coming up if I don't do anything to make these feelings go away?
When you do sit with those feelings, here are some tips for dealing with them:
a. Accept the negative emotions.
Breathe them in. Feel them as you breathe, but do this without judgement.
b. Don't identify yourself with the negative emotions.
Instead of thinking, "I'm an angry or sad person," think, "Anger or sadness are happening right now."
When we identify with our emotions, then we add a double whammy to our pain- -that we are bad because we have these emotions.
c. Know that the feelings will not last.
Like the weather, they come and go. Even serious depression doesn't usually last. Suicidal people often report that they feel nothing would ever improve. Yet depression does lift and is treatable.
This article from Happify.com also lays out these first three points very nicely
d. Recognize the Three Poisons in your Emotions
One of the most valuable lessons I ever learned on emotions came from the Buddha's teachings called The Three Poisons. These behaviors, said the Buddha, cause us immeasurable suffering: (1) anger or pushing something away which he called aversion, (2) craving or I-gotta-have-that, which he called clinging; and (3) denial or ignoring the feeling, which he called ignorance.
(1) Anger is a healthy emotion except when it is constant. If someone is angry a lot and the anger pervades their thinking then there's something underlying, usually going back to childhood that they are not dealing with.
(2) Craving or clinging is also normal until it become constant and excessive. I must have a new house, I must have that person, I must have...(fill in the blanks). Don't ignore these feelings but instead ask your psyche what is beneath them that you need to deal with.
(3) Denial takes a lot of forms. Addiction is a biggie and blaming another person is another. I'm fine as long as I have my fix. But without that fix, I get depressed, angry, clinging, hopeless, or some negative emotion. Or, it's so-and-so's fault that I'm angry or sad.
Any thoughts?
A message for handling the dark visions: I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars. --Og Mandin
Very nice message. Thanks for posting. It is really very helpful.
Lovendures, I realize it's been a while, but I was rereading your beautiful words written in November of love and solidarity you felt in the midst of so much pain and tragedy. Restores my faith. Thank you.