The world seems hell-bent on breaking our hearts.
How we do live and love in a world full of racism, guns, violence, and bombs?
I have been in grief. Grief is appropriate. I have been enraged. Fury is appropriate.
But dearhearts, grief and rage are not enough. Grief and rage without the alchemy of love and courage will turn us into the problem. We must rise up with love and courage if we are to heal our broken hearts and broken systems. And if we are white, it is time for us to have extra courage, because we have had extra privilege whether we felt it or not.
Glennon Melton Doyle wrote these wise words this morning:
“It feels to me like battle lines are being drawn here. Are you Black Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter? We must resist that way of thinking today. Today– How about this: are you for violence or peace? Are you for oppression or equality? Are you for division or unity? Are you for fear or love? The battle lines ARE drawn and people of light must align themselves permanently and loudly with peace, equality, justice, unity, and love.”
I know which side you want to be on. I want to be on it too. And that doesn’t just mean that we believe in those good theoretical concepts. It means that we actively bring them into the world.
I know many of you are wondering the same thing I am: but what can I DO?
We can be a counter-movement. We can unleash a massive counter-response of badass kindness. We can listen more deeply. We can love more fiercely. We can be braver than we ever thought we could be. It’s going to have to be us, dearhearts. We cannot wait for our leaders, legislators, or heroes to do it for us. We are the ones.
So here is my challenge to you today: do something that is radically kind.
Something close to home. Something that takes courage. For most of us, that will be something almost embarrassingly small, and that’s okay. We have to build our courageous compassion muscles slowly and gently, just like any muscle. You don’t just wake up and become Mother Theresa or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. one day. You practice. You practice so that in the moment when the big decision suddenly presents itself, your muscle memory kicks in with automatic courageous compassion.
Today, practice on something that’s close at hand. Buy a cup of coffee for someone. Set a boundary with a bully. Speak up on behalf of someone who can’t. Go to therapy and heal your past so you can change the emotional DNA you pass down in the world. Do something that makes you bigger. Braver. Kinder. Something that puts you on the side you want to be on. And let’s show this world what it means to be human.
This wasn’t what I planned to write you about today. I had an elegantly worded mail about cleaning up the clutter in your life, loaded with wit and humor, because I’m launching a big program this weekend. I just couldn’t send it. I am still passionately certain that when women clean up their clutter they unleash enormous amounts of compassionate energy into the world. I have seen firsthand that The Queen Sweep Master Class helps women step up and be the biggest, bravest, most gorgeous versions of themselves.
But today, we have bigger fish to fry.
Today we are just going to try to be good humans. We will do the things that put us unmistakably on the side of peace, equality, justice, unity, and love. We will be bigger and braver than we were yesterday.
We are the ones, my loves. We have the power to change the world, one small action at a time.
So let’s go fucking do it.