To change the world: receive love.
Edit- updated for clarity.
“Justice is what love looks like in public, just like tenderness is what love feels like in private.” - Cornel West
To speak about anything means to speak about receiving love.
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The end of last month marked the day of Truth and Reconciliation, honouring the population of survivors and the children who never returned home from Canadian residential schools, as well as their families and communities.
This month marks a period of drastically escalated violence for Israelis and Palestinians, unjustified killings and grief, a rise in Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia worldwide, and the potential wipeout of a population amidst massive media and power imbalances.
As I think about how to show up for those I love, and populations I have never met in the world, I remember Cornel West’s Montreal discussion in September on apartheid, racism and slavery. I remember his advice: To change anything, root yourself in receiving love.
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Feeling the acute weight of your own privilege - a privilege of life and safety, when reading constantly about those denied it? Sometimes, we will feel helpless beyond our small acts. And what we are meant to do, in this moment, is hold witness for the world that is, and work to carve out the world we want to create.
We talk about needing full cups in order to sustainably advocate for others. All that is true, but let’s take things further:
To learn how to advocate for others, we need to remember how to receive love. These concepts are interdependent.
Today, try this:
Think about someone who made you feel deeply loved, now or as a child. I’m not talking about an abstract love - I’m talking about a deep feeling that endures through pain, and makes people feel super seen.
For me, this early source of love was my family - my parents and brother.
This doesn’t have to be biological family for you - it can be chosen family.
Think about the power of being made to feel seen and loved. What warmth came from that feeling?
Take that feeling inside you, and swish it all over your insides. Bathe yourself in its warmth.
A feeling of love that is so deeply fundamental is also… universal.
How does that feeling of being seen imbue you with a love for everyone around you?
How might others, in situations very different to ours, who look very different than us, receive a similarly fundamental kind of love everyday? How lucky must they be, just like us?
A feeling of love that is so deeply fundamental to the individual is also… radically powerful in dismantling power dynamics.
How do power dynamics suggest that certain groups of people are less deserving of love than others?
Who might systemically not be able to keep relishing in their own version of this love, because of these dynamics?
What might we do to level playing fields, to allow everyone an equal chance at holding onto this fundamental feeling? How do we do this with the priority it deserves?
Your joy, your received love, is a gift. Remember daily to hold onto the love you’ve received, the moments of joy - from a person, from the world, from your communities. Regardless of how confused, helpless or lost you might ever feel, this intuition is powerful.
Swish that love around inside of you, turn it universal in your heart, and use it as fuel to create beauty for others in this world.
Sending <3, always,
Raha