A Letter from Chris Suarez
WE ARE ALL CHANGED
It is hard to write about anything of importance in the early morning hours as my mind has been consumed with the families huddled in subway tunnels, basements, and shelters scattered across the country of Ukraine. I find it difficult to sleep after watching videos of nurses caring for babies in the basements of hospitals, seeing families huddled together in the subway overnight waiting to return to discover whether their home is still intact, and perhaps the most difficult for me - watching fathers tearfully put their children and wives on trains heading out of the country while they are left behind to wait, to fight, to die. Perhaps this will be the last time they hug their children, brush their hair, zip up their coats.
This is not what they chose. This was not their preferred future.
And yet here they are. Here we are. So much to say, so many lessons, so many emotions.
Sadly, assuming all humans will do the right thing, treat people the right way, or care for fellow humans is not the reality in which we live. The drive for power or money or influence or territory or significance causes people to act at times in inhumane ways.
This is not a situation where we listen to a news report, read a column, watch a YouTube video and move on. This needs to change us, and I am certain it will. It’s a lesson in the inability for man to rule over man. We were not designed nor intended to do that. It’s a lesson in the difference between rulership and leadership. It’s a lesson in what happens when the only thing that matters is a singular goal and achieving that goal at all costs. At times the costs are too great. At times the costs are irreplaceable. At times the costs are human lives or perhaps relationships. “At all costs” is destructive to ourselves and those around us.
We will grapple with understanding why people do certain things. Why they say certain things. Why they act certain ways. Why they feel certain ways. Our opportunity is not to understand the minds and actions of others, but to understand our own.
Many of us feel helpless some 6,000 miles away from a country and from families that need so much help. That feeling of helplessness can cause uneasiness, stress, anxiety, sleeplessness. It’s the same feeling we get anywhere and anytime in our lives that we feel as if something is outside of our control. When we don’t have agency over something - or worse yet, hand that agency over to someone else - then we will always experience that unsettled feeling. We will always feel uneasy about the future. We may not have agency over events unfolding some 6,000 miles away, or even down the hallway, or in the same room. We do however have agency over what we learn, how we respond, what changes we make, and how we think.
In times of tragedy, negative visualization is a tool to provide grounding and build gratitude. When we visualize ourselves, even for just moments, in the situation of others, it causes us to deepen our appreciation for what we have and where we are. It causes us to deepen the connections with those that we are fortunate enough to be connected with right now. When we visualize something being taken away, when we visualize a world without something that we have at this very moment, that momentary pause causes us to ask some serious questions. Who is important? And do they know that they are? What is important? And does your time and your attention prove that? As you see the babies in the basement of the hospital, can you see that as your baby. As you see families huddled in the subway, can you see that as your family. As you watch fathers kiss their children goodbye at the train station perhaps for the last time, can you see them as your children.
If you can, this will change you.
Remember, allowing negative visualization to last beyond a few moments will cause unhealthy fear and anxiety based on lack of agency. It will stifle movement and action. Use those moments - use this moment - to act. No change comes without action.
Without a doubt, we are all changed.
Chris