Increasing Empathy

I sat watching the cold rain drizzling down the window pane. I was taking a course on Indigenous Contemplative Practice and part of the homework was to go outside weekly and develop a land-based practice.

This is an honest journal-style entry of how I got started and how I am increasing my empathetic capacity.

I am posting this to encourage everyone. Healing is out there and it’s for all of us. Spending time in nature can have the most profound effects on us if we sit and listen. (The poetry/dialogue is inspired by the style of Richard Wagamese).

___________________
ME: I should do my land-based learning now.

Oh, but the rain will drizzle down the back of my neck. I hate that.

but I can’t hate the rain though because I know it’s necessary for all growth.

MOTHER EARTH: You need to get uncomfortable in order to grow.

I stayed inside and continued to watch the rain while sipping a cup of tea.
___________________

There is so much to this. Do I fake a relationship with the land because I’m afraid of putting down roots? Or is the land so generous that she gave me a lesson even when I was afraid of showing up? (Probably both.)

Why did I prioritize the readings for this school course but not the land-based learning? Is this another case of how I prefer to read to know instead of earning the lesson myself?

Two Weeks Later…

___________________
ME: I love spending time with you so much that I want everything to be perfect! Nice weather, favourite location, special time of day, no interruptions…

MOTHER EARTH: It doesn’t have to be so complicated.
___________________

I went and took a walk around the neighbourhood toward the seawall.

At the shoreline…

___________________
ME: I’m here! I’m ready to listen!

MOTHER EARTH: Not quite.

ME: What? Why not?

MOTHER EARTH: Your mind is too full.

ME: With what?

MOTHER EARTH: What you want to hear from me.
___________________

She was right. Humbled, I sat and watched the waves. I tried to clear my mind, but no message came.

Two weeks later…

While walking to school I notice how beautiful the trees look and I burst into tears. (This surprises me because I am not a crier.) I realize why I can’t connect with the earth.

I feel unbearable grief.

I feel so heartbroken for this beautiful land.

I feel so angry at the corporations that continue to perpetuate a system that NO ONE WANTS!

Where are strong political leaders to protect these lands?!

___________________
ME: I love you so much! I will do anything! I will buy organic, local foods. I will eat less. I will wear used clothing. I will drive an electric car. I will compost, recycle, reduce, reuse, preach, pray, protest, teach, learn , walk and more…

MOTHER EARTH: These things are good. But will you cry with me?

ME: Cry with you?

MOTHER EARTH: I need a friend who will cry with me.
___________________

I walked on with a heavy heart. How can I say yes and open myself up to feel so much sadness? But how can I say no? Everything has been tried to avert climate change but nothing seems to be working. Maybe tears are the only way forward? In fact, maybe the problem all along has been that not enough of us are crying! Maybe if the youth and politicians saw thousands of adults crying their eyes out about this, we would finally see some change. I thought about this for days with a heavy heart.

Becoming Empathetic

I also thought back to a conversation I had a few months prior. After a good friend of mine went through divorce, I had a hard time being near her and just feeling her sadness. (Not a moment I’m particularly proud of. Ugh.) Then, I noticed that when I went through a difficult time (when my husbands health blew up in our faces), that people had a hard time being around me while I was in so much pain.

It’s easy to feel ashamed for feeling sad like it’s almost contagious and others will catch it. So when I would go out, I would mentally prepare cheerful topics that I could talk about and focus on while being honest with the uncertainty and fear I felt about my husbands health. As someone who is usually upbeat and cheerful, feeling sadness interrupted the perspective I had of myself and really had me question who I really was.

I have always wondered how to get to a place where I could sit with someone and feel their grief, especially because I don’t like feeling sad. I never understood how others can cry from empathy (movies included). I asked one of my professors during my first semester how I can learn to sit with someone and cry with them. She looked at me kindly and said, “That is a beautiful question to pursue.” She left it at that.

Yet, here was a path to become more empathetic, opening up for me, a few months later.

___________________
ME: Okay. I will sit and cry with you. If this is what’s needed, I will cry with you.
___________________

I cried the rest of that day, the next, and any time I start praying for our beautiful, breathtaking planet.

We must heal our relationship to this land if we want to heal. Given that most of us are settlers here on Turtle Island, I figured I would start posting my own journey of connecting with the land to hopefully inspire others along their journey toward healing.

Go outside. Open up. Listen. Share what lessons you have learned, or are learning.

The earth is a good mother and a good teacher.

Special Thanks

I thank my father for instilling in me a love for the land and for teaching me to listen to the land. He has always taught me to honour the ways of the indigenous, to be inclusive, and to love. I thank my professor Dr. Heesoon Bai for not giving me an easy answer about how to be more empathetic. I thank my professor Dr. Vicky Kelly for modelling indigenous education for us, for encouraging our class to embrace land-based learning, for validating all the mystical experiences I’ve had in nature, and to give honour to the land by writing about our experiences. I thank Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer and her book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013); as well as Richard Wagamese and his books, Embers (2016) and One Drum (2019). They light the way for all of us to get out, learn, and give honour to the lessons we’ve learned from the land by writing them down. I thank the tall cedars and the crashing waves of the pacific northwest for holding and dissipating all the grief and trauma I have experienced in the last seven years. The wild waters of the Kettle River for washing me clean from so much sadness and the hot, arid sunshine for drying up so many of my tears. And Lighthouse Park for holding me after I miscarried for the third time and felt irreparable. I thank our great mother Earth, for being everything we need. I thank Creator for giving us an interactive place to learn The Truth.

References: Sadly I lost a bunch of my photos recently when a hard-drive fried so these pics are uploaded from www.unsplash.com.