Daryl Wood's Blog

Over the years I’ve been told that I’m too sensitive, that I can sympathize with the plight of others too easily. That may be true as I often see past human ‘misbehaviours’ to the fragile underlying in all of us that is a defense to a scary world. But I still feel the initial bruising of my spirit when an injustice is played out on the world stage or in my own circle of connection. It can be super hard not to feel empathy or compassion when there is SO much trauma and despair wherever we look. And it’s hard to look away when big events like war, criminal activity, pandemics and assaults on humanity surround us.

So many times I have read about or seen images or met someone suffering and told myself that I am the lucky one who can look away. I can be fully immersed in a documentary or news report and feel such sadness for the people whose lives have been upended in the most tragic circumstances. And then, I can look away. I don’t have to live with the crushing loss or imminent danger that is on display through every form of media. I can turn off the sources and go about my daily routine giving a little to each of the causes that strike at my heart or filling up my life with whatever is in front of me.

Close to home I see and hear the anguish of friends who have lost an adult child, relatives tormented by infertility, people barely able to pay for food and others oppressed by loneliness. I do the best I can to love and support them but I know what I do is unsustainable. I can no more be a full time reservoir of hope and championship to them than anyone can be that for me in these days of my acute grief.

Perhaps it is safer this way so that I and others like me don’t crumble under the weight of compassion fatigue. Burnout from witnessing so much hurt is unhealthy at the very least. So I remind myself that those who love me have and will step in to offer what they can but ultimately they will need to look away to replenish their own wellbeing. Even I, in the tiniest of ways can look away when someone in the grocery store tells me a deer hit their car and totalled it. For that brief time they tell me what happened I have looked away from my own grief.

It may not be for long because I will never be able to completely look away. My sweet Doug has his fingerprints all over my life. There are people everyone … you included … who may be grappling with severe or even life altering conditions that simply can’t be looked away from. So when you meet someone who is clearly grieving take a few extra minutes to listen and hold sacred space for them. That might be all they need to get them through until to the next time they can look away.