Life & Therapy

I am struggling to find the right adjective to describe how I feel about the shooting that happened today at an elementary school in Connecticut. Horrified. Perplexed. Horrified. Deeply saddened. In disbelief. Horrified. Enraged. Disgusted. I am mostly horrified, and I am deeply saddened. I cannot even begin to understand how this could happen, why this could happen, and how someone could do this. I feel helpless, and I am enraged.

I want to be angry AT someone, I want it to be their fault and I want them to stop whatever they are doing so this doesn’t happen again. I see that I am not alone in this. When a person decides to kill others, we all are tempted to direct our anger at someone. People angry with the killer call him a coward. People angry about gun control or lack thereof start out being angry with politicians, but generally end up feeling angry with anyone from the opposite point of view. Personally, my anger gets directed at the people responsible for the media coverage. None of this helps. It just spreads the anger. We are not truly being with or feeling our anger when we immediately jump to blame someone else. It may feel satisfying and it may even make us feel like we are more in control of the situation. If we know who is at fault, we can fix the problem, and that will take care of our feelings of helplessness. If there is someone at fault, we can punish them, and that will make us stop feeling angry, right?

I cannot pretend that I know the answer of how you deal with something like this. I can only try to put myself in the shoes of the people who are suffering the most and imagine, as painful as it is, how I might feel if this happened to me. I would likely feel angered by people using my tragedy as an opportunity to snipe at one another about their pet issue. I would deeply desire that someone bravely attempt to try to understand how I might be feeling. And that is the word I keep rubbing up against today: feeling. Can we all pause today to feel? Can we turn off the news for a moment? Feelings cannot be felt under a barrage of numbers, tallies, and commentary. The killer likely felt some kind of rage he could not contain and he probably wanted to direct it at as many people as possible. We can pay respect to his victims by doing the absolute opposite thing. Let’s not play “hot potato” with our anger and blame, and let’s try to wrap our hearts around these feelings, with love for the people who are too hurt right now to feel what just happened to them. Let’s all hold those who have lost so much today, tight, in our hearts, allowing our emotions to be the fuel for the compassion that is so very much needed right now.

Please feel free to use the comment section if you wish to discuss your feelings.  I do monitor, so I protect this space from trolls and people who cannot discuss with respect.