This world is scaring me . . . but I'm not giving up on Love

This is (still) not the eclipse of everything good

Dear ones,

This world is scaring me. I don’t know how to help or what to do. I have never before felt so strong—and so vulnerable—at the same time. And yet, I know this: if I stay with Love, and refuse to abandon my place in this world, something beautiful will happen.

Some of you may remember a post I wrote last year called This Is Not the Eclipse of Everything Good. I wrote it during the week following the Hamas attack on Israel— before the retaliation, before the starvation of Gaza.

I wrote it when we had just heard the news - and the headlines overwhelmed the nervous system and outrage and extraordinary grief snaked like poison into every corner of our lives.

I find myself returning to that piece now, reading it the way I read my dreams: searching for signs, patterns, and messages that still hold. Some things do. Some things deepen. And some things are different now—because I am different now.

This time, it’s not the war in the Middle East, or the political shenanigans in the mad White House, or the violence of deportations that’s shaking me. It’s the sense that something foundational is being rearranged—in me, and in the collective. As if the storm isn’t just outside, but inside, too.

Since my stroke last year, something has shifted in me. I had a conversation with the part of me that was so quiet - but fiercely, firmly so. And once I saw her, once I met that part, she expanded. And she surprised me: instead of arguing with or rejecting the part that was fearful, she walked toward it. She embraced it. She folded it into her world — the world of love.

The part of me that used to hide in the closet when my parents argued is trembling again. Listening again. Trying to find the shape of safety in a world where the rules have changed. But even as I tremble, I feel this strength, this courage. The part of me that used to wait quietly for someone else to fix things is dissolving.

And alongside the grief and the silence, there is also this:
Refusal.

You can’t have this world.
It’s mine. I love it. And I will push back. Not with shouting. Not with signs. Not with big donations or public debate. That’s not my shape.

I pray my refusal. I envision my refusal. I activate the worldwide web of invisible power with my strongest skill: I see the world as it could be.

And I am not alone.

There is a whole world waking up beneath the headlines. A world of dreamers, teachers, mystics, artists, and truth-tellers who are holding the light steady—still building lives of beauty, wisdom, and care.

I see this in my own community.
I see it in you.

Photo by Briana Tozour on Unsplash

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot about what it means to stay—to stay awake, stay soft, stay present—in a world that keeps asking us to fight or flee. I’ve been asking: what if there’s another way? What if we don’t have to harden or run or shut down?

And what if you don’t feel strong—if you only feel broken or numb? How might we support you in that? How might we hold you through a hard thing? How might we build a circle that connects with other circles? Circles that can hold one another. Circles that can hold you. And me. And this world.

In that earlier post, I wrote:

“When overwhelming news stories start crashing against my shores, I can get a little panicky. I know I should say something, but I… can’t. Not yet. I need time to sit with myself and listen to the patterns of the world. I need to watch the shadows move across the face of the zeitgeist. I need signs and smoke signals to make the world into sense again.”

This is not because I don’t care. It’s not because I’m ignoring the calls to speak louder, faster, more urgently. This is what it looks like when I stand up. I stand. I look around for who needs to gather. Who needs support. Who needs help.

We are all shaken. Of course we’re shaken. This is way too much. We aren’t made for a constant barrage of crisis. Our upset reminds us that we are still human. It reminds us that this is not normal.

And that’s good. We don’t want to be practiced in tragedy. We don’t want a habitual response. Thousands have died. Tens of thousands displaced, terrorized. I want to feel this.

Also, it’s okay to not know, right away, what to say. Eventually, meaning will begin to weave itself together. I’ll find my footing. I’ll know what to say—how to express what I stand for. Right now, I’m listening—and sharing what I hear with you.

What emerged then, and is emerging again now, is a question:
What if, instead of taking sides, we stay with love?

This doesn’t mean we refuse to see harm or remain silent in the face of injustice. It does mean that we refuse to collapse into a narrative that erases someone else's humanity. It means that we refuse to serve war with our attention.

This Love that I am speaking of is not romantic love. Not even kindness. I’m speaking of Love as a force. A real power we can harness to metabolize fear without collapsing into it.

Last year, I wrote:

In a way, we are all holding the world together with our attention right now. In a way, this is the most important thing we can do. This means that when other people fall outside of the zone of our caring, we need to go and get them. We need to call them back into the circle. We need to say: ‘I see this and I don't agree with it.’

I see this.
I don’t agree with it.

And what if, instead of arguing, we choose to imagine a different way? Not as an escape. Not as fantasy. But as resistance. As sacred action. I’m speaking of imagination as a form of prayer—and as a blueprint for what’s next. Because the world we want is already whispering to us. We just have to learn how to hear it.

So, these are the soul questions I’m living into now. And they’re the questions I’ll be teaching from going forward. When I gather with paid subscribers on Zoom (details coming soon), this is what we’ll explore:

What does it mean to bless the world as it is—even now?
To bless it because we love it—perhaps more deeply than ever.

What does it mean to bless from the deepest intimacy with what is good, true, and beautiful. To stand, not in spiritual bypass but in fierce determination to take a stand for Love.

If you didn’t read the original post last year, you can find it here.
If you did, maybe you’ll read it again—with new eyes.

Because this is not the eclipse of everything good. Not while we’re still here. Not while we’re still humming, still blessing, still noticing sunlight. It’s only the beginning of the reawakening of the world of Love.

Join me in the circle. There’s a space for you there.

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Ways to connect, to talk with me, to join my circle:

Schedule a 1:1 conversation. Talk to me about you. I will reflect what I see and do my best to support you along your chosen pathway. Here’s my 1:1 page, where you can learn about my counseling work — I call it soul coaxing

Become a paid subscriber to support the work and join me for the Study Yourself Workshops. Check that out here.

Revisit the Study Yourself Workshops already recorded for you — here’s the list.

Coming up:
Stay With This World—a summer series for paid subscribers.

You’ll be invited to place your feet gently back on the ground of this world— to anchor in the field of Love, not as a way out, but as a way in.

From there, we’ll explore what it means to re-inhabit the footprint of your own life— to walk it with awareness, to shape it with devotion, to live as if your life is a blessing laid down for the world to follow.

Because it is.

Photo by Stas Ostrikov on Unsplash

With love,
Amy