Martin Luther King, Jr. believed (paraphrased here) that if we don’t have something in our lives worth dying for, life is not worth living. That’s a pretty powerful statement… and in the world of social justice activism, you’ll often come across someone who says they’re willing to give their lives for a cause.
But we’re not asking you all to give your lives. We’re asking you to LIVE your lives. It is so much more powerful to LIVE FOR something. This is the power of Proactive Nonviolence and the call of NonviolenceUnited.org – to do your part to proactively build a better world.
Integrity. This is one of the “tools” you’ll need to succeed with Nonviolence. Integrity means following your heart and doing the right thing regardless of social pressures, of who’s around you, of what you’ve been told, and regardless of what you may have been doing your entire life. It’s connecting with a core value inside you — justice driven by compassion — and living with integrity in your everyday choices in what you think, what you say, and what you do. It’s being who you really are wherever you are.
Each of our choices in the past helped build the world we live in today. And each of our choices, from this moment forward, will help build the world of tomorrow. There is a way to build a better world – a world driven by the innate goodness of people and their shared values of justice, kindness, and compassion for other people, for the planet, and for animals.
Live your values, change the world. It’s that simple.
I often talk with social justice activists who feel overwhelmed. They try to feel excited at the possibilities, but find themselves crumbling to a halt, depressed, restless and at times feeling hopeless.
Some of us feel on edge, overly anxious and quick to anger. Our eating habits might be irregular — eating too little or too much. We can’t sleep or we can’t stop sleeping. What’s going on?
We may be suffering from a form of Post Traumatic Stress Reaction also known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Many social justice activists have seen things a person should never have to see. We may experience first hand or through videos and extensive reading the images of war, famine, violent attacks, death and atrocities to people, to the planet and to helpless animals.
These images become burned in our minds and can haunt us in our nightmares and in daytime flashbacks.
Some sufferers of PTSD overcome their symptoms/reactions within months of experiencing the trauma. But what about those of us who by the very nature of our work continue to put ourselves in the middle of the horror? What will happen to us when we continue to see and deal with these horrors day in and day out for years?
These very real and lucid memories can be emotionally crippling and result in a host of reactions in our attempt to manage the pain. We can be blind-sided by depression, anxiety, anger, sleeplessness, nightmares, memory loss, restlessness, jumpiness, fear and amplified emotions. And some of us may try to cope in unhealthy ways.
One of the more disturbing and harmful coping mechanisms can be a form of avoidance. The intrusive thoughts and resulting depression, anxiety and/or anger become so distressing that we try to avoid contact with everything and everyone who might trigger the ill feeling. We may withdraw from our activist friends, we may get less involved, we may threaten and destroy relationships all in an unconscious and sometimes conscious attempt to end the pain.
What can we do?
First, recognize the symptoms in yourself and in your friends and fellow social justice activists. Be supportive of yourself and of each other.
Know that your reactions are not at all abnormal. Caring people have open hearts and open minds — those open hearts and open minds can be easily hurt. The very definition of compassion means “to suffer with.”
Seek the help of a counselor, a healthcare professional, a spiritual advisor, a mentor, a family member, a close friend and/or a support group of your fellow activists.
Take time to look at the sky, to meditate, to breathe, to laugh, to find the joy in life.
Turn off your television and tune out the violence. Much of the media is designed to keep the public hyper-aroused, anxious and consuming. Tune out the violence and make room for Nonviolence.
“Shut off” with your friends. You may have friends that deal with the same tough issues. When you’re together recognize that together you already “get it.” You don’t have to convince each other of anything. Help each other find the positive, look for the good, get creative and build on the joy of having a friend who understands.
Read a good book. Listen to music. Take a walk.
And, maybe most importantly, recognize that you have awakened. You are doing your best to no longer be a part of the cycle of pain. You are part of what is right in this world. Join with others in that joyful awakening and invite others to join us not in painful awareness, but in joyful activism — knowing that from this day forward we are going to make the world a better place for all.
As an activist for social justice, in the middle of informing someone you’ve probably run into some folks who suddenly stop you, plug their ears, and quip, “I don’t want to know.” I understand the “pain of knowing,” but why are some people more outraged by the sharing of the facts than of the facts themselves – shouldn’t they be outraged that injustices are happening at all?
I don’t have an answer – I’m wondering what you think…
Is there a broken or incomplete feedback loop that goes something like this, “Oh, that’s painful information >> it’s hurting me >> if I don’t hear/see it, then I won’t be in pain.” But the painful act didn’t stop, just the awareness stopped. What seems to be missing is ACTION. Maybe the feedback loop could be more complete, “Oh, that’s painful information >> it’s hurting me >> because it is hurting others >> how can I stop the pain of others so that I can stop my pain?”
This would be the development of “us” – recognizing that we are all ONE, that we are interconnected, that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere (Martin Luther King, Jr.).
How do we get people to develop beyond the “me-me-me” to the “us”?
What if everyone on Earth lived exactly like you do? If everyone traveled the same way, ate the same kinds of foods, wore the same kinds of clothes, lived in the same size of home, consumed the way you do — would it really be sustainable? Could planet Earth handle it? Would those choices build a better world? Would those choices make life better for all people, for the planet, and for animals?
Your everyday choices have an impact — and you ARE making a difference. But what kind of difference are you making? What kind of difference do you want to make?
Every word, every action, every bite of food, and every bit of consumption have built the world of today. And each of your choices from this moment forward will help build the world of tomorrow. There’s a way to build a better world — live A Life Connected.
Nonviolence United explains Nonviolence as connection; whereas violence is disconnection. This is fundamental to what is taught by the heroes of Nonviolence.
Mohandas Gandhi taught a continual search for the truth – to connect while eliminating disconnection (lies, propaganda, personal disconnection of choices and their effects).
Cesar Chavez taught us that when we buy consciously and live our lives consistently with our values we can build a fair society – connection of our choices and their effects can build a society reflective of those values; disconnection builds a schizophrenic society that doesn’t reflect, respect or uphold our values.
Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us of “interbeing”– that everyone and everything is connected; how even a piece of paper holds the soil, the tree, the sky, the clouds and the rain that gave birth to it.
And Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us of how the disconnection from how we waste our resources on hate, militarism and materialism rather than on uplifting humanity is limiting our true potential.
You’ll also hear from the masters of Nonviolence their call for love. As Thich Nhat Hanh puts it, “Love is the essence (the core, the heart) of Nonviolence.” But what is love? How can we love our enemies when they cause us so much pain?
Love in the tradition of Nonviolence doesn’t mean acceptance of an opponent. It doesn’t even mean you have to like your opponent. Love means connecting to the potential of your opponent. Love means seeing yourself in your opponent.
We each may remember a time when we were not who we are now. If you sat down and had a conversation with your past self about issues now important to you, you might not even like that person. If that person was in front of you today, you might even see that person as an opponent. But what if you hate or dismiss or even hurt that person? Will that person have the opportunity to reach their potential? How might you help? Think of how much more powerful it would be to recognize the potential for good in that opponent, to foster their potential and to offer a hand in their reaching that potential. That is love.
“… the Greek language has another word for love, and that is the word “agape.” Agape is more than romantic love, it is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive good will toward all men. Agape is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart.
When you rise to love on this level, you love all men not because you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, but you love them because God loves them. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Love your enemies.” And I’m happy that he didn’t say, “Like your enemies,” because there are some people that I find it pretty difficult to like. Liking is an affectionate emotion, and I can’t like anybody who would bomb my home. I can’t like anybody who would exploit me. I can’t like anybody who would trample over me with injustices. I can’t like them. I can’t like anybody who threatens to kill me day in and day out. But Jesus reminds us that love is greater than liking.
Love is understanding, creative, redemptive good will toward all men. And I think this is where we are, as a people, in our struggle for racial justice. We can’t ever give up. We must work passionately and unrelentingly for first-class citizenship. We must never let up in our determination to remove every vestige of segregation and discrimination from our nation, but we shall not in the process relinquish our privilege to love.
I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many sheriffs, too many white citizens’ councilors, and too many Klansmen of the South to want to hate, myself; and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up before our most bitter opponents and say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country, and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, and we’ll still love you. But be assured that we’ll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process… and our victory will be a double victory.”
I watch this video again and again. And I learn something every time. Martin Luther King, Jr. does a wonderful job of explaining part of the philosophy of Nonviolence. He also reminds us of the importance of training, self-discipline, and courage.
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