Hello and welcome to our little fierce corner of the internet. Here I explore how we get through hard times looking at the intersection of science and research; pop culture, and personal experiences. I share thoughts, musings, stories and studies to inspire our minds and remind our spirits that there are many ways to find inner strength when we need it.
Last week I mentioned that I was going to launch “The Show,” a Fierce Resilience video series this week, for more on that click this footnote.1
Why we’re here
I wasn’t going to write this. Most of what is expressed below came from a 5am journaling session last weekend thinking about the LA fires2 and how tragedies unfold, again and again. This has preoccupied me for a few reasons, the most significant being that I lived in LA for seven years and still have so many friends there. Another key reason that this feels so personal is that one of my closest friends lost her home in one of the fires. Please read to the end so you can find out more about her story. And finally, it was mere months ago that I was bracing and praying for my family’s safety in Asheville, where my brother, sister in law and nieces live. They were spared utter destruction but the town isn’t ok. And here we are again, processing so much loss. It’s a lot, and I needed to piece it together, at least for myself. Maybe for you too.
This post is a little more raw and a bit less tidy (and definitely with a few more expletives) that my usual. What’s most frustrating to me is that I don’t have answers, just questions. But maybe your heart and mind will follow along, tracing my loose thoughts and ideas, to find your own answers.
Without further ado…
What keeps coming to me is that it feels impossible to avoid tragedy.
We like to think that somehow we can avoid it. If you work hard or make the right decisions then your life won’t be shattered. But that’s not real. Shit comes a calling, and, in so many cases, there’s precious little we can do to prevent that pivotal moment from happening. …that big thing that royally fucks up your life.
Of course I think of my MS diagnosis.
I also think of recently being laid off.
Brené Brown has that fantastic quote that people are one tragedy away from (I forget how it ends, but roughly) becoming people they never thought they’d be; one tragedy from a life they never thought they’d live.
(Actual quote here)
“The biggest potential for helping us overcome shame is this: We are ‘those people.’ The truth is…we are the others. Most of us are one paycheck, one divorce, one drug-addicted kid, one mental health illness, one sexual assault, one drinking binge, one night of unprotected sex, or one affair away from being ‘those people’ — the ones we don’t trust, the ones we pity, the ones we don’t let our kids play with, the ones bad things happen to, the ones we don’t want living next door.”
Life fucks around with us.
We have this misguided assumption that hard work solves all sins, and remedies the potential in life. But no. Not always.
Tragedy is tragedy. Fire is fire. Flood is flood. Cancer is cancer.
Tornados strike. Hurricane-force winds shatter. Loved ones with ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimers are dismantled.
And after the moment when “it” happens, we may point fingers and blame and try to make sense of the why and the how and why me, and how will i ever go on?
But then we do.
We are forever changed after tragedy. We are different. There is often trauma. There are memories haunting us of the life we had and who we were.
But we’re still here.
The next steps are painful and maybe even confusing to sort, but one-by-one, we put a new life together. It seems impossible but there is almost always a way forward.
But, really how? How do we go on?
Step by step.
There are no other magic solutions.
Whatever the inciting moment is, it gets a tight spotlight. That is all you see for the days and weeks immediately following. Intent on survival, your focus tracks this unknown thief stealing in from the edge of consciousness, now taking center stage. A latent or—as they say in Hollywood— below-the-line fear now suddenly gets top billing.
There will be sadness and mourning, sure. But in the moment, it’s survival and forward motion and making sure we’re still here.
It feels selfish and self-involved to say, but it strikes a chord, this tragedy. And not just because I used to live in LA (but of course there’s that too). Any out-of-the-blue, life-altering calamity now sends tingles of recognition through my body. It brings me back to a week over a decade ago that forever changed my course.
When I was diagnosed with MS, people called my response 'empowered.' But it wasn’t. It was survival—dogged determination to keep moving forward, even when I didn’t know where forward was.
And even though I’ve personally gone through some version of full-scale life rebuilding, I still stand in awe of anyone who moves forward after devastation strikes. Just like the millions of other observers on the sidelines right now, I’m mesmerized at the capacity to keep going after lives have been decimated. A reminder that—above all—humans are wired for survival. And we do it, not by grad gestures, but one-by-one, step-by-step, moment-by-moment. It’s never how we thought our lives would look, but we get through that shit as an acknowledgement that we’re still here. We made it through.
Gradually, in the weeks and months after the “it,” the aperture widens. We transition from daily survival into building a new life. New waves of grief have space to seep in between the new normal moments of life. 1. Tragedy. 2. Rebuilding. 3. New life with sprinkles of loss that flit about, over and over.
That week in the hospital, the 'it,' changed everything. And only a decade later have I come to understand how profoundly it shaped my life. Altered me. Completely changed my course. It’s a process I now recognize as universal: tragedy rewrites us, and we only discover how in hindsight.
My heart goes out those buffeted about by grief and loss, some simultaneously holding space for their children’s/parent’s/friend’s grief and loss too. It’s all a lot. And I wish I knew better what to do.
I don’t really know how to end this exploration. Like I said at the beginning, I don’t have answers. Just so many questions and feelings. I hope that wherever you are as you read this, you are safe and secure. My, how easily we lose sight of the basic necessities.
If you, like me, need some inspiration, here are some great things I read that helped me process thoughts and sadness and helplessness last week:
From Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper post: Heartbreak Everywhere - the whole post is beautiful and so moving. Maria wrote it days after she evacuated her LA home.
So many in Los Angeles need support right now. They need emotional support, physical support, financial support…support of every kind you can imagine. I know everybody needs support in varying degrees, but scrambling to escape a fire really drives that point home. We need and depend on one another so much.
Dan Harris of 10% Happier notoriety left a note on Substack that was what I needed, a reminder of a Buddhist prayer and the parsing of empathy and compassion, overwhelm and sorrow:
Buddhist advice for not being completely overwhelmed when you consume news about the LA wildfires.
It starts by understanding the difference between empathy and compassion.
Empathy is when you feel somebody else’s feelings.
When you’re consuming news about the fires—especially when you’re watching interviews with people who’ve suddenly lost everything they own—empathy can be overwhelming.
But compassion is different….
Compassion is empathy plus the desire to help—even if there’s nothing you can actually do to help. Simply adding on the desire to help can be empowering and ennobling, and can therefore prevent overwhelm.
What to do about this practically?
When I watch news coverage of all the people whose worlds have been utterly torn apart, I silently repeat this ancient Buddhist phrase in my head:
May you be free from suffering.
And while it felt selfish to equate anything in my life with the utter destruction of areas in LA, Brooke Warner wrote a beautiful letter calling on writers (and anyone) to lean in to finding the words, even when we feel we can’t. I never thought this would end up as a post about the odd universality of tragedy, but here we are.
A great piece of writing from Brooke:
PS: How to support an amazing person!
Let me introduce you to one of my oldest and best friends, Lindsay. She’s a highly regarded, successful music supervisor (and more importantly, a nice, fun person) who lives in LA. If you aren’t familiar with the term, a music supervisor is the person who chooses music for film and TV. She’s put the songs you love in the shows you love.
She lost everything in the Palisades Fire, almost on the exact day as her new big project was launching — her podcast called Sad Song Queens.
The Sad Song Queens podcast brings together two award-winning music supervisors, Lindsay Wolfington and Laura Webb, as they sit down with the artists and songwriters behind some of the most evocative and emotional songs. Drawing on years of experience curating the perfect soundtracks for film and television, Lindsay and Laura explore the stories, experiences, and emotions that shape these deeply moving songs.
If you’re looking for an easy way to support someone affected by the fire - give the podcast a listen (and like and follow!). Also, if you’re looking for an easy way to mine some deeper emotions that might be out of sorts…fear not, now there’s a podcast for that. I’ve already devoured Ep.1! It’s so good.
Here are Spotify links but it’s available wherever you get your podcasts.
Wherever you are, I hope you are safe and secure and may you be free from suffering.
Until next time,
xxM
I couldn’t stop thinking about the fallout of the LA fires. So you’re getting a more timely post this week and next week we’ll be digging into the topic, “Can we learn resilience?” on the first episode of “Fierce Resilience: The Show.” Thank you to those who have already sent in questions for future shows! We’ve got quite a line up. If you have questions about an aspect of resilience, reply to this email or leave a comment on this post.
I lived in LA for seven years. I moved there right after college, driving from Texas in my old 1989 Volvo. I never intended to stay that long, but I had a good job working for the GRAMMY Awards and more importantly, really good friends. When I decided to move to New York, it was hard to justify why because life was so good. And that was in large part due to the friendships I made there. My heart is breaking as so many are affected by the fires and the landscape of the communities on the coast is marred and lives are wrecked.
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