Beep. New app notification. “Deadliest mass shooting in modern US history”
Email alert. “Sexual harassment comes at a cost”
Social media tag. “‘We only kill black people,’ a cop told a woman”
Newsfeed update. “Another failed ISIS attack”
The ruthless cycle of worldly chaos persists. Vile politics and crimes continue to haunt me. I turn off my gadgets and toss them away to flee the confusion. Where do I hide from this daunting reality? Is denial even an option?
In a fast-paced, digital era where life happens at the click of a button, my immediate response to racism, xenophobia, and sexism is: I want all injustice to end right here, right now. I have no patience. Zero tolerance. Caught up in the heat of the moment, I fail to remember the most crucial element of authentic social change: it should start from within.
Growing up in Saudi Arabia, I had my share of challenges, paradoxes, and traumatic experiences. I was angry, resentful, and hurt for a long time. My parents were divorced when I was four and I grew up with an abusive gramma. To escape the pain, I got married at the age of 18 to an abusive man. After getting my divorce, I was unable to have “healthy” relationships due to internalized abuse.
My pain pushed me to soul search and ask difficult questions. Eleven years ago, I embarked on a lifelong journey of healing, seeking inner-peace. Today, the roles I fulfill as a mother, wife, daughter, or sister, at school, work, or in the community, are shaped by a strong desire to understand the complex problems of violence, and how to respond to them in competent ways.
I continue to learn and discover so much about myself and my surroundings. Empathy, compassion, and withholding judgment toward oneself and others are key to deeper, more humane insights. All part of a bigger, transformative process I am yet to comprehend fully or master.
Meditation, reflection, and acquiring the skills to reconnect with my soul has shifted my world from turmoil to gradual peace. It became evident that amidst agony, the lines between my trauma-conditioned insecurities and external forces of oppression get blurred. When violence is internalized, victimhood becomes a refuge. It was easier to blame everyone rather than deal with and take responsibility for the root causes of my misery. The brilliant Maya Angelou said in her Letters to My Daughter, “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them … If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.”
However, structural violence is real. It is so harmful that the founder of peace and conflict studies Johan Galtung described it as “violence that works on the soul” depriving many people from realizing their potential. Yet even while navigating malicious, unjust systems, we are still capable of making choices and reclaiming spaces no matter how tough or dark they might seem to be. Imagine if each one of us turned inward and centered the inner compass, what would be the ripple effect of such human consciousness?
In her daring book Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown, says, “this may be the most important element to understand — that what we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole system …’Transform yourself to transform the world.’ This doesn’t mean to get lost in the self, but rather to see our own lives and work and relationships as a front line, a first place we can practice justice, liberation, and alignment with each other and the planet.”
As someone who survived the horrors of physical and psychological abuse, I do not mean to make this transformation seem simple or to undermine the suffering of people who endure painful circumstances. Healing takes time, countless trials and errors, profound mentorship and support, tears, laughter, and uncertainty. I continue to struggle when I am confronted with intense emotions during conflict or discomfort. Last year, I felt unsettled after a heated clash with a colleague. When I discussed my unrest with my mentor, she validated my feelings but encouraged me to contemplate some questions. What is it about this person or situation that triggered me? How can I change my reaction? How can I say it better, less bitter next time?
Through an inner spiritual shift, we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit. In critiquing the wave of aggression witnessed in social justice activism, Frances Lee advocated for, “shifting my activism towards small scale projects and recognizing personal relationships as locations of transformation.” Peace felt within reflects outwardly, rarely the other way around. And in this digital age of mass chaos, it is vital to remain compassionately mindful of our inner workings — even if that means being uncomfortable. Because as the inspiring bell hooks, “it’s in the act of having to do things that you don’t want to that you learn something about moving past the self. Past the ego.”
Hasnaa Mokhtar, of Worcester, is executive director of the Center for Nonviolent Solutions and a doctoral student in International Development at Clark University. She specializes in human rights and the prevention of gender-based violence in developing countries. She previously worked as a journalist in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and in 2013 led a delegation of 10 Saudi women on a trek to the base camp at Mount Everest to raise money for breast cancer research.
Originally published at https://www.telegram.com.
