I recently saw a movie that was a total game changer. Ai Wei Wei’s “Human Flow”; a documentary on the refugee crisis playing at TIFF theaters here in Toronto. A friend and I decided to check it out.
At the risk of sounding trite, but also believing this with every fiber of my being – this is one of the must see films of our time. If you have not seen it, find two hours of your life you will never regret and GO SEE IT!
It’s not an easy watch. It asks a lot of the viewer, making you squirm while exposing you to staggering facts and raw humanity. As I was watching, I felt myself growing tired and emotionally drained. A sense of hopelessness was settling in, a heaviness in the center of my chest, that wet blanket feeling was beginning to drape over my frontal lobe.
Maybe you can relate (pun intended). As humans we have a certain degree of empathy within us. For some, this is a stronger inclination than others. We are the ones who give too much of a f*ck. Usually we are labeled as “sensitive” , “deep thinker” or my personal fave, “they have a lot of feelings”, often said with an heir of condescension.
F*ck you Nancy, I’m allowed to feel all the feels.
Even so, it’s damn exhausting. After a long day of interacting with people, picking up on feelings and emotional sensations that are not our own, all an empath or ‘highly sensitive person’ wants to do is crawl into bed, flip the world the bird and sleep until muscles atrophy.
SLXLM
There are tools we can use to help build boundaries between self and others. By learning to asses what are your own emotions, and which are not, this exhaustion lessens over time. For example, yoga can help strengthen this ability to assess by giving greater insight into physical, mental, and emotional reactions. By taking time to stop, check in with the body and brain, we can better understand which emotions or burdens are our own, and which are decidedly not our responsibility.
I was tapping into this skill big time as I took in wave after wave of saddening information. In the midst of taking deep breaths, I recalled a helpful phrase learned just a few weeks prior.
An incredible woman named Joan Halifax; Zen Buddhist Teacher, anthropologist, civil rights activist and hospice caregiver had coined this insightful phrase. She better defined the state of emotional overwhelm sometimes referred to as “Compassion Fatigue” by going one step further and capturing it as “Empathic Distress”.
There was something so freeing about this slight shift in definition. It offers a sense of control and a deeper understanding of what is happening inside when we start to become distraught at the constant barrage of dystopian culture in our 24 hour news cycle. By redefining it as a “state of distress” rather than a “feeling or experience of fatigue” de-escalates the emotional reaction we naturally encounter when presented with disturbing information.
A close companion to empathy, as Joan put it, is sorrow. Feelings of despair push us into a state of despondency, and sometimes apathy. We get to the place where we are exhausted from feeling, we end up doing nothing to correct the situation.
By learning to recognize when we are in “empathic distress” we can step back, take a breath, let go of what is not ours to hold, and think of what we can do in the here and now to make a difference.
Every little thing makes a difference.
So I sat still, let the information fill me with a sense of injustice, anger, grief, rage, and compassion. I let these emotions inform me. I recognized I couldn’t hop on a plane, head to the other side of the world and save every human at the end of the movie. However, I could research organizations to support, educate myself more on the issue of human displacement and the refugee crisis experienced in so many countries all over the world.
Instead of heading into apathy and giving no f*cks, I was doing my best to give the right kind of f*ck.
I’m still reeling from this film. I saw it two weeks ago and it continues to make me feel all the feels. Even so, the information and emotion if brought to me has become a fuel. This fuel has inspired me to write this post, donate to organizations that make a difference, and instilled me with a deep sense of gratitude for the life and home I have here in Canada. (May I never take this incredible freedom I have for granted.)
As I age, I hope to refine this graceful art of giving the right kind of f*ck; helping others, but learning to avoid that void of hopelessness and apathy. Thank goodness for yoga, friends to share intense movies with and the freedom of expression I have in this country to share my story with others. All of which helps me give the right kind of f*ck.
(Click the link if you wish to donate to the International Rescue Committee https://www.rescue.org/humanflow)
