Shock and Awe

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How what jolts us points us to the worlds we crave to create

I am no stranger to being appalled by the wounds of the world. It started very early in my life. 

When I was seven years old we moved into a neighborhood where most of the children my age were boys. And they weren't very nice. In fact, most of the time they were real jerks. 

My fellow girl on the street was Black. One day at the bus stop, one of the boys sneered in her face and demanded, "If I punched you, would you get a white eye?" My friend didn't flinch (as an adult I'd realize why - racist treatment was already a daily part of her life). I was horrified. 

When recounting the incident later to my mother I begged her to explain to me how someone could be so mean. All these years later I have a lot of answers to that question but none of them make me feel better.

During this time my family was boycotting Nestle because of their practice of pushing baby formula (which they sold) on and discouraging breastfeeding by mothers in underdeveloped countries. My mother explained to me how dangerous this could be to babies with limited access to medical care - breast milk was their best chance at building a healthy immune system. Why would any company put profit over people? (Still asking that question.) Even as a child, I knew this wasn't right.

When I was twelve, I started getting letters from Greenpeace and I found out about the Canadian Seal Slaughter. I read in horror how young seals were killed for their snowy fur. How was this barbaric practice happening with government support? I've lost track of the number of petitions I've signed over the years.

In college, I lived on the performing arts floor of the dorm. One room was occupied only with a piano and mirrored wall so artists had a place to practice. 

My second year on the floor, the powers that be decided we couldn't use the piano anymore. It would be removed and the room would be off-limits. What?!? How could they remove the performing arts room from the performing arts floor?

I gathered all the literature I'd been given as part of my enrollment which touted the various speciality floors and what a feather in the cap of the school they were. I demanded a meeting and explained to those in charge that they had made promises in said literature that they better be prepared to keep unless they wanted a tuition boycott on their hands. (Ah, the confidence of youth.) They backed down. The room stayed open and kept its piano.

When I started teaching in a public high school, shock was a daily experience for me. 

As a pretty much straight A student who never got in trouble (and was also white), I'd never seen the other side of school - the disproportionate discipline for students who weren't white, the way one mistake got a student slapped with a warning label that followed them to every class, how spending on sports far exceeded spending on arts, how staff dodged rules meant to ensure students with disabilities got support, how sexual harassment got swept under the rug. 

Heck, I was only two months into teaching when my then principal got escorted out of the school in handcuffs because he'd been making obscene phone calls to teachers. That same year two more teachers would be fired for sleeping with students.

And the year I spent teaching in a juvenile detention center - that's a whole book of shock and horror. It made me realize just how sheltered and privileged a life I had lived.

Shock is a part of living in the modern world. But how are we supposed to function when constantly startled? How do we keep from freezing, shutting down? How do we respond instead of react?

We follow the awe. Because despite all the moments I've been saddened by the shocks, I've had equally powerful moments of being amazed by the beauty, creativity and love in our world.

Having been born with a deep love for animals, a chance encounter with a library book about otters led to a lifelong love affair with marine mammals. I've had the privilege of caring for sick dolphins who recovered and returned to their ocean homes.

Listening with rapt attention to my musician uncle was the reason I learned to play the guitar. Music continues to be a balm for me, especially when times are tough.

At fourteen, I performed in my first musical and my second lifelong love affair with theater began. Nothing makes me feel alive like stepping into the bright lights on a previously dark stage, feeling the deep connection with the audience as I move them to laugh or shed a tear.

I've discovered the pure joy I experience from teaching and mentoring - watching my students find themselves, blossom and realize goals they once considered out of reach has been the great privilege of my life.

When a fellow teacher and I started a creative arts class in the detention center, all the adults (including us) looked on in amazement as the girls at the facility, who were so often fighting each other and acting out with us, melted into peace as they painted. "Please", they begged, "Can we do this every day?"

Equally gratifying is the group coaching I facilitate where people discover their authentic selves, what really matters to them and where they are brilliant. It floods me with hope and excitement for where we, as humanity, can go.

Then there's the awe of the moments I've spent steeping in the beauty of the natural world - the mountains, the oceans, the sunrise and sunsets, the lizards who own my front porch, the great-horned owls who nest in my neighborhood park and serenade me with their soft hoots on my nightly walk. 

All this awe sparks my creating. Because it reminds me that, for all the pain and suffering I have seen in the world, I have the power to bring compassion, expression and healing.

I once spent ten days in California's Elkhorn Slough tagging threatened sharks and rays as part of an Earthwatch Expedition. I'd been accepted as part of a team of teachers who would take what they learned back to their students. 

One of our tagging spots was close to a hiking trail in the surrounding park. I had the privilege of releasing a critically endangered guitarfish from our nets while educating a group of tourists who were on the trail. They had no idea something so magical could be found in what was basically their backyard. 

I would return from this trip just in time to begin the new school year, teaching Environmental Science. Like every class I'd taught, this one had an extensive curriculum I was to "cover" by the end of the course. Getting through all the material always felt daunting especially with students who were often not interested. 

But in that moment of sharing an amazing creature with fascinated observers, I realized that this lengthy curriculum could be boiled down to one simple phrase, "Everything is connected." And that is how I taught the class moving forward and my students actively engaged in ways they never had before.

Currently, I'm pursuing a dream that's been gestating for several years. I'm building and leading a coaching program that weaves together my love of teaching, my passion for personal storytelling, the profound learning I've had around the human emotional pallet and my beloved theater. I am humming with excitement as I move with this creation.

And this creating helps me keep my feet under me even as the world around me is dismantling and rebuilding, devolving and evolving, 

What calls to you in the midst of chaos? Where do you find your footing when the ground beneath you shakes? How can you see what shocks you as a pull to be in and with what inspires you? How can you create new worlds by moving with what you love?