They left because they could not bear the sound of their baby suffering. I stayed because I could not bear the thought of my baby suffering alone.

The opportunity to comfort exists only if we dare to hear the pain.

This phrase speaks to the love and emotion that makes us each profoundly human, and it alludes to beautiful ideals such as free spirit and free will. If you’re anything like me, joy and peace envelope you when you think about it. Ahhh …

The reality of following your heart, however, isn’t always so pleasant, particularly if your heart is calling you to be part of the solution to some societal issue, problem or injustice. Like war, heart following can, in actuality, be more “gory” than “glory.” And, those of us on the front lines of the helping professions are almost always the first casualties.

We—the teachers, therapists, social workers, first responders, activists and other helping souls—are lost frequently to burnout. Almost inevitably, we eventually confront the difficult feelings such as disillusionment, helplessness, hopelessness and exhaustion that stem from doing the profoundly human work of this world.

Burnout is only natural as the soft idealism of our highest humanity bumps repeatedly against the hard realities of long hours, bad conditions, entrenched systems, ungrateful recipients of our energy, and the innate human resistance to change. It is not surprising at all, then, when at some point we arrive at the question, “Is any of this really worth it?” As doubt takes hold, we wonder if we really can impact our world in any substantial kind of way.

The truth is: doing the real human work is the guts and the gore of our earthly existence. A retired homicide detective once told me he could face his job daily because he knew there were “things that need attending to.” Things like mopping up blood. For first responders, this is very literally so. For the rest of us, it still holds true figuratively. We absorb the grief, or even the wrath, of others when we dare to move in close to their suffering.

Yes, these are important things that absolutely need attending to. We do them if we desire to participate in shaping the society in which we live. But, there are other things that need attending to, as well. Things like our own selves. We need to set boundaries in our lives or we risk being consumed by the work. We are simply no good to anyone when we are depleted emotionally, physically, financially—a fact I am grappling with head on at this very moment.

Our hearts do have a tendency to run off fast and far. And, all too often, rather than steering us toward the safe arms of support and security, they are wont to lead us out on a lonely highway and strand us there. When the overwhelm and exhaustion take over, there is little in the way of support or even empathy. Thus, we are foolish if we completely abandon our own needs in our pursuit of some high good.

As Paul Rogart Loeb notes in his book, Soul of a Citizen, we must pay attention to important personal concerns like our emotional well-being and our basic economic survival. If we do not, we are, at best, less than optimally effective and, at worst, subject to burn out and drop off completely.

News flash: Trying to turn Maslow’s Hierarchy on its head, tackling transcendence before safety, is a recipe for certain collapse.

So what does it mean? Don’t ever let your heart lead? Shut off the compassion spigot completely? Live solely in the intellect? Tuning out our hearts–no matter how tempting it may be at times or how prudent it may seem–cannot bring us to fulfillment, either. The only answer can be, then, balance.

Gloria Steinem suggested “sacrificial nurturers” flip the Golden Rule on it’s head: “Do unto yourself as you would do unto others.” This, she explains, does not mean withdrawing from the world, but refusing to cannibalize ourselves for the sake of our commitments. Other activists remind us that while we can’t solve all the world’s problems, we can take on one project at a time and continue to do so for our entire lifespan.

In other words, we can pace ourselves.

AsThich Nhat Hanh advises, “Smile, breathe and go slowly.” Yes, we can still follow our hearts, but it is also perfectly acceptable for us to be a tortoise rather than a hare as we go about it. Doing so allows us to retain more of the peace and absorb less of the frustration that comes with the journey.

These two words have been etched indelibly in my heart since I heard them four months ago. My neighbor, a troubled foster youth waiting to be adopted, said them to me when I told him “you can do better things with your life.”

This teenage boy had been moved around, had issues with violence and other behavior problems, and had stolen some things from my car just before this conversation of ours. He was also intelligent, funny, irresistibly charming, and very, very hurt. I told him about what I’ve seen happen to people who continue down the path he was on and told him I wanted better for him. He could do better things.

I’ll never forget the way he said “Like what?” He said it like some sort of challenge, like he wanted to hear me say something he hadn’t heard a thousand times before, like he was dying to hear something that would actually resonate for him. Sadly, I don’t think I succeeded in being more than trite, in saying anything more than the typical which he has likely dismissed over and over a hundred times before.

The truth is, “like what?” is a question no one can ever really answer for someone else. The most I could have hoped to do was to open him up to answer it for himself. Obviously, that is not a task typically accomplished in one sitting.

It is something so many of us are floundering with on an ongoing basis. How do we envision overcoming our pasts, surpassing our limitations, and making a brighter future for ourselves? Even when there is some modicum of stability in our lives, this is tough enough to approach, but with the added hurdles of abuse, loss, and constant moving . . . envisioning a life beyond the hurt you’ve always known can be as abstract as envisioning the magnitude of the universe.

This encounter touched me deeply. I am working on ways to partner and bring heavy-hitters to San Diego to speak to our youth–people who have really been there in the worst of life’s circumstance, have managed to overcome, and have managed to thrive. That kind of voice holds the power to touch a heart, open a mind, tweak a vision just enough to convince a person to begin to make use of the resources for change available to them in their day to day lives. Without such a tweak of conciousness, so many people are stuck in the black-hole of their own habits of woundedness.

And while an empowerment event is a great way to offer a glimmer of hope to a multitude of lives who have little, each of us holds the power in our personal voice to offer hope to individuals we come in contact with. It’s offering a smile and compassion where these are scarce. It’s refraining from judgment and from offering unsolicited advice. It’s offering forgiveness, even while holding one responsible for their actions. It’s demonstrating that after each mistake, no matter how grave, we can each get up, start again, and do better with ourselves.

It’s not really the kind of thing you can easily answer in a sentence, but more something you model as you live. “Like what?” Like asking for the help you need to overcome your hurt, like being part of a support group that shows you that you aren’t the only one who is struggling, like learning how to make choices with integrity so that tomorrow won’t be as bad as today. This is how you do better with your life. And, how do you express that to another? You model it. You say in your own little way, “Like THIS!”

May we all be the catalysts for mutual healing . . .

Given the universal nature of the topic, I was surprised to find myself struggling to begin the site. I have endless commentary on our wounds, our process, our healing; but as soon as I tried to write, I began to question if there is a mold I need to fit, a formula I am supposed to follow. I started wondering if I should narrow the scope to something more specific, like domestic abuse; if the pieces I write should always maintain a tone: informational pieces on psychology, inspirational how-to’s, personal reflections? These questions of theme and tone, consistency and formula, only ultimately end up getting in the way of writing and sharing. The truth is that what I do best comes not from the mind, but rather from the heart. It’s fitting, then, to allow the heart lead and ask the blog to follow.

I have come to the conclusion that in the same way as writing a novel is said to, necessarily, be an “organic” experience—writing my blog is going to have to be, as well. The best thing I can do is “lean in” to it—start without having every answer pre-determined. I can’t tell you exactly what my posts will hold from week to week: whether they will utilize wide or narrow lens; whether certain topics will be more central than others; whether personal narrative, response to current events, or information from a reading will take center stage. All I can really promise is to always be authentic, with each post offering a little piece of me.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle,” says Plato. This is my motto, expressing my core value of compassion better than anything I know. Ultimately, that is what this site is about: our individual (and collective) hard battles—a place to acknowledge them, a hand to hold while going through them, and a gentle lift to rise beyond them. This site is about healing out loud. To heal out loud, we may necessarily have to bleed out loud, but not in vain.

Ideally, I want this site to be a dialog, not a monolog. For now, this purpose will have to be served by the comment section; but I will be striving, in the near future, to create more community – giving you a more generous space, a louder voice, with my blog being just one aspect of a larger landscape.

As Yoko Ono has said, “Healing yourself is connected with healing others.” And vice versa, I would add. As we undertake our individual healing journeys, connecting to each other will help us understand ourselves, stretch ourselves, and love ourselves in new and more powerful ways. This is what makes healing out loud so appealing and so promising.