Keeping the Injured Heart Open in Dreadful Times
A New Moon Message
How do we keep our hearts open through the daily experience of moral injury? And why would we want to? Aren’t we told that it is the body’s wise, protective mechanisms that cause our hearts to respond to overwhelming traumatic injury by closing down?
During a time when collective trauma is actively being perpetrated, it is definitely harder to keep our hearts open than it is during safer, easier times. We might turn to the work of today’s trauma experts like Peter Levine who have observed that, while it is useful to shut down momentarily to traumatic overwhelm in a “freeze” response, staying shut down has its adverse consequences (like PTSD). To bring our nervous systems back online fully, we are advised to find ways to discharge the enormous fight and flight energy trapped in the body in the freeze response (e.g. by shaking), titrating the opening and accessing of our full energy in manageable increments.1
In order to interrupt the freeze response feedback loop, we are taught to “bring ourselves back to our senses” over and over, literally feeling the air on the skin, noticing the light in the space we’re in. This somatic mindfulness has the effect of slowly bringing our awareness back into the body, re-familiarizing the traumatized self with the present moment.
Spiritual reasons also exist for gently re-opening our hearts after they temporarily close during calamitous times. In shutting down our hearts we cut off our own “circulation” – the movement of the very lifeblood we need to power the connection between our bodies and our spirit selves. We rely on that connection to stay aligned with our deeper truth and values while in these bodies of ours.
But how we approach keeping our hearts open in times when offending traumas are active is tricky. We are tasked with keeping our hearts open without further wounding ourselves, but also without repressing, sidestepping, spiritually bypassing, or flat out denying our shock, overwhelm, complex emotions, and grief.
Walking this fine line is an art.
Even taking in news these days can be a self-wounding act. I have to be very vigilant about my news consumption. Left unchecked, my tendency is to indulge in moral outrage thinking about the day’s news, imagining what could and should be done about each horrific turn of events. But something in me feels the tumbleweed quality to my thoughts when I do this. My thoughts are endlessly at the whim of every media wind that blows my way.
The News Is to the Present Moment as Wind Is to Earth
One alternative is to root the function of mind and its thoughts in something far more stable than the changing winds of the news of the moment, and other people’s opinions about the news of the moment. While news blows around on the surface of awareness, like the wind – the eternal present moment supports from below as the ground upon which all the news travels, like the earth.
Dwelling in the fleeting memories of the past or transient projections into the future keeps my thoughts in a spin cycle, like a tumbleweed on a remote desert highway. Not staying in the present moment I am more likely to close my heart by disassociating, numbing out, distracting myself, racing around, being overcome by irritability, lashing out in anger, etc.
By contrast, dwelling in this moment, rooted in the earth, my mind can be aware of the changing winds but also has the perspective of my eternal nature – that part of me that wasn’t born, will never die, and is therefore not endangered by changing winds. Rooted, tree-like, I can respond to the changing winds honestly, while also knowing I cannot be permanently harmed by them. From this place I experience that very same wind differently, as the holy breath breathing my body.
Being blown about by wind vs swaying with the wind
So that moral injury? It will arrive and I may feel sadness in response. But while rooted in the present moment, in my own eternal nature, I can breathe in, feel, breathe out, feel, and keep swaying with that wind.
Staying rooted in the present moment I am being with What Is. Staying rooted in the present moment I am meeting conditions over which I have no control with clear seeing, honesty, humility, and vulnerability. Staying rooted in the present moment I am not making things worse than they need to be. Staying rooted in the present moment I am in my full power to respond according to my heart’s deepest values.
Yesterday morning’s New Moon was set against a backdrop of stars the ancient Seers of India called “Ardra.” This part of the sky is symbolized by a teardrop, and the accompanying implication is its moisture. Since Ardra is associated with the deity Rudra, known for bringing on storms, it would not be surprising if the next two weeks brought a lot of moisture and humidity to many parts of the world, and also some severe storms. The outer storms we collectively face bring us to tears as we ask ourselves, “Who Are We?”
“SE 101,” Trauma Healing, Somatic Experiencing, June 26, 2025, https://traumahealing.org/se-101/
Perfect. Many thanks, Marga! Sorely needed in this day and age!
Thank you, Marga, much needed and deeply appreciated. I must read it many times. Take care.