My shakings
Shakings come in two broad categories. Natural disasters and those stemming from humanity’s actions. The first kind you can’t do much about except pray. But the latter, you have a choice. Let me digress and then I’ll come back to that point.
As much as we like to think we’re rational beings, we aren’t. None of us really are. We don’t adjust our belief systems based on new experiences or facts. At least not easily. And that adjusting usually feels like shaking. Instead, we all carry around a concept of the way the world works. Things we expect to happen, behaviors we expect others to engage in or not. Every new experience, every new fact, gets filtered through this concept or belief system. Things that reinforce it are easily accepted and get added to it. Things that go against it get discarded. Have you ever said or thought “I just can’t believe it”? When going through a shaking, this counter evidence piles up, and consequences negatively affect us, until we finally accept a new, more accurate, belief about the way the world works.
This can be a matter of life and death. Many Jews saw the rise of the Nazi’s and escaped Europe. But many, many more didn’t and perished.
For myself, I was once in a relationship with a narcissistic person. Seeing their cruelty, abuse and callousness first hand, it literally took me years before I came to accept that yes, this person really is doing these things. They mean to do them and they’re not going to change. This was some of the darkest times of my life until I finally realized the truth. My belief system changed.
I’m going to start laying out concrete steps we all can take ease our passage through this shaking time.