Cognitive dissonance ain't easy......

Cognitive Dissonance has several definitions.  The one I’m going with today is my own:  When experiences and/or behaviors collide.  It’s that simple.

Having returned recently from another trip to the southern border in Arizona, several elements of that experience will stay with me for a longtime.  But one in particular will remain a treasured memory, the result of a conversation with three wonderful women whose perspectives I trust and celebrate.

We were on our way back to Tucson from the wall between Sasabe and Nogales.  Our mission there was to deliver water, food and other small provisions to people who had the good fortune to have survived a walk across the desert in Mexico, all hoping to ask for asylum here in the United States. On any given trip to the wall, you will find families from as far away as China, single moms with babies, unaccompanied minors, women traveling alone, all people who have fled everything they know and own in a place far away in hopeof finding things that we take for granted on any given day.

On this particular morning, on our drive home we talked about all sorts of things.  We joked and told funny stories.  We commented on what a beautiful day it was turning out to be. We were four women, enjoying each other’s company as friends do.

At some point it struck me that we had just recently left a scene of hope coupled with despair, need and few expectations for that need being met, the best of humanity in our efforts to bring comfort and the worst of humanity that caused the need for people to abandon their homes.  How could we possibly be sitting there in our business as usual lives and conversation as if what we had seen and the people we met that morning were no longer a part of our day?

When I posed that question to my friends, what emerged was an understanding that if we don’t find balance, if we don’t make room for light when we’re surrounded by darkness, we will be consumed by that darkness and left incapable of acting against it.  Finding, expressing and celebrating joy all buoy us and reenergize our spirit.  They allow us to fill our emotional tank.  They allow us to remember that living in this world is not, can not, be a black and white experience.  Our ability to challenge what is wrong is fueled by our recognition and celebration of what is right.

“Self care” is a phrase we hear from people who are doing the work of challenging what is wrong. It is important and necessary. Self care can take the form of a vacation, a soak in a hot bath, a good cry, gardening, dancing, fully appreciating when others they tell us they love us.  Self care, that all important aspect of staying sane and hopeful can also take the form of laughing and lighthearted conversation while riding back to Tucson after touching the lives of people at the wall.