This week has been a strange one - of helping clients, friends, and my children make decisions- and come to terms with decisions to surrender, retrench, and mitigate inevitable losses.

A week of euthanized pets, of lost homes, of bankruptcy and business closures.

And I have heard myself saying some of the same things, over and over - and so I will say them here too:

We are contending with historical, natural, economic and collective social forces that are more powerful than any individual choices or actions or decisions.

There is a global pandemic.
The entire American west is aflame.
The glaciers and the North Pole are melting.
There are two hurricanes in the gulf.
There is police violence.
There are massive, mob-based collective delusions and denials at play
A worldwide economic recession

180,000 deaths
A nation in chaos
A bizarre dystopian convention filled with lies and disinformation being broadcast.

These forces are not personal to you or to me.

They impact us. We are not the primary or singular cause for these events.

You did not fail at your business,
Set your own house on fire
Or kill your dog.

You worked to mitigate harm that impersonal, natural, historical forces let loose upon you.

The losses were inflicted by forces larger than you, and not personally aimed at you.

There are things we can control.
There are influences we can exert.
There are things we can try to protect.

But there are also forces that will always overpower any single individual.

We are in a period of massive loss and retrenchment.

And living in a national narrative that blames the sick and the poor and the suffering for their plight.

Our government is like Job’s shitty friends who try to tell him he must be to blame for his plight.

Reject this narrative. https://whatashrinkthinks.com/job-search/ 

There are times when surrender, and acceptance is the healthiest, most life preserving choice.

There are losses we must withstand and negotiate that are in no way our fault.

When something is dying, when suffering is compounding - there are times when the most life-respecting choice is to cut any losses you can.

We can be cornered between hard choice and a worse one.

The myth of “personal responsibility” is especially destructive at times like this.

Such losses are painful enough without shame and self-blame or social stigma.

To overestimate our responsibilities in such circumstances can be as destructive as underestimating them.

Do whatever you can within your small sphere of influence.

But if you take responsibility for the whole muddle, you will compound suffering for yourself and others.

In the throes of a multifaceted global crisis - you will not have singular control over your own fate.

Forgive yourself.

Understand that those around you are suffering too.

You are not alone.

Blaming yourself for such losses only makes them harder to mourn.