Something is happening in our country that feels much deeper than politics. Politics is simply where we happen to be watching it unfold. Beneath the headlines is something much older and far more dangerous: The slow erosion of our ability to recognize another human being as our own.

Every wisdom tradition I have ever studied, every lesson from neuroscience, psychology, spirituality, and human behavior points toward the same truth. Fear narrows our vision. When we are afraid, our world becomes smaller. We begin sorting people into categories instead of relationships. We stop wondering about another person’s story. We become convinced that our side is capable of goodness while someone else becomes the problem.

Our nervous systems are designed to protect us. They react quickly to uncertainty and perceived threat. But awareness asks something more of us. It asks us not to stay there.

This week I read about a three-year-old little girl standing in the street in her Bluey pajamas while her mother cried beside the body of her husband. The investigations into what happened are still unfolding, and those facts matter. But there is one truth that needs no investigation: A little girl lost her father. A wife lost her husband. A family will never be the same.

A little girl lost her father.

A wife lost her husband.

A family will never be the same. 

If our first instinct is to ask what political party someone belongs to before we allow ourselves to feel compassion, something inside us has quietly gone to sleep. If empathy depends upon citizenship, race, religion, or who someone voted for, then fear has begun making decisions that love should have been making all along.

This is not simply about immigration. It is not only about government or law enforcement. It is about what happens to every one of us when fear becomes more influential than humanity.

History reminds us that societies rarely lose themselves overnight. They drift there, one decision at a time. One moment when people decide someone else’s suffering is not their concern. One moment when silence feels easier than speaking. One moment when division becomes so familiar that it begins to feel ordinary.

Love has never been weakness. Love has always required courage. It takes courage to refuse hatred when it is growing around us. It takes courage to remain curious when everyone else is demanding certainty. It takes courage to grieve for someone we have never met. It takes courage to remember that every policy, every decision, and every headline eventually reaches a real family sitting around a real kitchen table.

At Awakenings, Adam and I often speak about awareness. Awareness is not only noticing your breath during meditation or becoming more present in your daily life. It is noticing your own heart while the world is asking you to harden it. It is having the courage to pause and ask, “Who am I becoming while all of this is happening around me?”

That question matters just as much as any election, any speech, or any headline.

Our country will not heal because one political party wins or another one loses. It will heal when enough ordinary people refuse to let fear decide who deserves dignity, compassion, and humanity. Healing begins when we stop seeing strangers and start seeing parents, children, neighbors, and fellow human beings whose lives are every bit as precious as our own.

We do not have to agree about every policy to remember our shared humanity. We do not have to think alike to recognize suffering when we see it. We do not have to surrender our convictions in order to hold onto our compassion.

The future of this country will be shaped not only by those who hold office, but by those of us who decide, every single day, whether fear or love will guide the way we live.

That choice has always been ours.

It still is.

By Laura Gries, co-founder of Awakenings Health.