Last month, I wrote about the peace-walking monks and the quandary I find myself in believing that love and compassion are the only way forward—yet, needing to fight fire with fire. It is an extremely uncomfortable position for me, and I have yet to find clarity. Atlantan Kathy Bochonko is confronting the same dilemma with more grace and success, and since many Atlantans find themselves in the same boat, I felt it would be beneficial to amplify her words here. This is an edited version. Her full blog can be found at bit.ly/bochonko-0326.

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Today will be my peaceful day.

I have been repeating this line like a mantra ever since I first heard Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara, one of the Buddhist monks on the Walk for Peace, invite people to write it down each morning and look at it throughout the day. At the time I wrote this, their pilgrimage was still underway, moving across the country toward Washington, D.C.

I’m not telling anyone how to feel or what to do. I’m writing from my own lived experience.

I have watched myself catch fire emotionally. Reactive, tight, combustible. Then I come back to this statement. Not by bypassing what I feel, but by returning to my center. This practice has become a pathway back to what I so often call radical self-trust, the inner knowing that I can be with what is true in the moment without abandoning myself.

And I need that right now. I wrote this the day after Alex Pretti was pepper-sprayed, tackled, and shot and killed in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents.

As I write this, I feel conflicted between what could sound like minimizing the tragedy and what could feel like fueling the emotional flames. I am committed to maintaining my internal peace, and I need to say this plainly. That commitment does not mean I am not angry. It does not mean I am numb. It does not mean I am condoning what is happening. It means I am choosing how I show up. Because when I shine my light into the world, I want it to come from peace and calm, not fear. I want to be more like a candle or a lantern, steady enough to help people see, instead of a pulsing searchlight that makes everyone feel more afraid and on edge.

So I have tried to wait for clarity the way I often do when I am emotional or overwhelmed. But what if clarity does not come in the form I want? What if there is no neat answer that makes this make sense?

Here is what I am realizing: There may not be a clear answer for how to fix any of this. There may not be a perfect sentence that lands on the exact right side of history and also preserves our humanity. And we do not need more people firing off knee-jerk solutions just to discharge emotion.

We need more people learning how to be with emotion without becoming emotionally reactive.

Emotions matter. I am not interested in burying them. But I am also seeing how quickly emotional reactivity turns into a kind of mass nervous-system injury. We watch the footage. We absorb the fear. We echo the rage. We repost the grief. We argue with strangers. We sever relationships. And somehow we call that “doing something,” even when it is not actually moving anything toward change.

So right now, I am sitting in my anger, my sadness, my frustration, and my helplessness. And today that is enough.

It feels like we are on the Titanic while the band continues to play. They are not in denial. They are not pretending everything is fine. They are doing something else that matters. They are helping the people around them stay calm enough to keep moving, to make decisions, to reach for lifeboats. That is what this practice feels like to me.

The systems we know are going down, and the anger at not enough lifeboats is real. Anger at injustice is real. Anger at the systems that created this is real. But anger alone is not going to save us from drowning. Panic does not build lifeboats, and outrage does not calm the nervous system. And if we are not careful, the emotional storm becomes its own kind of sinking.

Everywhere you look, anger is multiplying. I am not here to tell anyone not to be angry. But I am watching what happens when anger consumes someone, when it becomes identity, when it becomes adrenaline, when it becomes the only language they speak without meaningful action underneath it. That kind of constant activation attacks our nervous systems.

Another thing I’ve learned is that the questions I ask are my superpower. So when I feel the urge to post, react, argue, or “do something” immediately, I first remind myself: Today will be my peaceful day. Then I ask myself questions that help me stay honest and clean:

What am I feeling, specifically? Not “What do I think?” but “What do I feel in my body?”
Can I give myself time to actually feel it before adding to the reactivity already happening in those around me and online?
Do I even know what I want to say? If I do not, would it be more honest to say that?
Is what I am about to share moving us toward the change I want? Or is it adding to the noise and deepening the divide?

In a time when things have become life or death for so many, I understand why people draw hard lines. But where can we find peace inside that kind of thinking? Are we ready to perpetuate war inside our own communities?

We are living in a time with more ability to communicate than any generation before us. Do we really want to use this ability to shout at each other?

I do not have the answers. But I know I won’t find answers that are true for me if I abandon myself to the collective emotional storm.

So I am returning to what I can hold. Not as a way to escape what is happening. As a way to stay human inside it. Peace has to begin somewhere. Today, I am choosing to let it begin with me.

Today will be my peaceful day. ❧

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Kathy Bochonko is an Intuitive Human Design Mentor and Guide to Radical Self-Trust. She helps you trust yourself, speak up, set boundaries, and create a life and style that fits. Hosts Real Human Design Stories. KathyBochonko.com