By Allie Chapman
It was early October of 2007 when the Southern California Witchcreek fire broke out. It was not long before the Santa Ana winds made the fire impossible to contain. I watched the billowing clouds of smoke come over the mountains in the distance behind my house and I could smell the stench of burned forestry, land, and homes as the fire leaped closer. Finally it was time for us to gather our toddler, our 2-week-old baby, a bag of essentials, and our personal documents, not knowing if the home we had just built and moved into only four months prior—with so much hope and optimism for the future—would be there when we came back.
Over the next couple of weeks, more than 900,000 acres and 1,350 homes would be burned to the ground. But that night, I remember looking out the window of our new-found safe house, our evacuation site, and watching a new fire and its enormous flames taunting us with its looming and seemingly inevitable threat as it raged closer and closer over the hills only miles away from us. At this point, every main freeway had since been shut down because of an outburst of 30 different fires surrounding the county and closing in at excessive speeds.
This was known as the 2007 California fire storm. With almost every fire, the news continued to report almost zero percent containment. I was scared. More than scared—I was terrified. I clutched my newborn baby between my arms and wondered how I could protect him from this world that was literally in flames all around us. There seemed to be no end in sight.
Due to the fires and the smoke damage, it took one week before the authorities allowed us back into our home. Several friends and neighbors lost their houses that week. Their clothes, wedding and family photos, important documents, heirlooms, and keepsakes were all piles of blackened soot and ashes. There was a frenzy of communities and families figuring out how to pick up the pieces of their lives, having lost loved ones, their shelter, and for some, their entire livelihoods. This was just the beginning. Neighborhoods, cities, and towns all began to rally through the tears, as they seem to always do. There were drives for food and clothing, volunteers picking through the rubble, preserving lost wedding rings and even finding lost pets who miraculously survived. Friends took in neighbors, many provided food and shoulders to cry on. Many left their own piles of rubble to assist a friend in digging through theirs. Humanity was seen in one of the worst of times.
I have been reminded of this experience recently as I have reflected on the year of 2020 and the accompanying election season. It has felt an awful lot like the fire storm of 2007. So what happened after the fire? How did people recover? And what can we learn from it to find peace amidst the chaos of today—find calm amidst what may, at times, feel like an inevitable and impending doom?
1. Compassion, community, contribution
In this year, 2020, it’s important to remember that not everyone has read, listened to, seen, or even believed the things you believe. And even if they have, maybe they have their own personal experiences that have led them to make the conclusions they have politically or otherwise. It may feel frustrating, and at times infuriating, but our differences are what make a good community great. Having differences, and developing respect and compassion for those who see things differently than us, is an important way that we add to the ever growing and unique orchestra of humankind. It allows us to grow as human beings into a more diverse and civilized generation.
Try to serve those who have different beliefs or opinions than you. Contribute to the well-being of those who are experiencing this election season and this year differently than you are. Listen to them, be a shoulder to cry on, give love, respect, and humanity. Too often contempt is thrown around by both those who are satisfied and those who are unsatisfied with the election results; we should instead be striving to understand and have compassion for others. Sometimes, as we are digging through our own ashes, humanity and love is all we have left to offer. It may not seem to make an observable difference to those you are being compassionate towards right away, but studies show it will make you happier and help in lessening feelings of anxiety and depression (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005).
It may seem that with the COVID-19 pandemic, safe opportunities to serve other people are few and far between. However, the options are endless. Call someone you know may be lonely. Ask how they are doing and listen. If they want to talk about politics, just listen politely and be respectful and loving. Tell them why you love them or why you are grateful for them being in your life. If you have the opportunity, you can do yard work for a neighbor or friend. Write a letter to someone you care about. If approved to safely do so, volunteer at a shelter or other facility taking volunteers.
“Remember one thing: that you should not leave the Earth until you have made it a little more beautiful. A little lovelier. A little more loving.”
2. Breathe, create space, and allow yourself self-compassion
It was 11 years after the California Witchcreek fires that another fire broke out right by our house. We were not home this time and didn’t need to evacuate, but we watched from security cameras and the news as the fire blazed its way at quickening speeds, seemingly determined this time to be successful in engulfing our home with its destructive flames. The flickering wall literally taunted the structure as the flames danced their way into the formation of a complete ring of fire around the entire property. Every local firefighter we knew dropped everything to aid in the protection of our home. Many said it was a miracle. In the end, once again, our home withstood the fiery threats. We were told by numerous experts that it was ultimately our fire line, our barrier around our property, the empty space with little to no brush, that was one of the most important contributing factors to what saved our house that day, outside of the firefighters.
This year, in your struggle, do yourself a favor and offer yourself compassion. In the heat of your internal battle, breathe, and provide yourself the reassurance that ultimately you are enough and you have enough to get through this day, this week, and this year. Give yourself the space for self compassion.
I once did a breathing exercise where I thought of a negative emotion I was experiencing. As I breathed, I imagined space being created around that emotion. Over the course of the next several minutes, I noticed the emotion getting smaller as the space around it got bigger. It didn’t disappear, but it did allow space for all of the other positive parts of me to also be noticed. I was able to observe who I am and who I was at that moment. If this seems impossible for you, click here for tips and strategies to practice. Ultimately, as you may feel frustrated and broken, allow your own self the compassion to feel, to be upset, to nonjudgmentally acknowledge that emotion, thought, or feeling and breathe space around it. This keeps the flames of that negative emotion from consuming the entire structure of your sanity.
3. Cultivate optimism
Be optimistic. Why? Because why not?! We all experience life through our own lens of personal experience, genetics, culture, and environment.
The My Best Self 101 module for optimism states: “Optimism is the ability and willingness to observe the entire inner landscape of thoughts, feelings and perceptions (whether judged as positive or negative), and choosing the perspective and subsequent action that maximizes one’s well-being. This includes recognizing that our thoughts and interpretations of experiences come to us through filters and are not necessarily absolute truth. And even if we could be absolutely sure that a thought or perception was the absolute truth, operating from an optimistic perspective may just be the way to get what we want out of life.”
After the ring of fire experience around our home just a couple years ago, the plants, and wildlife preserve that we loved and enjoyed so much was now lifeless, barren, and desolate. My kids were sad to see their field of adventure in ruin. We took a family picture on those grounds. It was the following Easter that we took notice of what came next. The beauty that sprung from that burned and demolished field had brought forth new life in all of its splendor. As a family we also were thrown a curve ball and were surprised to be bringing new life in our home, with a new and unexpected baby. Plans for our future were shifted and changed as we worked to embrace the good and the optimism that can so often come with new life.
David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, said, “We all have moments of suffering, but we can either be broken by those moments or we can be broken open by them.” Just like the plants and seeds in the field, we too can be broken open to create new life, new joy, and new hope by the fires that seek to destroy us.
All three of these steps build upon the three pillars of human flourishing: perspective, people, and power. These three pillars are the foundation of positive psychology. Positive psychology is a field of empirical research within psychological science that seeks to understand how we as humans can not only treat deficits and abnormalities, but can build upon our strengths and virtues to help us thrive and not just survive. The principles of positive psychology can help us to watch from a distance, with non judgmental awareness, as the everyday fires of life come uncomfortably close, even when they seem to have no other goal than to destroy us. We can create a fire barrier of space and take action so that when we are surrounded by the chaos of the world, we will not be consumed.
“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do, and mostly live.”