Navigating loss, grief, trauma and challenging times

Meeting the experience as it is with compassion

Jan 14, 2025

Almost a year ago now, I took the jump in shifting my home base and moved to Los Angeles, after years of doing the bi-coastal thing — more on that later. While the cities aren’t comparable in my opinion, Los Angeles is such an amazing place. It’s a different vibe and energy than New York in many ways with different offerings like great weather, a seemingly better quality of life, access to the elements and so much more.

Living here full-time has been interesting. It’s had its ups, downs and in-betweens. While my overall vibe and mood have been good and positive, I’ve faced a bunch of unforeseen challenges professionally that have impacted me personally. Before and after going on a 7-day silent retreat, I not only faced but came to a place of understanding around these challenges, closed a year of life reflective and opened the chapter of a new one ready and eager. Then the calendar year(2024) was coming to a close with a winter break(that I normally work through) where I decided to be present with my family, rest and just be — Dwelling in the optimism of each moment, what could come and be for a new calendar year(2025).

Eager to pick up on a few things I left off on, I came in to last Monday January 6, hopeful, optimistic, and ready to move forward some work and things that were brewing before the Holiday break. Tuesday, January 7, comes and I feel like I’m getting a grip on and settled around actionable items to move forward. I received a message in a group text from a close friend asking if all the LA guys in the chat were “good with the fires”. When I received the text, my immediate thought and response was yes I am fine, without any knowledge of what may be going on. So I went online to check and see what he was talking about. Honestly, I chalked the fire up as another one of the LA fires that just happens, because every year, Los Angeles experiences several wildfires, and it feels almost expected. So in addition to earthquakes, in my mind, the wildfires were par for the course of the experience of living here and something I didn’t think would affect me based on the area I live in. What I didn’t expect was everything that has unfolded since last Tuesday.

Since the fires started, the loss, impact, and devastation the Eaton, Palisades, Hollywood/Runyon and other communities have faced have been unfathomable and unprecedented. I don’t believe there are words to describe what’s happened, but those are the best I can choose right now. Thinking deeper about everything going on related to the fires and what I have read, watched and heard to remain updated, Love, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity to mind. Those come to mind because what happened has had a profound impact on us as humans, whether we’re directly impacted or not. For some reason in our country, situations and times like this somehow often get tied into politics, financial gain, wealthy or poor, privileged or unprivileged. When you have thousands of people in numerous communities who have been impacted and are experiencing displacement, trauma, loss, grief, being unhoused and or more responding to their experience somehow becomes exclusive to what tax bracket somebody is in, what the color of their skin is or their political preference or affiliation, when it shouldn't be. In my opinion, the response to their lived experience should have a foundation and lens of lovingkindness and compassion to our shared human experience, which is inclusive. Caring for the well-being of others. That is the essence of humanity and Compassion, to me.

As a definition, COMPASSION is defined as a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

As a practice, COMPASSION

is a response or quivering of the heart, feeling the suffering of the world or others and wanting to alleviate it
is meeting suffering with an open heart and bearing witness to suffering, whether in ourselves or others.
allows us to name injustice without hesitation and to act strongly with all the spikes at our disposal
allows us to learn to live with sympathy for all living beings without exception
is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world

There are so many lists and links of resources currently floating around the Internet to show up, support, donate and carry out acts of compassion to and for the communities impacted by these wildfires in LA(some are listed below). But in addition, I wanted to offer how to practice COMPASSION for this time and other times that may come up in life when you, someone you know and even someone you don’t know are experiencing loss, grief, trauma or worse.

Practice and Cultivate compassion by saying or offering these phrases:

“I care for your pain and suffering”

“May you[or all beings] be held in Love”

“May you[or all beings] live with

“May you[or all beings] be free from harm, pain or suffering”

In the practice of cultivating Compassion you can say or offer the phrases to all beings or do it in the following order:

Yourself,

A dear friend/loved one,

A neutral person(someone that you may not know that well)

Someone you may not like or have a challenging time with

All beings.

Listen and Practice here:

1×

0:00

-2:10

Holding the attitude of compassion means we merely espouse the virtue of noticing the people around us, to tuning in to them, empathizing and acting to help if they are in need — Embodying compassion means that we act.

The first step to developing compassion is being able to recognize, to open and acknowledge that pain and suffering exist
The second step to developing compassion is opening to pain and establishing an appropriate relationship to it.
Compassion enjoins us to respond to pain, and wisdom guides the skillfulness of our response telling us when and how to respond.
Through compassion, our lives become an expression of all that we understand, care about and value.
To view life compassionately we have to look at what is happening and the conditions that gave rise to it, as they are — look at things as they are arising in each moment.

This is a very tough moment for Los Angeles and the world. How can you act on what you’re feeling in your heart?

Have an Amazing day, have an Amazing week and Be well, stay mindful.

LA Support and Donation Resources

If you're in LA or know someone in LA who has been impacted by the fires and needs some help, there are a myriad of resources I am happy to share whether you are directly impacted or you want to support:

My friends from WalkGood LA are helping those impacted ensuring donations go straight into the hands of those who need them most. Just fill out this form.
Additionally, here is a list of resources depending on the need
Directory of GoFundMe links for displaced Black Families
Brands Providing Products to people and families
Comprehensive list of ways/resources to help
The Kindness Hub LA Mutual Aid