Brave Reflections: Overcoming helplessness

Jun 19, 2025 10:43 am

Hello , my fellow brave human

Are you feeling completely helpless right now?

Every morning we are waking up to news that is pretty soul-destroying. Another reason to feel completely powerless to help anyone, anywhere.

I’ve been thinking about this for months now – messages from friends around the world witnessing and living through unimaginable circumstances, each piece of news leaving me really unsettled - in the Lebanon, the US, Israel/ West Bank, DR of Congo… The guilt of sitting in safety while others dodge bombs or other horrors.

The helplessness of having nothing meaningful to offer except empty words of sympathy.

Until Rola changed how I saw everything.

Rev Rola from Lebanon is one of the bravest leaders I know (although she would never describe herself as such).

She happened to be over here at the beginning of the bombing last year (her church is twinned with a local church here in the Borders), and I was fortunate to spend some lovely times with her and her nephew. We discussed at length what was happening over there and the effects of the unrest in her community (both Christian and Muslim). It was difficult to listen to and feel comfortable without feeling supremely guilty that our own circumstances are so different.

However, what hit me was on her return home, as things escalated, she told us how when the bombs go off she closes her eyes and imagines herself back on the Green in Earlston in complete peace. How she draws strength not just from her own faith, but also in the strength and support of those back here.

Here I was, drowning in guilt about my safety and comfort, and she was telling me something that turned my understanding upside down: Because we were safe, we could be a source of peace for someone thousands of miles away who wasn’t.

Each email, letter, or telephone call from these places has reminded me of this truth: When we stay resourced and strong, it ripples outward to support those who are trying to stay strong, or who are depleted and struggling, whoever they are, wherever they are.

Why Your Peace Matters

In times like these, watching the news or doom scrolling on social media, it’s easy to feel helpless. The scale of suffering can be overwhelming. We might ask ourselves: what difference can I possibly make?

That conversation taught me something profound about how strength actually works. Our role isn’t to fix everything or to match others’ suffering with our own depletion. When we keep ourselves emotionally, physically, and spiritually nourished, we become sources of strength for others – often in ways we never see or imagine.

Think about it: When you’re going through your own crisis, who do you call? The friend who’s falling apart, or the one who’s steady? The person drowning in their own problems, or the one who has their feet firmly planted?

We need people who can hold peace when we can’t. We need people who can remain resourced when we’re running on empty. We need people who can be the calm in someone else’s storm.

Be the Light, Not the Looters

As someone in The Brave Collective recently said, “There are the lights and there are the looters.” We need to be the light, not the looters. In times of crisis, there are always those who profit from chaos, who take advantage of others’ vulnerability, who add to the darkness.

But there are also those who choose to be light – who offer hope, who hold steady, who become sources of strength and wisdom when the world feels like it’s falling apart.

Being light doesn’t mean posting inspirational quotes or sending thoughts and prayers (though those have their place). It means staying strong enough to be genuinely useful. It means maintaining your peace so others can borrow from it. It means being so well-resourced that you have something real to offer when someone needs it.

The Invisible Threads That Bind Us

What Rola taught me is that we’re all connected by invisible threads that stretch across continents and circumstances. When she draws on the peace of a small Scottish village while bombs fall in Lebanon, when we support each other through our own crises – we’re part of something larger than ourselves.

Your strength ripples outward in ways you’ll never know. The peace you maintain, the hope you hold, the stability you create – it travels. It becomes part of the collective resilience that helps others survive their darkest moments.

This doesn’t mean ignoring suffering or pretending everything is fine. It means understanding that your wellbeing is not separate from others’ wellbeing – it’s connected to it. The stronger and more resourced you are, the more you have to offer a world that desperately needs people who can hold steady.

The world needs us to be resourced, and connected right now. Not because we can solve everything, but because our strength becomes part of the collective resilience that helps others survive their darkest moments, wherever they may be.

What This Looks Like in Practice

So what does “staying resourced” actually mean? It’s different for everyone, but it might look like:

Taking that walk even when the news is overwhelming, because your peace of mind matters to people you haven’t even met yet.

Maintaining your spiritual practices not as escapism, but as a way of staying connected to something larger than the crisis of the moment.

Protecting your sleep, your health, your relationships – not out of selfishness, but out of nourishment.

It means being intentional about what you consume and how you respond.

It means choosing to be part of the solution by being someone others can count on to be genuinely okay.

The world needs you to be resourced and connected. Not because you can solve everything, but because your strength becomes part of the web of support that holds us all together.

When you stay strong and at peace, you’re not abandoning those who are suffering – you’re creating a place they can draw strength from, just like Rola draws from the peace of a Scottish village green thousands of miles away.

Be the light. The world needs it more than you know.

Date for your diary

Breathe: Walk & Talk Carrifran ‘Wildwood’, Friday 1st August

We have had to rearrange this as a result of a severe weather warning last weekend. So, here is your opportunity to join us if you couldn’t make the last date.

Come and join us at the original wildwood, the bare glen that had its first taste of ‘rewilding’ 25 years ago. Led by Donald McPhillimy (listen to our podcast interview here) - who was part of the first tree planting team in 2000.