I have spent so much of this week feeling sick in my stomach. Yesterday I must have cried for over an hour, throughout the morning. The images of Iran on fire, the Indian government's deforestation and cultural erasure, the fear and confusion of families hiding out from ICE, the pain of victims of child abuse and gaslighting by authority figures.

All of this weighs on me and merges in with my own personal grief. The sadness and longing I feel isn't just for those harmed by these events, it's also for these people in power - mostly men - who are cut off from their own feelings, their sense of integrity, their impact on those they dominate.

I know what it's like to live from that numbness. I know what it's like to carry shame for things I've done that hurt others. I know what it's like to search for love in a boardroom, in a one-on-one with a manager, in a terminal console.

I grieve for the person sitting at the missile launch terminal, about to press the button that will kill a school of young girls. The person swallowing and suppressing their disgust at their actions, or paralyzed by fear of defying a superior, or dissociated and disconnected so they can be a "good boy" in the ranks and grow their career.

Our education system, our corporate structure, our military, all of these systems generate "good boys," and calls them empowered when they "win" at a broken game.

Do you see yourself in this image? Because I do.

This doesn't end with us changing who's in power. I believe things will change when each of us starts to notice if we are leading or acting from numbness, or from our hearts. Do we let ourselves feel, and be guided by that? Or are we committed to "business as usual?"

There will be no more "business as usual" for me. And I don't want to feel alone in it anymore.