From Rage to Relationship: Choosing Each Other in a Violent World

Yesterday morning, a school in Minneapolis joined the long list of American places marked by gunfire. Children. Teachers. Parents. Lives shattered in an instant. It’s close to home for me, but the truth is it’s close to all of us. Because this is America.

The United States leads the developed world in gun deaths. By far. According to the CDC, over 48,000 people died from gun violence in 2022 — nearly 132 people every single day (CDC). No other wealthy nation even comes close. Canada’s rate is still about eight times lower (World Population Review). In countries like the UK, Australia, Japan — mass shootings are rare to non-existent. Here, they’re Wednesday.

I’m not numb. I’m enraged. And my rage is alive.

But what do I do with it. What do we do with it.

I know what it feels like when rage lives in your body. Sometimes hidden. Sometimes numbed. Sometimes spilling out sideways. I’ve lived through rape, abuse, abandonment. I know what it is to have your body and your trust violated. I know the shame of silence, and the heat of truth finally spilling out.

And guns almost tore my own family apart. When repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse surfaced for me, they also surfaced for my brother. In his breakdown moment, overwhelmed and hurting, he almost chose to go to our dad’s house with his gun. We stopped him before he left, but it was terrifying. It could have ended in another kind of headline.

That night showed me how thin the line is between survival and devastation when guns are involved. For us it ended quietly, but for so many families, it doesn’t. This isn’t theoretical for me. This is personal.

And yet, rage about guns doesn’t unite us. It rips families apart. It divides my own family. It divides neighborhoods, towns, entire states. People cling to their “side” like it’s survival, while children are literally bleeding out in classrooms. I’m over it. Over the excuses. Over the thoughts and prayers. Over lawmakers who know better but choose money and power instead.

So where does that leave me? Where does that leave us?

For my story, it meant seeking something I’d resisted for a long time — genuine relationship. I realized I was being called, by myself and by God (however you define God), to show up fully. And when I did, relationships began showing up everywhere. In my work on the Naturally Network board. In new connections in my apartment building. In the circle of Fire Dancing Witches. In a new partnership with Carlotta Mast. Each one reminding me that I don’t have to do this alone. That none of us do.

It isn’t about selling anything. It isn’t about another program or product. It’s about answering a question that has become unavoidable: how do we find our way back to each other when everything around us is designed to tear us apart?

Because in a world this violent, this fractured, this cruel, we need each other more than ever. Not polite, surface-level connection. Not “let’s agree to disagree.” I mean the kind of connection that requires us to show up fully. To hold rage and grief and love all at once. To not look away. To stay.

When I sit with my rage alone, it can burn me up. But when I bring it into relationship — with myself, with others, with the field that is rising up around me — it transforms. It becomes clarity. It becomes power. It becomes a refusal to stay silent.

We need to stop numbing ourselves. Stop pretending this is normal. Stop scrolling past the headlines and moving on with our day. Every time we do, we hand our power away.

Rage is asking us to act.

To act in policy and politics, yes. To vote, to call, to organize, to demand change. But also to act in our daily lives:

• To name what’s happening, even when it’s uncomfortable at the dinner table.

• To refuse silence in the face of injustice, even when it costs us.

• To choose connection over isolation, even when it’s messy.

Because what else is there? We can either let the violence keep dividing us, or we can decide to weave our stories and our strength together — with vulnerability, with courage, with fire.

I am the softest and most ruthless I’ve ever been. And I’m done being quiet. Are you?