Why I’m finding hope in the power of Ukrainian sunflowers
Friends, it’s been a disorienting few days in the human world. And the question that’s come up in nearly every conversation I’ve had recently about Ukraine is:
What do we “do”?
When I ask this question my animal body instinctively switches into fight/flight. Reflexively my pulse quickens, and I’m primed to leap into action.
It’s deeply reassuring to my animal body to swing into action. When I “do”, I feel in control — like I’ve tamed the gnawing discomfort of uncertainty.
It’s a survival instinct — finely honed by my grandparents nearly 100 years ago fleeing war in their homeland — that allowed them to nurture a future, which included me.
But as I consider my options here in 2022 in the safety of America’s borders — aside from donating to relief efforts — I feel like there isn’t much I can “do” to influence geopolitics.
Like the coronavirus, this is a threat that can’t be seen with my naked eyes, but feels like it’s hanging in the air we all breathe.
Thwarted from fighting, and unlike my grandparents, with nothing tangible to flee, my body slips into freeze. (…which similar to the early days of the pandemic looks like numb doom scrolling and fatigue.)
The challenge? That survival energy mobilized by my ancient reptile nervous system — designed to respond to direct and immediate threats — has to go somewhere. For some, it gets turned outward (e.g., as violence, blame, anger). For me, it usually gets turned inward — as anxiety. But when I push the anxiety away and don’t let it find a proper home*, I create a different kind of fight/flight dynamic. …which starts the unthinking fear cycle all over again.
Divided — at war with myself — it’s ironic to see how the thing I most wanted to address in the external world, I’ve actually recreated in myself. I’ve left the survival fear without a welcoming homeland.
It’s humbling to see how my default of instinctively turning toward “doing” — when born out of unexamined fear — deepens division in the world.
And if long-time Kremlin watchers are to be believed, it’s perhaps not that different from what Putin is doing.
So, rather than ask what can I do, the question I’m asking myself first is:
How can I transform the war within me?
Fittingly, I’ve been finding inspiration from Ukraine’s sunflowers.
As I learned from “Morning Brew” (h/t TD!):
Ukraine is the top producer of sunflower seeds globally, and the sunflower is its national flower.
Sunflowers are famously heliotropic, which means they follow the sun from east to west throughout the day. For their dedication to the sun’s journey across the sky, they’ve come to represent loyalty, energy, and warmth.
But the sunflower has another property: healing. Sunflowers are what scientists call “hyperaccumulators” — plants that are uniquely skilled at sucking up heavy metals from the ground and storing them, safely, in their stems and leaves.
And they’ve been put to work as a cleanup crew. Following the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, scientists planted sunflowers to absorb radioactive materials in local ponds.
What’s so remarkable to me is that rather than let toxic metals fester in the ground, sunflowers make a home for them, expose them to full sun, and in so doing, transform the landscape.
So, where does war live within you? Where do you need to plant sunflowers?
I’d love to hear. Drop a comment below!
Melissa’s Reading & Watch List
Hope? Maria Popova’s gorgeous musings on falling in love with flowers (and time) as the “antidote to the anxiety of aliveness”. (3 min, The Marginalia “The Flower & The Meaning of Life”)
Curious? This portrait of Putin from Catherine Belton on Pod Save The World is one of the best I’ve heard and did the most to help me understand why Russia invaded Ukraine. (48 min Spotify, Apple)
Inspiration? This Ukranian woman offering sunflower seeds to Russian soldiers as a form of resistance. Her fighting spirit is a sight to behold! (1 min, The Guardian)
* In case you missed it? A piece I wrote last year on the neuroscience behind why we need to metabolize our emotions: The secrets no one teaches us about breaking out of burnout (5 min)
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