How to Focus on Love in a Violent or Divided World
Question: How can Love be a focus with so much violence around us?
February is supposed to be the month of Love. But when I look around at what is happening, the violence, injustice, and harm, it seems absurd to talk about hearts and romance. Focusing on love can feel tone deaf, hollow, and even offensive.
And yet, what if that discomfort is actually the point?
Recently, at a retreat hosted by the STAR Foundation in Arizona, I witnessed something that clarified this for me. People arrived carrying pain, protective patterns, and old wounds that once helped them survive. Through deep inner work, they began learning how to “reparent” themselves — moving from wounded child to wise adult.
Watching that unfold reminded me that both violence and love are learned at home. Not only in our families, but inside our nervous systems, our unprocessed experiences, and the ways we learned to protect ourselves.
So when the world feels brutal or unjust, the idea of “love month” can sound shallow. But love does not have to mean ignoring what is happening. In moments like this, love simply changes shape.
Here are a few reframes I have been sitting with and want to share:
Love is not denial. Focusing on love does not mean pretending harm is not happening. It can mean refusing to become numb. Grief, anger, and outrage can all be forms of love, love for people being harmed, for values being violated, for a future you care about.
Love can be resistance. In ugly times, love can look like protecting vulnerable people, speaking up when it is uncomfortable, donating, organizing, voting, calling representatives, and refusing to let cruelty become normal. That kind of love is fierce, not soft.
Shrinking the radius is okay. You do not have to carry the whole country on your back. Loving your partner, your kids, your friends, your community, and yourself still matters. Small, tangible acts of care keep people alive and sane when systems fail.
Rest is not betrayal. It is okay to step back sometimes. Constant awareness without rest leads to burnout, not change. Love includes letting yourself breathe so you can keep showing up.
Love can coexist with rage. You are allowed to hold both. Anyone telling you love must be quiet, polite, or apolitical is selling a watered-down version.
So maybe February is not about hearts and roses this year. Maybe it is about asking ourselves questions…
Who do I refuse to give up on?
What am I willing to protect?
Where can I act with humanity in an inhumane moment?
That still counts as love, arguably the kind that matters most.
In Your Corner,
Adela