Revive Your Soul

Leave the stresses of 2016 behind. Life coach and author Valorie Burton gives you a 5-step plan for restoring inner peace and reclaiming joy in the midst of tumultuous times.

It was a parallel universe on my Facebook timeline. “I’ve been in a daze all day,” one post read. “I. AM. TIRED,” read another. “I feel helpless,” shared a friend. “I don’t know how I’m going to deal with my coworkers’ indifferent comments,” lamented the last post I read before shutting off my phone.

It was the day after Alton Sterling was fatally shot at pointblank range outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His death had been caught on cell phone video. I was sitting under my hooded dryer and scrolling through cute family posts and lively political banter when the video entered my world. It was shortly before bedtime, and not knowing the gravity of what we were about to witness, I called my husband over to view the footage with me. My reaction was visceral: My stomach turned. My heart beat faster and louder. Hot tears began streaming down my face, and I felt a burning lump in my throat as I tried to control the overwhelming emotion that washed over me. I was stunned. Like millions of others in a matter of hours, I had just watched a man’s violent death.

And now it was time to go to sleep. But I was too wound up. I tried talking it out with my husband and doing deep-breathing exercises. We prayed. And eventually I fell asleep only to have my husband shake me awake from a nightmare. In my dream I was outside with my hands up and a gun pointed at my head.