See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

by Valarie Kaur

Loving ourselves can begin by breathing together. We carry in our bodies and psyches the trauma of our ancestors but also their resilience. How did they breathe together? What were their rituals? Singing, chanting, dancing, drumming, shaking, bathing, plunging, burning, walking, writing, resting, eating, sleeping, meditating, expressing gratitude, retreating, bodywork, and being in nature. Notice which practices your body wants. If some practices come from someone else’s tradition, seek out people who are sharing such teachings in a culturally respectful way. Now think in rhythms: What can you do every day? Every week? Every month? Every year?

“Many of us have left our bodies—we’re not embodied creatures, we’re not living inside our own muscles and cells and sinews. And so we’re not in our power, we’re not in our energy,” says playwright-activist Eve Ensler. In working with women who have survived violence and sexual assault around the world, she has seen that “the more traumatized people are, the less connected they are to their own source of strength, their own source of inspiration, intuition, heart—everything.”

Healing did not mean the end to suffering: It meant the freedom to return home, again and again, to our bodies and to one another.

Forgiveness was not a substitute for justice; it had energized us in the fight for justice. It reframed justice not as retribution but as cultural and institutional transformation.

“Survivors have to be the ones who define what justice looks like,” Burke says, “but most survivors aren’t punitive and the reason why is because we have such close relations with the people who harm us most of the time.” She adds, “Part of our work is teaching people how to dream about another world while actively being safe in this world.”

He talked about intergenerational trauma in Sikh families, going back to the Partition. Still, he managed to express remorse in every sentence. I had never seen a man do this before: identify the forces that drove him to commit violence while taking responsibility for the harm.

America needs to reconcile with itself and do the work of apology: To say to indigenous, black, and brown people, we take full ownership for what we did. To say, we owe you everything. To say, we see how harm runs through generations. To say, we own this legacy and will not harm you again. To promise the non-repetition of harm would require nothing less than transitioning the nation as a whole. It would mean retiring the old narrative about who we are—a city on a hill—and embracing a new narrative of an America longing to be born, a nation whose promise lies in the future, a nation we can only realize by doing the labor: reckoning with the past, reconciling with ourselves, restructuring our institutions, and letting those who have been most harmed be the ones to lead us through the transition.

Joy returns us to everything that is good and beautiful and worth fighting for. In joy, we see even darkness with new eyes. I was not alone. I was one in millions. I was part of a movement, one in a constellation. I had to shine my light in my specific slice of sky. I could do that.

Men in power do not respond kindly to Wise Women. All this time, the Little Critic was trying to keep me small, because it was the only way to survive. He was trying to protect me. But my Wise Woman knew better. When one Wise Woman leads, she inspires others to join her.

At this moment, you may be seeing around you the earliest stages of a movement taking form. Or you may be seeing the president’s pen on a civil rights bill. Often when you bear witness to the first, you will not be in the room for the second. What matters is the choice to show up to the labor in front of you, with the specific gifts you have been given, to play your particular role.

I remember to measure my success as a person not by what I produce, but by my faithfulness to this labor. I want to last.

We all have the ability to participate in this great love story. Imagine the stories we will tell, the institutions we will build, and the lives we will lead when we affirm that every person is a person. Imagine the world we will birth when we see no stranger.

When a critical mass of people come together to wonder about one another, grieve with one another, and fight with and for one another, we begin to build the solidarity needed for collective liberation and transformation—a solidarity rooted in love.

Out in the world, I notice the unconscious biases that arise in me when I look at faces on the street or in the news. To practice seeing each of them as a sister or brother or family member, I say in my mind: You are a part of me I do not yet know. Through conscious repetition, I am practicing orienting to the world with wonder and preparing myself for the possibility of connection.

whether our opponents are political or personal, persistent or fleeting, we can practice tending the wound—ours, and if it is safe, theirs.

We can rage in safe containers to process our pain, listen to understand the contexts that enable our opponents to cause harm, and use that information to reimagine cultures and institutions that protect dignity for all of us.

I now use this whenever I get into conflicts with my husband, teammates, or friends: I step away to rage until I can return again to listen and reimagine solutions.

when I find enough safety in my body, I am able to listen to my opponents. I remember that I do not need to feel empathy or compassion for my opponents in order to practice loving them. Love is labor that begins in wonder. So, I wonder about them. Beneath the slogans and sound bites, I begin to hear their pain and understand the wounds behind their words. I see their humanity—I see no stranger.

Listening does not grant the other side legitimacy. It grants them humanity—and preserves my own. I ask myself: What is my role in changing the conditions that drive oppression?

I focus not only on fighting my opponents but reimagining and remaking institutions and cultures that can free all of us.

We can breathe to draw energy and power into our bodies and let joy in. We can push through fear and pain to become our best selves, including through healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

When I need to push, I remember that going through uncomfortable emotions, sensations, or situations is how change happens.

At the end of the day, no matter how long, hard, dark or violent, I try to share a song and dance with my children—and let joy in. Joy returns us to everything that is good and beautiful and worth fighting for.