We’re all looking for places to put our pain. I mean, where are you going to put your societally-induced agony? Who can you take THAT out on? You can’t march everyday or sit with your support group. You can only rile so much on social media about topics that seem mostly out of individual control — political barbarism, racial divides, leaking nuclear reactors, exploitation of all the beautiful things. Who can you yell at for that? Directly.

Then there are the personal wounds that mark each of us. The #metoo wounds. The family of origin fractures. The karma. Scars from other dimensions. Those you can get a lawyer for (if that’s your style), or heal with therapy, and days in the desert, and all the ways that we take back our power through pleasure.

But if your life’s wounds have not been anointed, and if, on top of those gashes, you’re feeling the pain of the world, then you will most certainly need your cries to be heard. And chances are, you will turn to the tribe or the person who actually feels “safe” to share your fury with. “Safe” as in within proximity and familiar-looking. And in that safety, you may unleash.

I’ve seen some brutal behaviour online in the last few months, between women. It’s been saddening, shocking, clarifying. It’s made me examine my own beliefs around “women sticking together“, “energy over gender”, where kindness dances with discernment. Here’s where I’ve landed:

I’m recommitting to sisterly love. I’ve got to go deeper with it. I won’t get it right all of the time. My love won’t always look like love, and sometimes I will fool myself. I have my own wounds. And discernment is a lifelong workshop. But if I can’t have compassion with my familiars, then how can I hope to know the best of myself? And them?

Danielle LaPorte is an invited member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100, a group who, in Oprah Winfrey’s words, “is uniquely connecting the world together with a spiritual energy that matters.” She is author of White Hot Truth: Clarity for keeping it real on your spiritual path—from one seeker to another. The Fire Starter Sessions, and The Desire Map: A Guide To Creating Goals With Soul—the book that has been translated into 8 languages, evolved into a yearly day planner system, a top 10 iTunes app, and an international workshop program with licensed facilitators in 15 countries.

Named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes, millions of visitors go to DanielleLaPorte.com every month for her daily #Truthbombs and what’s been called “the best place online for kickass spirituality.” A speaker, a poet, a painter, and a former business strategist and Washington-DC think tank exec, Entrepreneur Magazine calls Danielle, “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass…edgy, contrarian…loving and inspired.” Her charities of choice are Eve Ensler’s VDay: a global movement to end violence against women and girls, and charity: water, setting out to bring safe drinking water to everyone in the world. She lives in Vancouver, BC with her favourite philosopher, her son. You can find her @daniellelaporte and just about everywhere on social media.