The warmth from the soup has spread through our bodies. Our legs are pulled up under us on the sofa, and the conversation flows gently. We are three friends gathered for a birthday celebration. In our everyday lives we work with vulnerable people and trauma.

But right now, right here on the couch, we are at the easy end of life. Talking about summer houses, flowers, the sea and the grandeur of nature. What it does to us to be able to connect with it. How privileged we are to live in a place and in a country where we have access to forest and water.

We are sitting in the middle of the city. Up under the roof ridge. Can hear the sirens' insistent call for our attention. That there is a seriousness and a reality that is not felt so clearly right now.

The sirens fall silent as the conversation changes character. To all the bottle collectors in the city, travelers coming here from Europe or Africa. Because there is money scattered on our streets. Bottles that, when collected and pledged, can make a difference to an entire family. How living on the street or in a forest out in the suburbs can be better than the poverty they come from. Even without having health insurance and rights.

We feel our privileged lives. What it's like to be born into our society, into our continent, with our healthcare system and education system, and how it has given us opportunities. It's a mix of deep gratitude and humility and a touch of shame about being lucky.

I feel uncomfortable. I withdraw from the conversation a little. Somewhere in me, my heart is open and understanding towards people who have not had the same opportunities and agency that I have had. But it swings like a pendulum. I feel that I am closing my heart because feeling their pain connects me to places in my own life where I have experienced the dark sides of life and had to fight.

I breathe with the extremes of the pendulum. And discover that by closing my heart to my own vulnerability – I also close my empathy and understanding of their life situation. From that perspective it becomes easier to distance myself – but this is also where I am struck by the shame of my privileges. It is like a dead end.

We open the conversation into the more vulnerable layers. Where we ourselves recognize suffering. Everything is relative. We cannot compare our painful memories with the living conditions of bottle collectors or refugees. But we all have wounds that we remember and can contact. It is as if the heart dares to open itself a little again. First inwardly, then outwardly towards other people who experience pain and difficult conditions.

In the time since my birthday, my attention has been sharpened on the themes we have shared. I discover how every day I become just a little better at opening my eyes, seeing and showing humanity. Right where I sometimes otherwise see on, sees through, looks past – passes by. My vision and perspective expands. I engage more in meetings.

A few stanzas from David Whyte's beautiful poem "”Start close in”"comes to me:

”"Start close in,

don't take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close up,

the step

you don't want to take”.

It may be a minimal drop in the ocean of what may be needed in the larger perspective.

But everything starts somewhere.

David Whyte's “Start close in” is taken from the poetry collection River Flow, 2013.