Acceptance instead of Expectance

20-08-2026

It is the 1000th day of the war in Ukraine, of accepting the harsh reality and of dim hope for peace. As Ukrainians we are still fighting for our land, history, culture, language, nationality, identity and for our own way of thinking, feeling and doing; we are struggling for freedom both physically and mentally.

Being not a warrior but just a person working with people in the field of emergency pedagogy I can still witness how this struggle for freedom develops both inside and outside children and adults. This struggle takes place in a distance of 1000 km from the frontline in the city of Rivne, which is a relatively quiet area of the country in the west. As far as I decided to stay here at my place and keep the saying which I was once told by a wonderful Waldorf teacher “do what you can and it will be what has been given”, I would like to illustrate this struggle by taking the example of my work as a trauma pedagogue.

In 2022, the year the war in Ukraine began, I made efforts to survive physically having different strategies of freezing (not knowing, feeling and willing to do anything), avoiding (flee from the city into the village, flee into myself, illusions, avoiding contacts etc.) and fighting (helping soldiers, opposing everything what was Russian, including language, manufacturers etc.). Sure, I knew all the methods that could support me mentally but I was not able to apply them, I just accepted that fact. In a half of a year I was trying to survive psychologically and was going through various crises and disorders, however, I was lucky to meet Friends of Waldorf Education with their trainers giving Emergency Pedagogy in Western Ukraine. That meeting supported me and I could apply all the methods I knew and share them with others. Thanks to Martin Straube I became able to understand, perceive and feel what happened to me and my country and I regained faith again going through different strategies of survival.

What is happening now? I am accepting everything that comes in my life not expecting and fleeing into the illusion of quick victory or true division of the territories or common acts to resolve the conflict. I am doing what I can with my own speed and contemplating what has been given to me. Fortunately, I am not alone in my doings and views and it supports me a lot. First, I have my friends and we arrange and make lectures, workshops and all sorts of classes for the traumatized adults and children and I should say that there are lots of traumatised people in Ukraine. Second, we feel the material support from abroad – from European people who are struggling too and striving to do what they can and we really appreciate it. Third, we recollect our values and virtues that cannot be taken away because they are within us, passed to us with traditions, language, culture and generations.

Last but not the least, accepting not expecting gives me a clear understanding that there is no good, no bad, there is something in between like empathy when “I am I” and (not but) “I feel others”. In such unity something new is being born and this new is faith. Faith in every child that comes to our trauma pedagogy class showing disturbances in behaviour, faith in every adult who is not ready to change him- or herself, faith in myself and my Higher Self that I am at right time and right place – I am here and now, not fleeing not fighting but being. A new strategy of survival should be called “BEING” and I am just learning to be with it, to feel it and to understand it.

I am pretty sure that most of the Ukrainian people are also on this path of learning and in this process of being. What’s more, we are giving this example of being to the future generations getting out of the transgenic transmission of traumas. We are trying to stand even more firmly on our own feet than ever.