Last week while watching CNN’s coverage of the California wildfires, one particular story has stuck with me.

A couple was being interviewed about their harrowing drive with their children away from their burning town. They were clearly and obviously still shaken up, sad, and relieved as the anchor asked them to describe their escape. At one point, the wife noted that they drove by a woman running on the side of the road, holding her baby in her arms.

The anchor asked, “What happened to her?”

The couple replied, “Oh, we don’t know.”

I paused. For a very long time.

They didn’t know? They passed a woman running along the road. The same road on which paint was melting off of cars and headlights were molten from the heat. A woman was running on that road with an infant in her arms. This couple was driving with their own children in their car. They did not stop to pick her up.

I obviously do not know all the details of this scenario, and I understand enough about trauma and dissociation to understand they may not have been thinking clearly. But for more than a week, I cannot get over the fact that we live in a society where not stopping to pick up a woman and her infant running from an inferno is just glossed over.

This epitomizes the self-centeredness of our American society. The country is burning around us, and so many of us choose to stay in our safe bubbles so we do not have to feel the suffering of others. We are so scorched ourselves, that we close ourselves off to others’ pain, as we simply feel incapable of absorbing any more.

This is precisely the problem. Our neighbors are burning, and we keep plowing along in our armored cars.

We are living in times in which getting through the day can be the source of so much anxiety and pain that to open our hearts and eyes to that of another can feel overwhelming enough to push us to the brink. By shutting ourselves off, we believe we are protecting ourselves. I firmly believe the opposite is true. Our unwillingness to listen to others’ struggles, and our inability to share our own is creating a serious sense of isolation. It is contributing to a loss of empathy and compassion. We cannot allow ourselves to “walk a mile in another’s shoes,” because it feels vulnerable and raw.

Allowing ourselves to bear witness to the pain of others does not necessarily increase our own pain. Connection and community help us realize that none of us is alone, we all have experiences that have hurt us, and through sharing our struggles it is possible that we will all feel less alone in them.

We need to pay more attention to the neighbor running from flames, open our door, and let them in so we can all rest in a safe place.