On September 10, 2025, under an open white tent at Utah Valley University, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was debating all comers in front of 3,000 people when everything changed. At 12:23 p.m., a sniper’s bullet struck him in the neck. Chaos erupted—screams, running, ducking, simple panic. The shock was immediate. In that rupture, spectacle gave way to death’s terror. For a breathless moment, those there and those who later “witnessed” the terrible scene online or on television were neither supporters nor critics but simply human, stunned by life’s brutal fragility.
Almost immediately, however, the dividing lines returned. On the Right, voices rose in grief and outrage: a beloved figure cut down; a wife widowed; two children orphaned. Some called for forgiveness, echoing Christ’s teaching. Others demanded vengeance. Most, maybe, doubled down on contemptuous rhetoric. On the Left, some undoubtedly, in their heart of hearts, felt relief, even grim satisfaction. Many blamed inflamed rhetoric, while many more bristled at Kirk’s idolization, resisting what they saw as a whitewashing of his polarizing words. A few on both sides urged restraint and calm.
What began as a common shock quickly fractured into familiar ideological postures. Loss’s rawness hardened contempt and blame. Kirk became enshrined in death what he was in life: an archetypal crucible, each side pouring its fear and fury into him. In that furnace, divisions hardened again.
Existential-Humanistic practice invites us to pause here. To notice is to attend to the shock in the chest, trembling hands, surges of rage, waves of sadness, the hollow of relief, and so on. Rather than rushing past or fastening these feelings to ideology, we linger with them. Then we deepen. What underlies relief, outrage, contempt, hatred? Often, we encounter core feelings, such as fear, grief, and shame, along with their corresponding longings for safety, acceptance, and significance. In this work, new meanings may emerge as the understanding deepens. Links to old wounds, recognition of our pull into blame and defense, glimpses beyond the drama. With attention and depth, the event ceases to be political. It becomes personal and human again.
To notice and deepen is a core tenet of existential-humanistic therapy. Turning toward reactions we’d rather escape opens the door to healing and even transcendence — finding meaning in the unbearable and glimpsing the humanity that binds us.
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Read other Existential Moment posts on Existential-Humanistic practice.
Explore the therapeutic relationship in E-H therapy in previous posts.
View all the Existential Moment series posts on EHI’s blog.
Existential Moment Author: Scott Gibbs, LMFT, EHI Board Member-at-Large
