I’m still feeling rather mute after yesterday. I didn’t watch the news, but I did stay a bit in touch with what was happening via some trusted (and non-dramatic) sources.
We knew this was coming, and as I’ve written about before somewhere (where???), I realized a couple of weeks ago that I’ve been living in a state of high alert and trauma response since the election itself. And since the holidays ended (a sort of marker in my mind that I was waiting for), I’ve basically been counting down the days until yesterday.
It’s as if I were standing and watching a very large monster coming toward me for many hours and I was under the illusion that because I could see him, that once he got to me, it wouldn’t be quite so bad.
Um… nope. The monster is terrifying.
Yesterday I got to the point of freeze. Utter despair. My heart felt like it was breaking. I told Craig that “I don’t know how to live in this world…”
I got up this morning, knowing I had to start teaching online again. “Had to…” More like “got to.”
I wasn’t sure how I could show up. But as always, the strength of our community held me and allowed me to be human as I did the same for them.
So as the day goes on, I am feeling little cracks appear in that despair.
Then someone in the Circle of Trees shared a video and the creator said something that really stood out for me (and I am paraphrasing):
ANGER IS MEANT TO GET US THROUGH FEAR. (Read that a few times.)
It’s meant to carry us across a seemingly uncrossable river of anxiety and fear and terror and the feeling that we can’t possibly.
But we can.
Feeling that anger, the energy of it, eventually carries us over all of that.
When we get to the other side, we might still feel a bit of fear and lingering rage, but we are on the shores of possibility, imagination, and action.
It is not our singular job to save the world. We can’t.
But with little tiny actions of our own unique sort (we all have a different purpose in this), it’s as if we are filling a well of goodness. A well others can drink from.
And the only way we can consistently and over the long haul continue to take any actions is by taking care of ourselves, by remembering that we’re not only allowed to but must feel and experience and build joy in our lives. We are not just here for the bad stuff. We’re here to be in awe, to be curious, to be playful, to be in healthy relationship, to hold others’ hands, to have our hands held, to be love and compassion for those in pain and for ourselves.
Sitting and watching that monster come toward me… that is not what I’m here for. And it’s not what you’re here for.
I don’t have answers but I’m coming up for air.