A coping strategy [long read]

Stability before mobility; time to burrow into the bubble

Most dogs sleep curled up, spine out, to protect their soft underbellies. But I know some dogs that sleep spreadeagled on their backs, legs splayed open, throat exposed. Every dog I know that sleeps like this happens to live with exceptionally nurturing humans. It’s like they think they live in a world free from predators. 

God grant me the serenity of Cedar the Goldendoodle.

Today, I wish I had the serenity of a back-sleeping dog. Nope, we are not free from predators right now.

It’s gotten ugly out there, fast. A friend of mine’s niece received one of those anonymous racist texts that went out to Black Americans the other day. A woman I follow on Threads posted that she was spat on while crying on a mental health run Wednesday morning. A client texted me that he was jeered at by strangers in a passing car, and he wasn’t even wearing any Kamala merch, he was just outdoors in America while Black. This is not like any other election year, including 2016.

There is so much grief and rage and fear that wants to pour out of me right now. Too much. But you don’t need me to enumerate my fears. I know you have your own.

My coping strategy in this brutally tender post-election week is to unplug from social media and the TV news. I really don’t need to see the broligarchs tweeting their congratulations to that odious monster. I can’t stomach seeing his face or hearing his voice. Just the knowledge that his ugliness and cruelty, his harmful words and actions, will be shoved in our faces in the years to come is too much. My home is strangely quiet without CNN and MSNBC. I am filling that space with music, the Great British Baking Show, and lots of conversations with people I love.

Also, I can’t bear to watch the pundits ripping scraps off the carcass of the Harris campaign and preening around with their smug opinions about what they think the Democrats did wrong. Kamala Harris ran a near-flawless campaign. She didn’t lose because her policy points weren’t well articulated (they were), or because her messaging was off, or because of Gaza, or her tone, or the timing. These things may be factors, but none should matter—nothing should matter—when your opponent is a cruel, ignorant, malevolent maniac running on vengeance and a promise to burn down democracy.

No. She lost because of racism, misogyny, and because large swaths of the electorate are drinking from a well whose groundwater has been poisoned with fear-mongering lies. Lies about her, about him, about how tariffs work, about hurricane aid, and lies about each other. 

This phrase is echoing in my head, but with a twisted subtext: We are not going back. I think this is a true statement. But not in the way Kamala meant it. 

We are not going back to the pre-Maga GOP. It is gone. We are not going back to civility in politics, such as it was. We are not going back to norms and guardrails; they are gone, too. 

And it’s worse than that. We are not going back to the 45th administration. As painful and damaging as those four years were, what’s coming is far worse. Worse for people of color, women, queer folk, and immigrants. Worse for the economy, the environment, for an informed citizenry, and for free and fair elections. Worse for our health. And worse for global stability.

Keep reading… sorry this essay is so dark but it arcs toward light, I promise.

The fact that, despite clear warnings from generals and economists, a majority of voters have handed unchecked power over to a self-declared dictator signals that this is not the dawn of fascism in America; I believe we are already in the midmorning of that project. Fascism has snaked its roots into the soil deeper than we thought, and its growth is vigorous.

I know that’s going to sound hysterical to some. Maybe you think I need to take a deep breath, that it’s not going to be so bad. But I think this is not the right time to cultivate a cool remove. If you are freaking out right now, or if you feel numb, or heartbroken, that is a rational and sane response. You are not blowing things out of proportion; the proportions are enormous. Read this excellent essay, Freedom, written by EB White in July 1940 and shared by Elissa Altman on her Substack, Poor Man’s Feast. 

Several people in my life have spent time living in undemocratic societies. Unclouded by the haze of American exceptionalism, they were not at all surprised by this result, and they do not underestimate its impact.

I don’t know where we go from here, but I can’t see us launching into another round of bracelets and marches. We just fucking did all that and more. We understood the assignment. We left it all on the field. It didn’t work. Now, we are spent.

Personally, I can’t summon the gumption for another round of this battle right now. Are we really meant to spend our lives fighting? For freedom, for rights we have securely held since birth? Wouldn’t we all prefer to be occupied by other things, days at the beach and family dinners? Or, if we must fight, wouldn’t we prefer to be fighting with our spouse or the never-ending pile of laundry? Maybe my appetite for activism will come back, but right now, yeah, I’m turning my spine to the world and licking my wounds. 

I think we could all use a picture of Mushu and Tang at this point.

But turning inward doesn’t have to mean self-isolating or allowing anxiety to cripple us. When our circumstances are bleak, the best thing we can do for ourselves is to come together in communities where we can show each other our grief and rage without getting spat on. We have to create sanctuary for and with each other, and we should pick our people carefully. 

I understand that living in ideological bubbles has contributed to societal division. Echo chambers and tunnel vision, and all that. And I agree that we’d all be better off if we could come together and live in harmony as a heterogeneous society. I was hopeful of the promise that Kamala held out of a united America, of mending fences with our neighbors after years of bitterness. But that moment is not this moment. We do not need to extend a handshake to the people who have just imperiled our wellbeing. Not yet. Not now. Safety first.

We need spaces in which we can safely turn a soft belly to the sky. For me, this is important not only for soothing and resting but also as a way to marshal the wisdom and fortitude needed to move through the coming chaos in a good way. 

When I was recovering from surgery, my physiotherapist had a good saying: stability before mobility. Before you can take on the world, you need to heal. Push yourself too far, too hard, too soon after an injury, you’re going to get hurt worse. And the part of me most injured right now is my tender loving heart. 

My loving heart is not a weak or fragile thing. It is the source of my sanity and strength. Protecting it is not thumb-sucking, or a distraction from the important things happening in the world. It is the foundation for any meaningful work I might be called to do “out there”. Make no mistake, I am fucking furious. But although righteous anger is good fuel in the fight for justice, acting from an open wound bleeding with rage will only make things worse—for myself and everyone around me.  

I recognize that there is such a thing as evil deeds and words. But I do not believe that human beings are fundamentally evil. Not one of us. Some humans are profoundly damaged. Some are cruel, hard-hearted, and irredeemably dangerous. But—and this is just my worldview, you don’t have to agree—I believe that each of us is born innocent and that the spark of light that animates us never goes out, even in those who are hijacked by ignorance and hatred. 

If I lose my connection to this truth, if I fall under the delusion that Trump voters are evil, or even that a malevolent actor like DTJ himself is inhuman, then I become personally and spiritually dysfunctional. That is a far greater threat to my sanity and safety than any external condition.

I imagine this perspective might be seen by some as naive or misguided. Welp, they can go ahead and think that about me. I do not need to hold space for anyone’s judgment. 

I once lived with a man who told me that my eyes were lying to me, my feelings weren’t real, my motivations were sinister, and my inner light was a black hole. He was wrong. My recovery from psychological abuse started with taking back the power I had given him to define me. 

When I see the scapegoating of trans people, the demonizing of immigrants, and the cold hatred expressed toward all women and especially Black women, I see him looming over me all over again, feel his thunder on the stairs, and I am sucked under a roiling wave of impotent rage.

I can rescue myself from that storm. The abuser is headed back to the White House, but we need not let him rein over our most intimate territories, the seat of our sovereignty; our hearts and minds.

My first act of resistance is an internal one: to hold my own counsel. I know myself. I know that I cannot contribute anything of value to the world with a bitter, loveless heart. In fact, I become an agent of chaos when I am spiritually disheveled. 

Now, I’m not advocating passivity. There is real harm coming our way, and we must defend ourselves and the vulnerable members of society against it. To preserve my own wholeness, I need to see the innocent soul behind the Maga hat. I want to approach each person with clear sight of their unblemished spirit—but without assuming that they are my friend (or foe). My open heart is protected by a strong gate. 

This double vision is not easy to maintain in dangerous times. My service to the collective starts with service to my own navigational instruments: the inner compass that tells me what to do and where to go, and the inner two-way radio through which I receive guidance from my higher self. This is not naivete. This is inner leadership.

Of course, I’m not going to do this sacred work on the streets. This is what the bubble is for: A place to put body and soul back together. I need to gather with kindred spirits and plug into the strengthening power of softness so that we can armor up and rejoin the activist movement when (and if) it feels right. 

This has already been a super long read, but before I go, I want to leave you with one last thought: We can and should also find joy as often as possible. It is not callous or disloyal to the suffering of the collective to dance in your living room, crack a joke, or find a moment of bliss in a bubble bath. Let’s be generous and kind to ourselves and each other when the wider world is not.

xo

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My essay was published in Human Shift magazine

An essay I wrote over a year ago has just come out in Human Shift magazine. The theme of this issue is the sixth chakra, the chakra of sight. My essay focuses on the gap between perception and projection; between thinking and knowing. Human Shift is a gorgeous, full-color, print-only magazine. You can’t read the full story online, but you can read an abstract here and order a hard copy of the magazine below!

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