Wondering: What Now?
#8
Three days after the election, my rough cold was diagnosed as pneumonia.
In Louise Hay’s book, Heal Your Body (yes, yes, it’s a non-Western approach to healing, you can handle it), for each ailment of the body, Hay first offers the reader a set of probable causes, and then a different way to think framed in the form of an affirmation. Here’s what Louise Hay says about pneumonia:
Problem: Pneumonia
Probable Cause: “Desperate. Tired of Life. Emotional wounds that are not allowed to heal.”
New thought pattern: “I freely take in Divine ideas that are filled with the breath and the intelligence of Life. This is a new moment.”
This is a new moment.
That’s for fucking sure. For this draft, at least, I’m going to let the fucks stand. Honestly, they should be the least of any of our problems.
This is a new moment, and yet it isn’t. I mean, back when the north backed the Civil War, even most of those White people did not consider Black people, or any Bipoc person, to be their equal. And that’s putting it lightly. And almost no men anywhere in the nation considered women their equal. And to be non-Christian required missionaries to save you, and to be non-straight or non-gender-normed was past saving. Today, the Maga movement clearly states it wants to live again in a time like the 1950s that held very similar values.
So. In some ways it’s not a new moment.
Just the same, when the Civil War was fought, many people’s sons died for the cause of abolishing slavery and holding our democracy together. If the Civil War had been won by the south, well, everything would have been different. And I guess, when today we are one significant step closer to a new civil war being won by a metaphorical south - with the intentional undoing of our democracy and the rights of anyone non-Christian, male, White, and straight - well, it is a new moment.
But that’s not what the Louise Hay new moment means
It doesn’t mean thinking that half our country supports young men marching and shouting, Your body, my choice. And make no mistake, to not speak out - AND I MEAN OUT - against that is to support it. To have voted for the party advocating the undoing of a woman’s right to make contraceptive decisions about her own body is also her body, their choice.
It doesn't mean men casually saying, I just didn’t like her, to explain their vote, which means they liked their other option - a convicted sexual predator with dementia who says racist things and wants to undo our economy and government and is supported by dictators around the world (one of whom, Putin, says he owes Russia and now will make due) - they like him better? (I mean, I just didn’t realize how many people simply could not vote for a woman and how shallow their excuse would be. Because that’s what that line is, a ridiculous shallow excuse, and that’s all it is.) Anyway.
Hay’s new moment doesn’t mean that half the country has chosen to support lying, even when it hurts people, in order to win.
It doesn’t mean that half our country has made the choice to give up once and for all on saving our environment. And that we (and they, what the fuck are they all thinking) are headed to the abyss as a result.
And our immigrants and People of Color? New moment doesn’t mean that half the nation supports the email that was sent to Black people across the nation that told them to report in to start picking cotton. When someone so high up they can access an algorithm to target Black people across the nation is in power and no one speaks out in the party that made this possible, that’s still not what new moment is. Or the belief that rounding up 200,000 people and putting them in prison camps is ok.
Or that a man who showed naked pictures of underage women he had sex with to all his co-workers in the House of Representatives (while physically in the House) is now our Attorney General.
That half the nation is against our LGBTQIA population.
That neither political party leadership has cared about the Palestinian population or that the genocide we’re funding is wiping them out, man, woman, and child. And that the party about to rise to power thinks to wipe them completely out is just fine.
New moment does not mean that a multitude of people on both sides put righteous hate and anger into the world and did nothing to bring us together in Love.
And it doesn’t mean that at least ¾ of those who voted for Harris did a slim rat’s ass worth of work to get her elected and now are shocked, crying, undone. It does not mean all of those comfortable, scared, self-centered human beings who say they care, who go on social media and into their text streams to cry out how they care, in the moment that mattered most up until now cared mainly, or only, about their own backyards.
And, I know, I know. Louise Hay doesn’t mean my own obvious rage.
She doesn’t mean any of those things. She means something else.
Those things, and so many more, are not the ‘new moment.’
What those things are instead
They are the wound that is not allowed to heal. They are what have made me so desperate. They are what have made me tired of life. Pneumonia, you nailed it.
Because what does a person do when nothing they’ve done for Love has mattered? When it’s been a swizzle stick against a whole dark sky?
What does a person do when nothing anyone has done for Love seems to have mattered?
I don’t mean this in an oh poor me way. I mean it in a desperate way. What does a person do?
I don’t know
There are already many many suggestions out there. Being flat from this illness, and parsing the news I need to read from so much I don’t, I have no idea yet about the answer to this wondering. Warning: by the end, I still won’t.
There are a few things I do know.
Look in the mirror
That is the first order of action, and perhaps it’s the only one. At least until we have each looked as long and hard and honestly as we can – and promise to keep doing so – this is the only thing we should do. It does not have to be public. But it has to be real.
To see ourselves, our dark side, shit, that is painful. To see where we were too busy, too afraid, too cheap, too unwilling to give up our comfort for our values, too unwilling to look closely, too unwilling to disengage from our anger or the relationships we didn’t want to disrupt, too unwilling to speak truth beyond the safe spaces – all of these things are part of our dark side. And as Jung said, seeing this part of ourselves is critical work. It’s a wound we need to heal to move forward in a new way. A healthy one. Go write about it. Really. Own it.
Stop blaming-shifting to avoid the wound
We saw my anger just a little bit ago, and in that mirror, it’s important to ask, Who am I angry at? The first days, I knew I had real anger and I had displaced anger. People were serving as my lighting rods, right or wrong. It was easier than feeling what lay underneath. I knew I had to take my time. I still do. Witness the earlier section. A sign to head back to the mirror.
But here’s the thing I know to be true:
Stop blaming everyone else. Especially, right now, stop blaming the Democratic party, or members of it. It’s been fascinating to see people who wholeheartedly voted against the Republican candidate turn on their own. Done so fast and with such anger, well, it hasn’t been real introspection. It’s been the wound kicking its own.
If I say, Don’t kill the baby! and he says, Kill the baby!, when he kills the baby, and you blame me because what I said didn’t have universal appeal, what is that about?
Yes, perhaps I could have done a better job. I’m certain I could have done a better job. But give me a fucking break. He is the one killing the baby, and the people who voted for him chose him because of that.
Real party introspection is important, must happen, and has its time. If this nation is to take care of all Americans and all the world, it must have its time. But this immediate post-election blaming hasn’t been that. I also don’t think it’s been the right time for much of what I’ve witnessed. What I’ve seen, even from public and private individuals I deeply respect, is a rage (and intellectualizing) that buries much scarier emotions and is the opposite of the look in the mirror exercise above. It has also put the baby killer and his supporters in the spectator seats. That is messed up.
Anger directed at those who did not want to kill the baby accompanied by no personal reflection and, for God’s sake, no naming of the fact that half the nation actually voted to kill the baby is a fool’s choice. It is a way of avoiding honest self-reflection and also the cold hard horrifying truth of what half the nation really picked. It avoids two terrifying wounds.
So, stop. It’s helping nothing, and most of all, it’s not helping you.
The only way this part of the wound will stop festering and we can head forward is to look at ourselves straight on and see the truth. Rip the bandaid off, let the light in, do the hard and courageous work to let it begin to heal.
Looking for hope?
To first own our individual contribution, and lack of contribution, to the outcome of this election is perhaps our only hope.
Feel
I’ll be honest with you. I’m working to do the mirror thing, and it’s hard. And I know I have a freight train of horror, sorrow, and despair still headed at me. I touch it like a horse tentatively snuffs at a person’s sleeve. Snuff, pull away, snuff, pull away.
I’m not going to stop. I know I can’t. There is too much at stake. So, I’m feeling it as it comes. There are going to be times that are excruciating. Probably most of it will be. Sometimes it’s like I’ve been knocked sideways. But, if we don’t feel the hard stuff, it will eat us alive, and we will disappear.
Many of us already did, and look where that got us.
Look straight in the face at what’s before us
Someone very wise said that if we keep being shocked by each new thing that comes down the pike, we will be immobilized for the foreseeable future. And, well-intentioned or not, if we run around sharing the horror of each new thing, we will immobilize others. So, starting now, begin to acknowledge in advance what may and will happen. Stop waving your hands in the air.
Maya Angelou said, When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.
The extension of this is, When someone tells you what they’ll do, do not be surprised when they do it.
We have been told. We have been clearly told.
So, my suggestion, and what I’ve been trying to do, for each thing, is to say, “But, of course.”
Matt Gaetz made the Attorney General? “But of course.”
I mean, really, OF COURSE.
This does not mean I think it’s ok. But to discuss each new thing as though it’s the old days where the government at least pretended to care about its people is foolish at best. So, buckle up. And find a response that doesn’t leave you running around, waving your hands, looking to talk with someone anyone everyone about the latest thing. See it clearly, acknowledge it, say Of course, if you have emotion then please please feel it, and then ask, what now? Many of us will need a think/feel/see partner for this. Pick with intention. Discuss with them how you two are going to navigate it so you don’t get stuck.
I’d suggest that through the 2016 four years, due to the consistent new depravity of the decisions and statements, we did an ongoing circle jerk of horror. OMGOMGOMG. It was understandable. It accomplished nothing.
So now? No more circle jerk. It’s time to put on our Big Momma (name your own) pants and understand what party we’re attending and show up whole.
Playing: What’s the worst thing that could happen?
This part will be really hard, but it, too, is critical.
I’m going to take a page out of TV. In the show, This is Us, Randall and Beth Pearson play a game when they get scared of the future. In it, they ask one another something like, What’s the worst that can happen? And they keep on imagining until they’ve run out of worsts. It gets dark. Of course, it’s TV so they’re really funny as they go there. But the point is, they let themselves go dark. And in facing the possibilities together, they find a strength to move forward because they aren’t paralyzed by fear or hiding from things they don’t ever want to see take place. And they can be ready.
My daughter and I did this the Wednesday night after the election. We climbed a huge boulder by the lake as the sun went down but before it was dark (I am 61), and we looked at that beauty of light and dark and water and sky and we played the game. Now we aren’t TV characters, so we weren’t that funny and we also got to our two repeating outcomes really fast. Boom: we were dead or Boom: we were destitute and nomadic. And, though no one is going to sign us up for witty slow unrolling banter that brings in ad revenue, somehow it helped.
Your turn: what might the worsts be?
I’ve continued to play these past days, a little bit at a time, and some of the options, many of the options, most of the options, are horrible. Beyond horrible. But you have to play honestly, so be ready to play through.
To get you started, I’m going to give two examples here, and then it’s up to you.
It might not be just the next four years. We were told in his campaign that if he was elected, we’d never need to vote again. In January, he will own the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and of course, the Presidency. He will own many governors, and our election process, and many lower judges. He’s said he’ll go after his enemies in all sectors, he’s called for his supporters to support him in this, he has hired Musk to strip the government of anyone who opposes him or his mission in the name of efficiency. So, get over the four year thing. Get over the two year thing. Work as though it’s still real, but be very present right now or it may not be.
What the scientists have promised about our climate is real. Real. It doesn’t matter if some people don’t believe it. Don’t waste your time there. Our new president is going to undo all of the environmental protections in place. Yes, this includes our national treasures. He’s going to increase our fossil fuel and coal production. We are going to get hit by more and worse storms and droughts and fires and people relocating because of them. Our food chains will be disrupted as will our water. Our government agencies will be stripped or dissolved, and our corporate taxes stripped, so there won’t be the support we’re accustomed to. The future the people my age didn’t protect their children and grandchildren from is on its way. There will be a blame storm, a morality storm, an untethered storm. Don’t wave your hands in the air. Say, Of course.
I said I’d stop at two. There are plenty more, many that concern fella humans. Go ahead now, play it through. I urge you. Ironically, it can serve as a strength arsenal to keep you from being knocked over (and over). But there’s one caveat. Don’t do it as a reason to give up. Do it as a way to keep going. To be strong and smart and ready.
For today, take your time
Action, like blame, can cover important things that need to be explored, felt, and understood. Action is going to be critical (it was critical, but that ship has sailed), so please do not take this next part as advice to never engage, or to take a year or whatever to find your feet. At some point in the relative near future, you’ll hopefully strike a match under your butt. But take your time right now. It’s only been one week and a day. And for anyone who cares about people and place beyond their own family and home, it has been devastating.
This is another place we should not eat our own. Grief means that the person you see grieving has the potential to be your ally, and you theirs. It signals to a Love in them that may already be powerful, may have the potential to hatch, or grow, even powerfully. Today, here and now, we have to stop declaring who can grieve and who can’t. Do not grab the stage for yourself, in fact, get off the stage if you’re on it, but do not push people away. We have to come together. We are the extent of who we have.
But first, start with yourself. Listen to your internal workings. What I’ve heard internally this past week is that I’m not ready to move forward. I have been unable to write until today. I still have more mirror looking, more feeling, more imagining into the future to do. I’ve been granting myself the time, even when it’s felt wrong, in my heart it’s felt right. Your heart will steer you, too. Listen. Honor it.
This is not a sprint. But it is a race we are all in. Make sure you’re ready for it.
Stop following the news all day
You can get the news you need by doing some reading each morning. Find a trusted source that does its best to do true journalism (meaning: fact check, research, and admission of mistakes) and scan it each morning, reading the articles that feel important and getting enough from the headlines you don’t need to read. Then turn it off.
Listening/reading news and opinion all day, staying tuned to some version of news and information and opinion 24/7, is another form of circle jerk. It does not mean you’re more involved or even that you care. It’s a practice of self-immolation to continually engage in information, especially exhausting information, and if you’re going to make the world a better place then you need to keep energy for what matters. This goes for whatever online sources you follow. The news will be there in a few hours. Find a healthy way to go to the well.
But don’t stop following the news
I have heard people say they just can’t read the news anymore. They’ve said this over the past few years. For God’s sake, people, see this for what it is. Privilege. Escape. Abdication of responsibility.
Do not stop going to the well. Yes, you can handle hearing what’s happening. Yah, it’s hard, it hurts. But imagine living it. If you want to be a real citizen, I would suggest a real fella human, paying attention is required.
And please, support real journalism. I mean fiscally. The times for our journalists are about to get supremely rocky. The absence of a legitimate press corps is a sign of a dictatorship, and while this may happen to us anyway, don’t be a contributing member. There will always be someone to support.
And remember, the excuse, the press is biased is the same as I just didn’t like her. There is real journalism out there, you are a grown up who can read critically, support it.
The breath and intelligence of Life
For now, because I just don’t know the answer to the wondering that began this - What now - this is where I’ll begin to wrap up. I know there’s wisdom in the mantra:
I freely take in Divine ideas that are filled with the breath and intelligence of Life. This is a new moment.
I’m not sure yet what the mantra means or what the wisdom is. But I do know that if we’re open, Life (and Love) will speak to us. Life and Love always light the true path. And, because there is joy in the divine, and there is joy in the breath and intelligence of life, joy will be critical.
Joy can be quite small. The morning I first read this mantra, a quick rain shower blew through. I happened to be standing at the window and I could see the sun shining across the street as the rain swept in from behind my home. The light shone into the oncoming storm, and when I looked up, I could see all the individual drops falling from the sky. I have never seen anything like it. Thousands and thousands of individual drops falling from so high up. I could see them all. Whatever divine means for you, whatever breath of life means for you, it was held in this moment for me. Oh, I said.
And it gave me joy.
Joy fills the gas tank so we can keep moving into the days ahead. To ignore, to martyr against it, is to refuse Life.
(1)
This is a new moment
Well, it is.
And so, before I close, I’m going to send you back to your mirror again, but this time to ask,
When I die, who will I have wanted to be in the world?
What personal character traits matter to me?
If my grandchildren say, My grandparent did all they could to hand me a _________ world, what words do I want in the blank?
What kind of person do I want to be now?
What do I need to do and change to be that person?
On Nov. 6th, I hung my friend’s paper hearts on my front stoop. It was literally the only thing I felt capable of doing. That act reminded me of what I most believe in: Love. It reminded me, and it was my way of relaying my belief to the world whether they knew it or not. I want to be a person who loves. Capital L loves. Time will show me what this means.
I need to hang up my mirror first.
The best of us
This time we’re in is going to ask for the best of us. Best often equals brave. Brave usually equals hard.
So, find your community, and I don’t mean your easy pickleballgolfbargym friends. I mean the people who look in the mirror and answer those Who do I want to be questions in ways that inspire you, support you, hold you up, lift you up. Find the people who give you hope. Reach out your hand.
Regardless of whatever your answers turn out to be to What now?, we are all going to need that heart community in order to do it.
The world is going to need that community.
Don’t rush, but don’t delay.
This is a new moment.
*****
Loved this and have shared with friends. Appreciated the suggestion of supporting fact- based, research focused Journalism now!!
Thank you for your words Amy. It made me realize that I too am looking at my wounds.