I’ve found myself without words so many times in the last six months, as we’ve navigated through an election cycle full of horror and surprise.
On Wednesday morning, I woke my kids up for the second time in their short lives to tell them that Donald Trump had won a presidential election.
For the second time, a core memory is imprinted in my brain of my children’s faces as they crumpled with fear and grief and panic, and the sound of their gut-wrenching sobs.
For the second time, I tried to make meaning out of madness for them, and to self-regulate to convey something steady, and to promise them I would move heaven and earth to keep them safe.
I held it together. I managed that.
Later on that day, though, I called my own father. I caught him at the gym, where he goes five days a week at 83 years old. He sat down and looked at me over Facetime, and in an instant I sobbed like my children had sobbed, and told him I, too, was terrified– for everyone I love who is vulnerable and marginalized, for my children, for myself.
He told me that he loved me. He told me that the terror was about what was unknown that could be coming next. He told me to remember Trump’s incompetence– how ineffective his people are, and how many thousands of compliant, enabling, competent insiders that others would take orders from that he would need beside him– people that he does not have– to truly carry out the worst of his plans. He reminded me that we are not powerless, and that nearly half the country wanted Harris, not him. He reminded me to lead. He told me that we do not quit, that it is not in our genes and that we are fighters and survivors. He told me we were in this together. And then he told me he loved me again.
We said other things, too, things that don’t belong here, but that were laced with the best advice he has ever given me: “it is your sacred obligation to yourself to make choices that move you forward.”
And that is also our sacred obligation to everyone we love.
I, too, have pitched from despair to skin-prickling rage to wild grief to flat numbness over the past few days. I have ridden that rollercoaster more times than I care to count in the last 72 hours.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, though, I remembered that one of the defining features of my long and storied trauma profile is that I know how to compartmentalize my emotions to cope with ongoing trauma.
Dissociation has its benefits.
And it struck me that knowing which emotions to entertain in the coming weeks and months, and which to set to the side and store in the deep recesses of our chests and minds, and which to refuse to show on the surface of our beings to anyone except those with whom we can trust the breaking open, will be one of the skills we will all need the most as we move through what comes next.
There is an eerie calm to knowing how to do this, one that therapists may pick apart and call unhealthy and seek to pull out and diffuse. But I don’t know, man, coping skills are there for coping, and revival of those you thought you didn’t need any longer might just have a purpose now.
I’m going to tell you a few things I think might be of service to you now. Take them or leave them depending on where you might find yourself on the rollercoaster, but I hope that they help a bit.
This is where I plan to head– and notably where we plan to head here at the Gaia Leadership Project as we move toward what we will be offering in terms of programming in line with these principles (more on that soon)– and also what I am already doing to keep going, as follows.
Get in community with people who are invested in your survival and safety. Here in my town we are already in this, and we are planning for more on a much, much larger scale. What is your core community of local support? Think about how you're going to be there for each other in the coming weeks and months. How will you check in with eachother, feed and nurture eachother, keep eachother safe?
Two or three people can be a community, and more is better. Start where you can, and look for like-minded people who will be there in mutual aid.
Start thinking about disruption. What I mean by that is not protest, but actual disruption of what he plans to do. Protesting is valuable, but protestors under Trump II are going to have a target on their backs. How can you disrupt what he will be trying to do, in community with others? How can you get in the way (with others) of what he's going to try to carry out? How can you disarm those efforts quietly or loudly? What does disruption look like to you?
Because all of his insane nationwide fascist plans will only work if he has people everywhere willing to carry them out and/or turn a blind eye. And that's harder than you might think when there are people actively getting in the way of it.
Control your data as much as you can. I'll have more to say about this in the coming weeks but every single major tech company CEO has bent the knee to Trump, and there are some very disturbing trends in terms of how the broligarchs are leveraging their sway over him. That means something for our online communications that will require certain choices in the near future.
Do not neglect your joy. Do not neglect your rest. Don't neglect your job that is going to put food on your table (you too, entrepreneurs-- I know it's hard now but we have to feed our families).
There are things that can't be stolen from us. There are things we are going to have to prioritize for our survival. And there are things our kids need from us right now and we have to be stalwart in our own self-care to show them that we've got them.
Try to do as much community building as humanly possible in person and offline. The reasons for that are already abundantly clear.
Consider ways in which you might need to protect yourself and loved ones for the coming years. Do you need an IUD or to stock up on birth control or Plan B? Do it now. Do you need vaccines or do your kids? Get them now. Do you need health insurance or to change your plan, and have a pre-existing condition? Do it now. Do you need to renew your passport? Do it now.
Love your people and provide zones of safety. I have had to say more times than I can count to the marginalized people in my life (and to myself) this week that we are safe right now here together, that we are safe in our home, that we are safe in our own bodies. This is not true for everyone, but where it is: reaffirm a current state of safety.
And be the place of safety for those who need it. Hold space for grief and mourning, and be the shoulder to cry on, or ask for one if you need it too. Do not be afraid to ask for help yourself.
We must reaffirm connection where it exists, and build more of it where it is lacking, because connection and community equals survival.
I don’t feel the need to Monday morning quarterback what just happened, other than simply recognizing that America has always been a white supremacist patriarchy, from the very moment of its birth. There will be time– a lot of it– to consider how this went down, and how to restore some semblance of sanity and build equity we’ve never had, but that conversation has been already launched by pundits at an alarming rate, without much self-reflection.
For now, it feels important to just say this: You are not alone. We have each other. We will fight back– maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow– but when we are ready, and on behalf of all who need it.
The story is not finished, and the ending is not written.
We’re all a part of what comes next, and don’t let anyone tell you that you are powerless against it.
You are not.
WE are not.
Please do not forget it.
Thank you. There is so much attached to this outcome in our personal lives. It’s hard to stay calm. Your words are greatly appreciated.
Thank you, for everything you do!