On The Eve of Revolution

When I first started working with my current therapist, she told me that all of my detailed planning and organization skills are actually a survival pattern from my childhood. I didn't really like hearing that something I am quite proud of is a "survival skill." As I've continued working with her, I recognize that my skill at analyzing, organizing, and seeing multiple possible outcomes is often a great asset and is also sometimes an attempt to control what can't be controlled - to bring order to disorder, especially when I'm frightened.

Honestly, right now I am frightened, and I feel this survival pattern pushing to take over.

I want to calculate every possible outcome of tomorrow night's election. What will happen if Biden wins? What will happen if Trump wins? What will my next move be? How will I be part of the solution? How can I get rid of this helpless feeling I've been sitting in since I dropped off my ballot weeks ago?

There is this part of me that thinks if I can be busy enough, or map it all out, I will regain some sense of uprightness. But I know there is no planning to be done. No action to take at this moment. And I know that I cannot have a plan for what to do next until we know what next looks like.

It has been a long, hard four years in this country. After 8 years with the first Black president of the United States at the helm, our country rebounded. Too many of us were in shock at the result to look up and hear what the election was telling us: things are broken. people are not okay. people are restless and desperate. We lumped the information into "they" and "them" and created a deeper divide instead of asking... "What is this symptom trying to tell us?" Four years later, it grows more and more clear what the symptom is telling us: This country has deep-rooted trauma that needs to be addressed.

Trauma work takes time. Things don't change overnight for individuals and certainly not for a country. We must do our work in layers. We must start with ourselves even while we look to help globally, and sometimes in between, we need to rest. Sometimes we need to spend time in that uncomfortable place of "no longer one thing, but also not quite yet this new and better thing." Sometimes we need to just embrace this time of not knowing.

I will hold the door open for you, and together we can sit here - in the space between.

Between fear and hope

Between anger and grief

Between love and hate

We can sit together and share this moment. This moment when our work is done and all we can do now is wait.

We can hold each other like a family in the waiting room of a hospital. We can speak kindly and softly to each other and find encouragement together. We can hold this space as big and as bright as we can make it. And in this space, we might find some stillness and quiet.

If we are willing to stop trying to find all the answers and stop trying to see all the angles, if we are willing to simply be still and silent and trusting... maybe we can find some peace to share. And if we find some peace, we can find some faith, some hope, and ultimately some love for one another.

I am praying over these elections. Not for a specific winner, but for a specific outcome: that the results of the election lead us, individually and as a country, toward forgiveness, healing, and unity.