How To #Resist And Stay Heart-Centered
F*ck This Sh*t. Game On.
This is about what I expected. I know many of my brothers and sisters in our country are shocked, but I’m not. The chief wingnut is behaving exactly as he said he would, exactly how a power hungry narcissist behaves if given the keys to the most powerful country in the world.
Shock is a good thing if it rattles dulled senses awake.
This isn’t the time for sleeping. I remember driving cross-country with my three-year old twins in the middle of the night. We were sixty miles from a rest stop and I was exhausted, my eyes snapping open when I’d begin to drift. Fortunately, I popped loose a kidney stone and my kids were saved from a fatal car accident. I was easily wide awake for the next twelve hours.
There is nothing great about our situation. It is as bleak as everyone is saying. When you read that the “sky is falling”, believe it, because the world we know is changing — fast.
For many of the #resistance, this is a new way to live. I used to call those people “rainbow heads”, because their faces were looking up at a bright arc of colors, while others like me were wiping mud from their eyes in an attempt to see their feet.
I’m someone who survived a hellish couple of decades, lived a few more in the mud, and now I look for goddamn rainbows, even while another psycho attempts to take control of my life.
We’re in this together, which is another good thing. Some of us are made for a fight and some of us aren’t. Many of our masses have lived through some sick sh*t. I’m one of them. I suggest making friends with people who have had a rough go, they’ve got mad skills for survival. I also want my muddied friends to latch onto those newly-disillusioned folks.
Rainbow heads have a lot to offer. They have a handle on hope and that will be what we use to keep going. With that as our light at the end of the tunnel, I offer our #resistance a few tips from the mud.
· Accept. I know it’s hard to look at this sh*t show and believe its happening and not some alternate dream world someone cooked up on the internet. But we have to face this and own it. As someone who had family members who tried to make the violent world we were living in disappear, I can tell you that avoiding/ignoring/hiding doesn’t work. Reality sucks, but this is what we’ve got and to do anything about what is real, we have to label it.
· Truth. Hug truth tightly and never let go. Those who want reality to go away will try and make lies and fabrications real. They are only able to do this if you begin to doubt yourself, close your eyes, or give in because it seems easier — it isn’t. I gave up for a couple of decades, ignoring, pushing back truth, and hiding from reality. I did this until I got smacked in the face with PTSD. Running doesn’t solve anything, it only slows down our ability to fight back and win.
· Survival. Survival is an ingrained instinct. Dragging ourselves up from the mud is innate. It goes against our DNA to lie down and die. Which means, fighting back is easier. That may sound trite, which isn’t my intent. Fighting back is grueling, but giving up is quitting. I fought against the dictator I knew most every day. My approach was nuanced. There were times that I appeared to be compliant, while I lured the authoritarian in until he let his guard down. It was then that I’d resist, react, and break him with my intractability. He never knew whether I was on his side or against him, which leads me to the next point.
· Be Smart. This is Jenga with people, Risk 2017, Online Pictionary, Scrabble with missing letters. Pull every creative synapse into how to be effective. Write letters to the editor with your stories, call your senator and reps EVERY DAY — put them on speed dial, join a grassroots organization because they need every brain cell they can get, and use you’re zany American sarcasm and ingenuity to fight back.
· Dance. When we get a win, like Greenpeace’s viral video hanging a #Resist sign above the White House, friggin’ celebrate. That was cool and it’ll inspire us to keep working for wins.
· Remember. Remember who we are and what we’re fighting for. America is awesome when it comes from its big strong heart. When I was in hell I never forgot I wasn’t the abuse that was being done to me. The me that fought back never lost hope. We are at our best when we come from our humanity, the gold we harbor in our kindness and awareness of others. I felt that out in the middle of hundreds of thousands of people at the Women’s March. I felt it when I walked into a room full of grassroots organizers. That feeling has carried me through this week of inane and insane executive orders. Get out there and find people who want to be solution-based not hate based. We are the storm, we are the change, we got this.
· Hope isn’t bullsh*t. I can’t believe I’m writing that without rolling my eyes. I survived. We’re going to survive. And when we do, we’re going to demand that survival isn’t good enough. It’s time for everyone on this planet to have the opportunity to thrive.
F*ck this sh*t. Game on.
**also posted on The Huffington Post
