A day for feeling the hurt

Lessons will be repeated until they are learned

Lithia Park, in my hometown: the day after the election

Today is a day for feeling the hurt. A day when we have no choice but to confront the dark chasm between the world as it is… and the world as we long for it to be. Today is a day for grieving that gap.

Last night the latent stress and anxiety that had been bubbling in my chest all day hardened into the familiar feeling of dread: the oppressive weight of sadness. Discouragement. Grief. Not quite despair… that’s not yet an emotion I have allowed myself to feel.

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Hold for relief/mourning

This was the title of my calendar block this morning. Sadly, it is the latter feeling I find myself sinking into. I feel fortunate to have spaces and communities to turn to: Prentis Hemphill and the Embodiment Institute anticipated this moment and held a truly gorgeous post-election gathering space (link to the recording here; well worth the watch/practice). As they put it:

No matter what happens on Election Day, we know that we need each other.

We’re making space to name what our bodies are feeling, space to grieve and space to name what we’re longing for. Right now is the perfect time to be in a community of people with liberatory visions, taking courageous actions, and moving towards the future where all of us have safety, freedom, and dignity.

It was exactly what I needed. Over 2,000 people joined from around the country to be with each other, and to listen to the wisdom from Prentis, from movement elder Alta Starr, and to practice with Oscar Trujillo.

Prentis set the tone, inviting us to keep dropping in. They invited us into our task for today: “opening up to what is.” The space was exactly what I needed: an invitation to feel, in a well-held container, with kindred spirits together struggling to hold the complexity and contradictions of the moment, the “churning” of feelings inside us. Prentis again:

We’re not offering a solution to the churning; we’re offering a space for the churning… first we have to listen to the churning.

As we closed, Alta offered another beautiful invitation, one grounded in her own commitment:

An invitation to staying soft, staying open, and reaching out to connect… with what can help me stay soft, stay open… not shutting down.

Mmm. Yes. Connecting in ways that allow us to stay open, not to return to the rigid protective shapes that have got us to this place. Prentis built on Alta’s offering to ask this question:

Where might I find connection that can allow me to be with what is here without requiring me to contort myself into what has been?

The Earth holds us all

After the beautiful community space, I felt called to nature: to be among the redwoods and Ponderosas, and the gorgeous maples and oaks that are sharing their beauty in this season. I moved slowly, still tending to my knee (7 weeks post-surgery). Listening deeply to the water moving inexorably downstream, following its mandate to return to the ocean. Watching the leaves drop, unapologetically, inevitably, to the ground. Such breathtaking beauty, giving generously of itself, trusting deeply in the cycle of life.

On a day of darkness, it feels important to also see the light. To appreciate the beauty that exists in this world. I felt my body calming, my feet in the leaves, the sunlight warming me after its 93 million mile journey to bring us light, and life. As I felt myself drawing resilience, I found myself better able to allow into my consciousness the dread that I felt last night. To allow myself to wonder about my relationship to fear, and to despair.

The fear of hope, and the fear of despair

My wife shared with me a dream she had the other night, in which I said to her “I’m scared.” In the dream she said to me what she repeated as she retold it to me: “I’ve never heard you say those words.”

Sigh. I felt self-conscious writing my last post, about my relationship to sadness and tears. Self-conscious not because of the topic, but because of the contrast with the moment we were in: a few weeks pre-election, the bombardment of Gaza worse than ever. I feared that it felt self-indulgent to explore my inner feeling state in a time of such external strife. And yet: it feels deeply related. If we can’t feel our feelings, if we aren’t in touch with our fear and our sadness… they drive us.

Yesterday my 7-year-old asked me why people vote for Donald Trump, and I answered that they were scared. And that those of us who voted for Kamala… and I paused. Are also scared. Yet it feels to me that there is something different about our fear. Ours is a fear rooted in hope, in a conviction that things can be better (to be clear, not that Kamala would make them better, but that we together are capable of caring for everyone’s needs). Theirs is a fear rooted in despair: etymologically, it means “without hope.”

That’s why I don’t let myself feel despair: I refuse to live without hope. I refuse to give up on us.

I wrote about this five years ago in the context of anger, contrasting the “anger of hope” with the “anger of despair.” I still think that’s right, but I think I misnamed the animating emotion. Yes it is expressed as anger, but underneath is fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what we are capable of doing to each other in our desperation. Fear that there won’t be enough for all of us. Fear that we might be alone; that our efforts won’t be enough.

“Caring for us, and you as a part of the us”

I loved this tender line from Oscar Trujillo, as he guided us in an embodiment practice. This to me is what it comes back to: we have to care for all of us… including ourselves. We have to extend the love we long to receive.

I’ve been trying to narrate this election to my children—ages 7 and 9—and strike that balance between “things are fucked” and “our work remains the same… conditions just got more difficult.” Trying to assure them that they will not be affected… and acknowledging that that is part of the problem, that under our toxic systems suffering is not equally distributed. And trying to convey the deeper truth that actually we are all affected, because we are all connected. And until we recognize that fundamental interdependence… we actually won’t make it out of this quadrennial doom loop. As the saying goes: lessons will be repeated until they are learned.

We are not alone

This morning I said goodbye to my sister’s yellow lab, Estrella. She has lived a good long life. I felt surprisingly emotional in our parting; what I felt was gratitude. For how much love she has brought into my sister’s life; I have found peace knowing that she is there for my sister. I found myself marveling at the beautiful reciprocity of that love. Here is a being who has enjoyed what we all so deeply long for: the unself-conscious giving and receiving of love, rooted in a deep knowing that this is our birthright.

I’ve been trying to find a song to capture my mood, to accompany me in this moment. I finally settled on John Lennon’s Imagine: it strikes the right note for me of grounded hope tinged with sadness: recognizing that a better future is possible… and that we have a long way to go.

In his voice you can hear that he knows that many of us will not make it to that Promised Land… as he himself did not. But that we must work to get there all the same. I love the look on his face when he sings the line “You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.” It’s that conviction we need, to know that we are not alone, that a better world is possible.

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I am feeling love and tenderness in my heart as I type these words. I feel heavy, but it’s a heaviness no longer of dread, but of an honest reckoning with the weight of this moment, and the work that is ours to do.

I still feel yesterday’s tension in my jaw… but now it’s co-held alongside more expansiveness in my chest. I’ve been texting with friends and loved ones today, reminding myself that I am not alone. That we all want a better world, and are struggling in our own ways to get there.

Tomorrow I will turn my attention once again to strategizing, to dreaming, to co-creating the world I long for. Today is a day for grieving the world as it is, and to doing it together. I hope you are able to be with your people today, and to find spaces to grieve, to feel, and to connect… in ways that open you toward belonging.

In community,

Brian