The Pandemic and Political Divisions: From Tragedy to a New Life

 During 2020, I have watched many people manifest amazing changes during this pandemic and extreme political division: transformation and rebirth; life with decreased anxiety, more calm, less stress. During the destruction and death of so many structures, some people have found new ways to live healthier lives.

Our species continually evolves, as we learn more about what works for us and what doesn't. Living through one of the worst years in U.S. history, we have found ourselves to be more capable, compassionate and caring about the community rather than just about ourselves. 

I see some goodness resulting from tragic divisions between families, between people of color and white people, between Democrats and Republicans.  Even while we live with the grief and loss of loved ones we couldn't visit in hospitals before their deaths, something wonderful is happening. We are changing.

Unlike my Marine pilot father in WWII and the Korean War, or those who have experienced slavery or incarceration, I view the last 4 years of Trump’s administration and this virus as both the worst times of my life, along with some of the best.

When so many parts of life have shut down, I witness people finding new ways to gather, online, by phone, and outdoors. More pets have been adopted. After much loneliness and lack of hugging, so many people have found new ways to nurture each other and their communities, decreasing danger and violence. Still, we have also observed the violence that continues between police and black and brown people, between neighbors and families, and between the haves and have nots.

People are searching for something that they can believe in and trust. We who survive are beginning life anew. We can learn to hold onto this newfound peacefulness and calm, instead of jumping rapidly back into the rat race. We have had to step back and evaluate our lives, and have found that some of what we do harms us more than helps us.

We can now explore and create different ways to handle our work, our communications, our gatherings, and decrease our own violence toward ourselves and each other.

Many of us grew up believing that we were not good enough and that we should always strive to do better, not appreciating what we can do.  As children we believed (because of our child brains) that what happened around us was connected directly to us, our feelings, behaviors, or thoughts. When bad things happened, we thought we were bad. Only as adults can we learn how damaging those beliefs have been for us.

This year, many people have lost their incomes, their homes, and their lives to this horrible disease during enormous political strife that continues today no matter who is president. When will we wake up from this stuck place, living like we always have?  When can we start becoming more creative and effective at living life? Let’s harness the energy that is usually spent on conflicts and direct it toward co-creating a new and better world. 

I Live in a Jungle

 I live in a jungle. I have lived here for most of my life, surrounded by the sounds of insects, amphibians, mammals, birds and trees, all moving, all generating sound, all singing or growling or speaking in languages I may not know.

I hear mating cries of passion and see gorgeous, brightly colored birds attempting to attract a partner. I hear warning cries when danger lurks, whether the weather is changing or a predator is actively hunting. I try to understand the calls and responses and I participate myself, trying to help others know when high risk is close.

Here I see a monkey, a peacock, a baboon, and a jaguar. Here I roam around not so much with fear and anxiety but I do stay alert for the sounds that accompany me wherever I travel. During my wanderings, I am ushered by animals, birds and even the trees which encompass me in the jungle, especially when I step away from my home.

The jungle looks different from the past, now with its millions of people, its cars and emissions, its noise, its air smoky, and foul-smelling, where we hardly have enough oxygen to breathe. The pandemic keeps people in their homes, apartments or on the street but they don’t see me as I move about. I can see them and some of the horrors they experience, the wacky ways they attempt to communicate with each other. I feel the desire of people who just want to be loved and become a part of something bigger or different than they have ever experienced, perhaps a community where everyone knows that they belong, where everyone is fed and the children are taken care of and educated, and where some people pray and some people don’t. A community where it is fine to feel whatever you feel, whether good or bad, angry or sad, troubled or joyful.

When there is a struggle, it is named and acknowledged, and support flows into the conflict if the two or three involved cannot repair the damage. We all sit and gaze into each other’s eyes and see the truth behind our facades and defenses. We accept our inner spirits and our beautiful souls along with how we have each made mistakes when we have harmed someone or something without ever intending to do so. And, sometimes we have intended to lash out and harm someone or something, even though we feel such guilt and shame about our actions afterwards.

Our jungle is a fertile ground for trying out new and different ways of thinking and living, as if I am not the only person in the universe that I think or care about. That I think about others, plant life, the climate and what I can do to help this jungle become a better world, an easier, more satisfying and healthy place for all people and all forms of life life even though some times get tough.

This is the jungle in Nashville, TN, where I live these days. Where do you live?

Radiating Resistance for Deep Healing

Why do we need to find ways to radiate resilience in our lives?

Trauma, neglect, abuse, stress, shocking events, or even just living in this chaotic world can affect us negatively in so many ways. We recognize that even good stress is still stress (like buying a home, or getting a new job), and we want to deal with any and all stress as effectively as we can. We want to develop tools to add resilience into our natural repertoire of behaviors, thoughts and feelings, so that we can navigate life well, meeting each moment with awareness, letting our resilience practices protect us and heal us.

The stresses can be related to any and all areas of our lives: the psychological, emotional, physical, mental, community/relational, and spiritual realms. When we are in crisis or  experiencing chronic or acute stresses of any sort, our resiliency tool kit can help us live with much less struggle, with much more Grace, and with more discernment about which of our struggles we can release or let go.

We have used resiliency tools all of our lives even if we don’t use that term. However, sometimes we get stuck in patterns of behavior that become repetitive and used so often that those same behaviors can begin causing us problems themselves. That’s why we want a variety of tools to choose from.

The Tree of Life Mystery School’s (TOLMS’s) first Liberation Retreat on 8/28/2020 offered us a chance to think about the ways we can prompt our resiliency behaviors to become even more healthy and healing. Here are 12 of my favorite ways to deal with life’s difficulties, whenever I feel overwhelmed or highly distressed. One of our goals is not only to manage stress but also to release bodily and emotional constrictions and tenseness:

1. Walk regularly or at least when times are hard, and/or practice any other type of exercise.
2. Hang out with, or pet a pet, which can create excellent de-stressing hormones, and be fun and calming at the same time.
3. Cuddle with my husband unless he is the one causing me stress!
4. Talk with a friend, a therapist, a coach, or a family member who is safe and non-judgmental, someone who listens well and doesn’t give too much advice, someone who can co-create a safe holding space.
5. Do yoga, breathwork, other breathing techniques, or relaxation exercises. Massages are magnificent when possible!
6. Lie down on the floor or bed and call upon my spirit guides to help me with whatever is going on. Starting with deep breaths, eyes closed, and meditating. Some people also pray or speak with the Divine.
7. Write, freely associating. When I write, I am able to hear myself better. Usually writing helps me not only release some of the tension but also understand at some point what is happening.
8. Watch movies or TV series that help me focus on something else for the moment, distracting myself for awhile.
9. Cry, scream, or wail in a safe place.
10. Go outdoors, listening to birds, looking at wildlife, the sky, trees and so many wonders of the world.
11. Take a Time Out. Withdraw and find a safe and comforting space to be alone - and be.
12. Shake. Part of grounding, clearing and creating protection around ourselves involves letting go of negative energies within us, or that we have absorbed or taken on. We let our bodies shake off as much of this negative energy as we can. Then, protect ourselves with a bubble of color as we move on.

Remember that every one is unique, so whatever works for me may not work for you. Challenge yourself to mix up your tools every now and then.

Please also stay present and in a state of wonder. Be curious about life. Forgiving myself for my mistakes and not judging myself harshly are some of my major tasks in life. What are yours?

Most of all, remember to breathe deeply, slowing down your breath, and listening….

Barbara Sanders, LCSW, is a psychotherapist, a writer, and an activist.  She is also a Catalyzing Crone within the elder group of TOLMS.

BarbaraSandersLCSW@gmail.com

DignityTherapyNashville.com

615.414.2553

Time for White People to Stand Up, Speak Out

The current scene: After 3 months of the COVID 19 pandemic in late May 2020, people having been locked away from each other, peaceful protesters who are angry, fearful, and distressed spill out into the streets, begging police to decrease their brutality. Those on the extremes throw bottles and rocks, starting fires in immigrant, African American-owned and other businesses, police precincts, and Nashville’s city hall. Some destruction and looting occurs. The police respond in some places with rubber bullets, tear gas and arrests. Other police join the protesters.

What is happening in our nation?

Throughout time, peaceful, nonviolent protesters have tried to change American systems that perpetuate injustice and inequality.  Change has not come quickly enough although some changes gradually occur. America and Americans perpetrate racism every day. How can we change this tragedy?

People are publicly grieving and are angry about the senseless numbers of black and brown men, women, and children being murdered by white police. Civilian white men armed with heavy artillery can storm and threaten government buildings without police intervention while at the same time, black people are being murdered while sleeping in their beds, walking, jogging, playing on playgrounds, doing nothing out of the ordinary much of the time.

Today, we are angry and mourning over the recent murder of George Floyd, an African American man murdered by white policemen. People observed and videotaped his last gasps, trying to breathe with a white policeman’s knee on his neck - a physical and symbolic image for how African Americans have been treated by white people for hundreds of years.

Some violent protesters seem to want to start a class war, a culture war, a civil war.  These white supremacists represent a vile part of America which seems to be increasing in numbers, reinforced by our president. This country was founded on genocide and racism with white people taking from, enslaving, and killing all sorts of people, creating rigid hierarchies of power still true today.

Is there any good news?

Not yet. Not until those who have not been heard get heard along with real action to change our systems.  Not yet. Not until our leaders and each American find ways to stem the blood falling all over our streets.  Not yet. Not until black and brown babies, children, adults, and immigrants get treated as if they are white, all people having inalienable rights and privileges for the first time in American history.  

It is time to stand up, speak out, and then change structural and systematic racism that has lasted so many hundreds of years. There is no quick fix but each American white person needs to figure out how we each contribute to this terrible tragedy.  Each of us is complicit and accountable, and we need to make necessary changes.

As Tim Wise, activist and antiracism speaker and writer says, “...when the law becomes lawless, there is no order, and so here we are.” Time for white people and current policing practices to change.

Transformation to Equality and Unity

How can we be truly equal if we are all so different in various ways: physically, emotionally, educationally; a myriad of races, cultures, genders, religions, spirituality, and more?

How can we be at one with other people with whom we may share some similarities but also find that some of our differences seem to set us widely apart?  If we are all really one, then to what level do we need to rise to find true human equality and sharing? To see each other in community and not only as separate individuals, fearful of each other?

I am quite positive that our history of patriarchy is partly responsible for so much violence in the world.  Maybe if women were in charge, the world would be more peaceful, much safer.  But, we may be moving into an era of not the opposite to patriarchy, meaning matriarchy, but into an era of androgyny, where both masculine and feminine energies intertwine along with all sorts of other energies that may not be defined in such black and white terms. No longer in binary opposition.

Perhaps one way to say this is that we are transforming from a dichotomous and dualistic culture to one that allows for more amalgamated, cooperative and collaborative ways of thinking, feeling and acting.  A culture where no one type (or any sort) is in charge but where we all play notes on the scale sometimes creating dissonance and at other times, lovely harmonies.

Giving up duality and rigid concreteness regarding our perceived informal rules of living and behaving is not an easy task for those of us who have become fully acculturated over time to the ways things are. We see young people thinking and acting very differently than we older people, and the generations often have trouble communicating.  But, what a blessing it can be.  How lovely to see a young person with a radical, new idea that we have never even considered!  Sometimes that freaks us out and sometimes we rejoice.

We have been defined by gender roles since we were babies.  We have attended educational systems that give grades for what is perceived to be good, average or bad performance. We work at jobs that give us salaries from large to small and everything in between. Our self esteem is often measured by such criteria or by how we look, how much we weigh, how able bodied we are, how privileged we are without having done much of anything to receive that privilege.  How impoverished we may be.  Most of what we see and hear on TV and in most mediums is hierarchical, where one at the top wins, and several or most at the bottom lose.

The American Dream is all about winning enough for ourselves and our families while many tend to suffer because there seems to be not enough to go around.  We are a culture whose values are too often based on deprivation and despondency about that perception.  Many feel hopeless and helpless when it comes to being able to change their circumstances in life, whether they are focusing on career success, love relationships, or on money and stuff.  And, maybe there really is enough to share if only we would shift our thinking and our actions a tiny bit.

When will we start acting as a community instead of as a solar system of one, myself first and foremost?  When will the common good be as good as the individual good, even though we see reality in unique and often conflictual ways?

The blending of races, religions, and cultures can all simmer together in a tasty gumbo, a stew of delight. But, we also bump up against each other in that bubbling mixture taking on each others’ tastes, textures and smells, not always liking the outcome.  Too hot, too spicy, or too bland and diffuse, not enough separate ingredients seen, or tasted? The vegetables no longer crisp but soggy, mushy. And, if you are so sweet, does that mean I must be sour?

Oh, the excitement of transformation when we fear the unknown, hoping that things can’t possibly get worse, when we know darn well that they can.  Why change anyway?  Better to stay with the old familiar chord, that same ole refrain that we have all memorized, deeply held in our bones.  Let's invite each of us to be more creative and play with all the notes of the scale, not focusing on only 2 or 3, which keeps us limited and trapped somehow.  Or, safe.  At least we know those notes very well and we can rely on them.

This is the way we do it.  We start by talking about the change, writing about it, singing about it and dancing to it, imagining the huge number of combinations that we can dream up, knowing that we have this life to live, these people to live with, and we hope not to have to kill off too many more people before we decide that we can truly accept and/or care about those who are not like us.

Are We Unifiers or Dividers?

It all started on Facebook where I frequently post political articles.  I sometimes give my opinions about these articles.  I have a favored candidate for the presidency which comes through in my Facebook posts.

One day recently a significant storm arose.  On Facebook.  My normally like-minded FB friends began arguing with me and with each other about my FB posts.  We older people hear about friends being ugly to each other on social media, particularly middle school kids, and we have heard about how some kids can be so cruel online.  Because I am a psychotherapist who attempts to help people live their healthiest lives, I believe in compassionate and non-violent communication even when people are their most distressed.

But even I waded into this storm of biting hostility on Facebook, acting in ways opposite to what I believe.

There are so many of us Americans who feel actual terror about this 2020 presidential election, who have been traumatized by the most dangerous president in history, Donald Trump. We have suffered for over 3 years now, observing his daily violence toward our democracy, our constitution, oppressed peoples, and the world. He contradicts the very heart of how this country was established: to get away from monarchs and dictatorial rule, to believe in a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

In our terrorized state, we have often spoken out about Trump and his criminal and idiotic antics and policies.  No regard for human life, caging children, his constant climate change ignorance, his abuse of women, his terrible trade deals, and more.  But, in the past few months now, we Democrats are turning against each other and acting often like we have with those on the other side. Neither of which is compassionate.

I began advocating on Facebook that Bloomberg should not be taken as a serious Democratic candidate for all sorts of reasons.  When a FB friend called me out for criticizing Bloomberg, accusing me of dividing Democrats, I was appalled at first, wondering how I can advocate for my favorite candidate without criticizing those others who have major flaws.

I keep up with the news frequently. I see divisions in our country and hear that we need a unifying presidential candidate.  I wonder what a pipe dream that may be.  One analyst reports that Obama was the great unifier when actually his presidency also prompted some rigid divisions in our country.  Another claims that one candidate is too aggressive, another not aggressive enough, and perhaps we should just let the billionaires wrestle with each other, while they buy our elections.

Everyone I know has been disappointed in life at some point.  Betrayals of many sorts haunt lots of people. This 2020 presidential race is bringing out the worst in our human nature, as we fight for liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And, don’t even get me started on all the Republican senators who continue to support Trump’s tyranny partly because of their fears of not getting re-elected. Thank goodness for Mitt Romney.

Where is our backbone? As long as we are fighting with each other across the aisle and now within our own aisle, how can we imagine any one person can unify us all?  This is a country with a great diversity of people, a wide range of colors, tones and voices, and an even more wide variety of thoughts, beliefs and opinions. 

How can each of us act as unifiers instead of being dividers ourselves, so that we truly listen to each other one by one, really hear what others are saying - instead of being so frightened that even we wear strong blinders hoping to avoid conflict while creating it instead?

Let's Not Fool Ourselves

Perhaps we have been fighting for justice inside a government that has been corrupt for years. Trump is no doubt the icing on the cake when it comes to lawlessness and abuse of power, but corruption was created long ago.

TV analysts fear that we are about to lose our democracy, our republic. Yes, we have. “Democracy” means “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives,” or so says my online dictionary. When people are not allowed to vote because of long lines and voter ID laws prevent the poorest from voting, we don’t have a democracy.

A “Republic” means “a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.” Our masses don’t hold the power. Only a small subsection of them do.

We may get mesmerized by sound bites and fantastical propaganda depending on our favorite news outlets. Trump was elected by the few, and our current electoral college in its obsolescence allowed not only him but George Bush to become president, instead of the candidates who won the popular vote. Our leaders do not represent all of us.

Thank goodness Congress changed a little in 2018. But, we still have plenty of shouting, blistering Republicans who, when they cannot argue about content, scream about the process of impeachment, disagreeing with our current Constitution’s rules. Our president gets his feelings hurt and attacks people rapidly with his assaults, what a role model for our children.

I believe that our government is an oligarchy, “a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution.” Money talks and usually, the more money, the greater the vote. Look how the Democratic National Party supported Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.
Where is fairness and justice? Where is representation of all people? Republicans kowtow to Trump because they want to be elected again and he blackballs disagreers. Some are anxious, alarmed leaders at best.

I implore all people to educate themselves about impeachment, about candidates, and about policies instead of believing the Republican missive that Democrats are doing nothing but fighting Trump in Congress. The Democrats in The House have actually sent hundreds of bills to the Senate while Mitch McConnell sits on them, trying to prove his claim that Democrats are lazy and do nothing.

Let’s not fool ourselves when we see lion’s clothing. Greed and power can corrupt even our best values. The populace votes against its best interests too often, hoping to trust and believe in powerful men who they hope will take care of them with their empty promises, electing the most aggressive among them.

We human beings get fooled far too often by glitz, glamor and guts. That has not worked well for us lately. Let us educate ourselves well during this next year to try to create a real democracy and republic. And, if you really want a dictator, please move to a country that offers such leaders.