Four years ago, the day after Trump was elected, I wrote:
“I’m not ok. I am stunned, numb and horrified knowing that many millions of people supported that vile, disgusting creature. That they’ve been surrounding us all this time. That they are now ascendant.”
This past weekend, I was ELATED when the news came in that this year’s election had been called for Biden and Harris!!
We must celebrate this repudiation of Trumpism—even if it wasn’t a landslide. If you’re like me, you’ve been repeatedly stunned, numb and horrified for four years. And now, we have the additional stress of a global pandemic that has isolated us from each other, leaving us to deal with these continuous blows feeling like we’re alone.
My friend, Celeste Derozier shared this quote from May Sarton that expresses the danger of this situation:
Hatred rather than love dominates. How does one handle it? The greatest danger as I see it in myself, is the danger of withdrawal into private worlds. We have to keep the channels in ourselves open to pain. At the same time it is essential that true joys be experienced, that the sunrise not leave us unmoved, for civilization depends on the true joys, all those that have nothing to do with money or affluence – nature, the arts, human love.
Right now, it’s not just disparate media environments separating “us” from “them” and each other. We have been literally isolated into our own private worlds by the pandemic.
There are two parts to the antidote: keeping a channel open to our pain, and celebrating the true joys that come. Both require love. This is a piece of my thinking right now on the importance of love fueling our fight as we move forward, and why I hope you’ll start with my challenge to practice real self-love for one minute every day this week.
because.yoga 