Fascism’s Reproach
Dear Carie,
Some of my friends are wracked with anxiety by the fascism that's seeping around right now. I agree it sucks and its scary. AND- I don't want it to ruin my ability to live with comfort in my body and ruin every day. Also, I feel it's out of my control. Also, I feel like it's nothing new (even though each new nutshow is its own unique catastrophe). The horrific affects of white supremacy never stopped hurting people. I get why people are so outraged by the latest threats to democracy. I am too. But also, a part of me knows we've all missed a lot of horrific war crimes and police brutality and tragic unjust violences simply because it didn't cross our radar. We are outraged about the ones we pay attention to. I also notice that when we expect things to be safe we are terribly disappointed and furious - and when we don't expect it to be so, we can roll with the punches better. I don’t have it figured out more than anyone else, I'm just grappling. I don't want to deny the severity of our fractured culture, globally, or in this country, or dissociate from it, but I also don't want it to eat me alive. I grew up, post-WWII, believing that the fascists were always coming for me, and I was tortured by that, but I've come to think of it with way less anxiety than I used to. Now I'm like, every day we haven't been murdered by a fascist is a lucky, beautiful day. There's so much to be grateful for! We are alive. There's so much progress and beauty in the world. There is this ugly harmful backlash, yes, but let's not let it beat us down. It is out of our control. What can we do right now to help our communities and feel better in our bodies? But I dont know how to talk to my friends about all this without seeming like a Pollyanna or a wishful thinker or an a-hole. How do I honor the weight of my friends' states of emergency while I'm over here practicing these lighter things, like hope, gratitude, appreciation, and such -- without sounding like someone who says 'not my problem'? I'm stuck between the two extremes finding the grey zone hard to navigate. Please advise. Thank you! Auggie G
Dear Auggie—
The word that comes to mind, Auggie, is reproach. There is a way that happiness can be a reproach to outrage, and there certainly is a way that outrage can be a reproach to happiness.
But it needn’t be.
It is possible that your ability to engage positively with your friends about rates of attention to fascism depends on how you feel within yourself. Are you completely free of self-reproach? Does your outraged self judge your happy self, or vice versa? Or maybe your ‘I need to be reasonable and consistent’ self judges them both.
If you are at odds within yourself about this, the best words and approaches towards your friends are likely to have wrinkles in them. So let’s start with you, gently, because this is not easy.
Try giving yourself permission to slip from one zone to the other. The catastrophes that touch you need time to be grieved or railed against. Grieve. Rail. For now. Some of it. And sometimes there is stunning beauty, or a humble slice of bread, or a mere breath that resonates with infinite grace. You slip into joy. The grief is not a reproach to the joy, and the joy is not a reproach to the grief.
People don’t have to drink the whole cup of grief, even though grief is a reasonable reaction to the world and the species. It is not anyone’s duty to drown in grief. And for that matter, joy can be a bit overwhelming in large doses, no matter how reasonable it is for you to be joyous at any given moment. So joy comes and goes.
Let yourself slip into one zone knowing you can leave it. Let yourself slip out knowing you can come back. You don’t commit, but neither do you abandon. And of course, this skill with moods will make you more effective in action, more steadfast when necessary, more clear-eyed about your capacity to follow through and better at discerning priorities.
Here are 3 practical ideas for your reproachless self as you hang out with your friends:
Be wary of people who seem to nurse their negative feelings. For instance, if there is a lull in the distress you might see someone reaching for another outrage. Do they need another shot of their biochemical cocktail? Protect yourself from that as you would protect yourself from addiction.
A great friend offers a shoulder to cry on but doesn’t let that go on too long. Do you recognize the shift when the friend moves from catharsis or wisdom-seeking to something exhausting and repetitive? That’s no help. Try this if it seems right for the situation “I feel as though we may be getting to that point where talking more might actually start to pull you down… What would be best for you?”
Find a true-to-you way to say: “Hey, friends, my catastrophe batteries are sapped. Can we take a break and come back to it after a recharge?” Maybe try a topic change if someone else doesn’t. And then… leave if the conversation isn’t nourishing to you. Without reproach to them or to yourself. Without a wrinkle.
Oh, and a fourth idea! If ever you can get people moving around, going for a walk, maybe even out in nature, that helps!
Let me know—
Carie
Neighbor Rupture has a similar theme of taking life in sips.
Conflict Resolution Skill
Whatever the topic, if you clean out your own wrinkles first, your way of addressing an issue will be much easier for the other people to hear.
Beware of people who cultivate their distress.