Take 12 Deep Breaths
Your power is relative, but it is real. And if you do not learn to use it, it will be used, against you, and me, and our children. Change did not begin with you, and it will not end with you, but what you do with your life is an absolutely vital piece of that chain. - Audre Lorde
The first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things -- praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts -- not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. -C.S. Lewis
When people ask me how I’m doing these days, there’s a little part of my head that explodes. Not because of the question or the person asking the question, but because of the cognitive dissonance I’m experiencing. Anybody else feeling that?
Cognitive dissonance is the mental/emotional discomfort that results from inner conflict - you have thoughts, ideas, or beliefs that don't match each other or they don’t match your behavior. (Good discussion here: https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/cognitive-dissonance.html)
The level of dissonance you feel is going to depend on the number and importance of the beliefs and behaviors in conflict. Hopefully, choosing between vanilla or chocolate ice cream does not result in the same level of dissonance as staying in a job that conflicts with your core values.
As a rule, we don’t like discomfort and try to make it go away. So people have different ways of dealing with cognitive dissonance. Ignore it, which can be useful in certain moments. Though this generally does not work in the long run. (For me, it doesn’t work so well in the short run either.) The other ways to relieve the discomfort is to change your beliefs or actions.
Quick and dirty example - Eating healthy is important to you, but you get McDonalds every time you’re stressed. And you’ve been really stressed. You could change your actions - come up with a healthier alternative to do when you're stressed. You could change your beliefs - deciding that eating healthy isn’t so important. You could change beliefs and actions - decide that eating healthy is important, figure out some fast healthy options, and allow yourself McDonalds only once in while.
Some responses require more reflection, awareness, discipline, or grace than others. They all requires effort, conscious or unconscious. A favorite quote of mine is from F. Scott Fitzgerald:
“the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
It's that last part that's a doozy, and one that I have been struggling with lately.
So the cognitive dissonance that I’m experiencing is that we are in the midst of a coup and I still have to do stuff like shower, do the laundry, cook, talk about case management systems at work, parent. I have also struggled (and this is actually the bigger one) with the fact that I feel as if other people aren’t talking about it or thinking about or doing "enough" about what is happening.
The last thing has been my biggest struggle in the past few days. It isn’t simply that I have felt anger or frustration about people’s apparent lack of response (because, let’s be honest, I have no idea what people are thinking or doing). It is that those feelings and thoughts are really inconsistent with something I hold as a core value - empathy and understanding that we all handle things differently and, for the most part, we’re doing the best we can. I am not living other people’s lives. Being angry because people are doing things differently than I am or I think I would do in their position is arrogant or, worse (in my opinion), self-righteous, not to mention, woefully unhelpful. More than judgment, people need love. (Side note - love does not mean closeness and sometimes love requires distance.)
Not to mention most of us haven’t lived through a f***ing coup before and so we really don’t know what the f*** to do. I mean come on. I need to hold on to this value now more than ever.
What I had named as frustration or anger with other people - “Why don’t people care?!” (Wah-wah, waaaa) - has been displaced frustration and anger caused by uncertainty about what to do and this disaster we are in.
It has been the result of my own cognitive dissonance resulting from the conflict of wanting to do something but not knowing what to do or not yet having the opportunity to do the things. What I have noticed is that the more I am actively engaged in resisting this coup, through connecting with others, getting involved in actions, researching and then communicating helpful information, or supporting people who are being most impacted, the less I think about other people’s responses. Also, I don’t need to be actively engaged in those things to not think about the stuff I was supposedly so upset about. Just knowing that I will be engaged at some point after I do other important things is helpful.
My guess is that the folks spewing vitriol (because what I hear and see is way beyond anger) toward people who voted for the person in the Oval Office or who didn’t cast a presidential vote because of the previous administration's abject failure to respond to the genocide in Palestine are feeling that too. [Side note here: I continue to support any person who did not vote because of the US's complicity in genocide. Not to mention, this coup has been setting up for a long time and there were many opportunities to end it. I digress.]
Every time I see something or hear something like that, part of me thinks - that is not important right now. We need to focus our energy on responding to THIS moment, what’s happening now. Just like me, they may be feeling the struggle and fear and massive uncertainty of what do or what's going to happen.
The first part - doing our everyday stuff during our coup - is actually easier for me in a lot of ways. We have to live our lives. Not simply because we have bills to pay or people (including ourselves) to care for. But because that is one of the truest forms of resistance. Engaging in life, experiencing life. Being in community, caring for ourselves and each other, letting others care for us. It is, in fact, a non-negotiable.
During times like this, the goal of those bent on destruction is to overwhelm and isolate and feed hate, distrust, and fear.
The resistance is to ground yourself, find one or two things to focus on and let the rest go, be in community, love and care, grieve, and find joy.
Take 12 deep breaths.
Wow, thank you for letting me share my thoughts with you. I really needed this. I love you. I am with you.
By the way, that picture is of Max, our dog. Well, really Ella’s dog. He was a pain in my ass and absolutely wonderful. We got him when Ella was four. A year ago today (a day after Ella and I drove out to Ohio), Mike had a vet come to his house to put Max, who had advanced cancer, to sleep as Max lay his head on Ella’s lap. While Mike and I feel deep sadness about the loss of Max, it is nothing compared with our child’s. Max was with her as far back as her memories go and, as an only child, Ella’s relationship with Max was more like a companion, friend, or brother, a source of comfort that got her through difficult times and beautiful times. (If you have a way to contact Ella, maybe show her a little extra love today.)
Life is really hard. All we have is each other. No matter what happens in the coming weeks, months, and years that will continue to be true. Don’t let them take that away. Hold on to it, hold on to each other.
In love,
e
PS - This is the passage that F. Scott Fitzgerald quote is from. I just realized that today. Makes me like the quote even more.
"Before I go on with this short history let me make a general observation—the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the “impossible” come true." -“The Crack Up,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
[originally written on 2/5/2025]
