The Blaming & Rationalizing Has To Stop
I know there's a lot of noise right now. But we cannot lose our heads.
What the actual fuck just happened. No seriously like what the actual FUCK?!
There is a whole lot of noise happening. A lot of blaming. A lot of rationalizing. A lot of people centering themselves. It’s just a fucking lot.
It’s misogyny
It’s racism
It’s classism
It’s transphobia
It’s xenophobia
It’s genocide
It’s white people
It’s latino men
It’s “the economy”
It’s bad politics
It’s the broken system
It’s MAGA
It’s Christian nationalism
It’s third party voters
It’s capitalism
It’s the propaganda
It’s the intentional hijacking of legacy media
It’s the oligarchs
It’s the billionaires
It’s America.
This is America people. No one group or thing is to blame and yet, somehow, nearly EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE is to blame. I know that doesn’t make sense, but somehow in some very twisted way it does make sense?
There are a whole lot of big feelings and melt downs going on and not a lot of compassion.
Rage. Grief. Terror. Uncertainty. Anxiety. Resentment. Confusion. Hopelessness. Helplessness. Apathy. Urgency. Dissociating. (I’m sure I’ve missed some, but please feel free to add to the list in the comments.)
The point being is that many of us are in intense emotional states at the moment. Our nervous systems have likely gone into one of the following trauma responses: fight, flight, fear, or fawn.
If you’re in fight you’re likely arguing with people in comment sections (and in real life) and going on angry rants on the internet
If you’re in flight you’ve probably checked the fuck out and are just trying to dissociate by any means necessary. (Which oddly enough means you might not even see this)
If you’re in fear you’re probably already thinking of worst case scenarios and figuring how to make a swift exit from this country.
If you’re in fawn you’re probably trying to de-escalate, cheer up and unify people in the comment sections and in your own life.
I can honestly say I think I’ve been fluctuating between all of these trauma responses just in the past few days.
Here me when I say this: all of these responses are normal. Every single thing that we are all feeling is VALID. It doesn’t matter what people on the internet have to say about why this happened, but it matters that we give ourselves space to feel all our feelings. If that means we have to shut out all of the noise and let the world stop so we can quietly fall apart, so be it. Our bodies are doing exactly what they need to do in order to keep us safe from what our bodies perceive as a threat. Because the reality is that many of us know, without a shadow of a doubt, that our lives or the lives of people we love may very well be in danger.
This is a new feeling for a lot of Americans, but it is not a new feeling for Americans whose rights and freedoms have been under attack or at risk for decades and even centuries. I’m talking about Black Americans, Indigenous Americans, Disabled People, Muslims, Arabs, The LGBTQIA+ community, Trans people, Immigrants and lastly (but certainly not least) Women.
I can imagine that anyone whose identity encompasses multiple of the aforementioned identities is likely looking at the Americans who’ve never felt this level of fear and thinking, “Welcome to America. This has been my life for as long as I have known. I’ve tried to tell you all, but you didn’t want to listen. Now here we are.”
On the flip side, those Americans who are experiencing this new level of fear are wondering, “How did we even get to this point? How is this even possible? How are more people not absolutely enraged right now?” Many of them are trying to rationalize and explain things away because it’s the only way they can attempt to make sense of these feelings [that are all too familiar] to some of their fellow Americans.
It’s easy to see things from our own point of view and dismiss (or try to rationalize) the feelings and/or experiences of others, but you know what? It’s a hell of a lot harder to step outside of ourselves, our unique experiences and our big feelings long enough to listen to each other and then extend compassion and understanding to one another. It is quite literally the opposite of how many of us have been conditioned to operate in this country. We hardly even extend compassion to ourselves for god’s sake! Capitalism and white supremacy culture has devoid us of the important and necessary practices of self-compassion and self-care. Because let’s be real, anyone who prioritizes self-compassion and self-care will be very difficult, if not impossible, to exploit. So if we don’t make it a regular practice to extend our individual selves care and compassion, naturally, it will be difficult to extend it to the next person.
THAT is the most powerful tool in our arsenal right now: radical compassion both for ourselves and for others
I know how it sounds – like a goddamn fairy tale or a Disney movie. I’m well aware life is not a Disney movie. I know I’ve been told that I tend to see the world through rose-colored glasses. And while some people might think I am weak or naive for thinking this way I couldn’t disagree more. Right now we have to cling to our humanity with every fucking fiber of our being; and choosing compassion while the world around us attempts to continue to divide us is one of the most effective forms of resistance. If we can learn to build bridges instead of barriers it will be that much harder for the media to dehumanize us or the people around us. How can they feed us lies when our lived experiences contradict their messages? They can’t. They know it. They rely on our hyper individualism and our lack of community to keep us divided. They keep us burnt out, distracted, and in a perpetual state of hyper-consumption that keeps us isolated from each other. When I say they I’m talking about the oligarchs in this country. The few extremely powerful people who have made it their life’s mission to bleed us dry until they get every ounce of profit from us, all while we blame each other as we slowly drown.
The time will come to begin doing the work of breaking down the barriers to help build bridges, but right now is not that moment. It will come very soon, but in the meantime let’s be okay with quieting the noise around us enough to listen to our inner voices and what they are trying to tell us.
I’m not going to drag this essay on any further cause that’s not what any of us need right now. But I will give all of you reading this a few calls to action as I close out this essay:
Put your damn phones down. Delete all your apps off your phone if you can, turn off the news if you can avoid it, and shut out all of the noise for at least 24 hours. If you can extend it further, do that. If you need a whole goddamn month away and you can manage it, do it. Find what works for you and set those hard boundaries around your media consumption and output.
Let yourself feel all your feelings. Go scream and punch into a pillow, rage to some angry music and let your body release that energy in a way that feels good to you, cry your fucking eyes out and sob until you have no more tears, or write out an angry letter (that you don’t send to anyone).
Reach out to someone you know (ideally someone you know personally vs a friend on the internet) who might be feeling as disappointed about this outcome as you are and ask them how they’re feeling. Ask them how they’re processing. Give them space to talk about it and listen without interrupting or trying to rationalize their feelings or cheer them up with unsolicited advice. (Click here to read a quick reference guide about what empathy is and is not) Sometimes it helps to know you are not alone in your grief.
Lastly, but certainly not least, do something that brings you joy. Let yourself play with a childlike curiosity. Delve into your creativity to channel your big feelings. Sometimes the most powerful and beautiful art is made in times of pain and sorrow.
Also if you feel so inclined I’d love to hear how you’re giving yourself space to feel all your feelings. Let’s try to refrain from arguing with one another or giving unsolicited advice.
May you find peace and joy in these moments even if it feels damn near impossible.
Dismantling the Mind is a publication I started with two things in mind:
Challenging the conditioning that many of us have been subject to — a result of colonization in the United States
Encouraging other people to start their healing journey so they can also begin to do thing #1
This was really helpful to read, thank you! 💗
I love this. I just wrote about the duality we're seeing right now and how both sides of the coin (the reaction to want peace and positive discourse vs. the reaction to be engraved and say fck it all) are valid and super necessary. You wrote this really well and I'm happy to see more people on my feed talking about this! Your words are important.