Resilience in Adversity Pt. 2
I hope my commentary last month was helpful to you. All of us are trying to figure out how best to cope with this new and disturbing reality. It’s not just about a new administration, with its awful character or ominous plans. The situation also leads us to sadly become wary of our fellow countrymen, our friends and even our close relatives. But most important, how do we not simply cope with things, but keep ourselves strong and prepare to raise our voices and use our power as citizens? Because history will not stop, and we must not stop either. Remember, we aren’t done yet!
These coming years are going to require us to exercise self-discipline in our political lives. To be honest, we haven’t had to do so at this level of intensity in our lifetimes, but our forebears did it and we can do it too. It mainly involves the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the
Serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
(attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr)
And it involves doing what me must to keep ourselves moralized and committed to getting things done as opposed to just fretting.
Effective coping requires us to weave together techniques from four different buckets:
Actively Address Your External World
Passively Address Your External World
Actively Address Your Internal World
Passively Address Your Internal World
I’m going to describe each of these along with some suggested do’s and don’ts. These won’t be complete: I have plenty to say but not enough room to say at all. I hope you’ll drop by to see me at the SCDP picnic on May 17 and we can discuss things further together.
Actively Address Your External World. This is the bucket of activities that’s most familiar to us. “Don’t get angry, don’t get anxious, get active!” Your two best tools are your calendar and your credit card. Actively plan things you are going to do to make a difference. Find leaders who have a vision of what to do and a plan to get it done. DO calendarize activities both individually and in your community. DO set up a personal budget of how much money you can contribute where it will make the most difference. DON’T try to do everything or be heroic every day: that will just wear you out. Similarly, have you noticed how every Democrat and Democratic organization in America want you to give five dollars every day? (I’ve suggested to my wife that Hakeem Jeffries has a thing for her, given how often he texts her! Honestly, I can’t blame him, unless he is looking for money!) DON’T fall for that stuff. Have your planned, auto withdrawal contributions programmed in, and give on-the-fly only if something strikes your fancy or as a token of your support. This starts with a regular, monthly contribution to the organizations you think will do the most good, starting with your local county Democratic Party (SCDP!). And DO develop community, both in your local party and with other like-minded friends. There’s much more to say about this Active/External bucket, but…maybe later.
Passively Address Your External World. We are talking here about doing things to make it easier to manage and enjoy the things you are doing, or to tolerate all the bad stuff that’s coming down. For example, DO put all those budgeted, regular, monthly or quarterly contributions on auto pay your bank, credit card, ActBlue, and forget about them. If you need to canvas for a candidate or cause but hate doing it, DO get your posse together and have a little fun making it happen. DO observe your time and situation boundaries for when to engage in thoughts or actions and when not to. In regard to the malignant Republican clown show, limit your exposure to news and especially social media to the headline level, or have others in your community curate the news and suggest where you might deep-dive for action items. DO make it easy to shoot off a brief email to legislators, members of Congress, or Democratic leaders; keep the messages brief and let yourself feel completion in responding to disturbing developments. (News that awfulizes horrible events without giving you something to do about it just amplifies the terrorism. Taking an action, even small, allows you to respond physically to the news instead of letting it bounce around in your head and make you sick.)
Actively Address Your Internal World. I’m talking here about techniques that help you manage what’s going on inside your own head and body. To some degree, you are living in an interior psychological war zone, and you have to keep fit. DO be careful how much space the bad guys are renting in your head. Get them out of there! The same is true for people on our side who are amplifying the terrorism (above). Predicting catastrophe without action plans revs you up but does not put you in gear. Similarly, be careful what you say, or image, to yourself about yourself (“there’s absolutely nothing I can do”), or the future (“it will be terrible and will never get over it”). And be careful how much you pay attention to the constant talking smack about public figures (e.g., Trump, Marsha, various Democratic leaders, and what they “should” be doing. I get it, but it is not productive.) Importantly, support, don’t diss your local party leadership: remember they are volunteers, too, and it doesn’t help anybody for you to gripe. “Don’t get angry, get active!” Influence them!) Instead, DO use coping talk: “history will not stop.” “It will take a while to get organized but once we do were going to kick it.” “The leadership is emerging/learning!” And celebrate when you do or don’t do things that make you stronger and support the cause. DO look for external input from your media or personal conversations that help promote this kind of thinking.
Passively Address Your Internal World. By “passively,” I mean doing things that support your body and mind to do the other things effectively: Self-soothing and self-support. To the degree you can, DO exercise, meditate, and exercise mindfulness. Although these are external activities, they support your coping and help you keep your energy and morale up. DO get good sleep; this is a key to resilience and stability. DO use escape regularly and productively: movies, books, gardening, walks, mindfulness. DO self-discipline to keep your thoughts mostly on concrete practical things in your local world, not abstract things far away like Washington or Kiev: there is a time and place for everything. Healthy pleasurable self-soothing is highly recommended, as well: massages, hot showers or baths, that electric thing you sling over your shoulders to give you a massage. But DON’T do unhealthy things (e.g., overdoing alcohol, food or other pleasures) that will leave you worse off: we need you to help us turn things around, now and in Novembers to come.
Think about what you are doing and can do in each of these buckets to be healthy and productive during these next four years, and beyond. Weave them together into a great coping strategy, and share them within your community. A self-disciplined approach to working the Serenity Prayer will get us one-and-all through this, not just to endure, but to prevail.
Finally, DO make plans to make community on May 17 at the SCDP Picnic! Drop by to see me!
Terrell McDaniel, PhD., HSP, is a Clinical/Community and Industrial/Organizational psychologist in private practice in Hendersonville. He consults extensively in Corporate Strategy and Police Psychology, while also maintaining a clinical practice. He has been a continuing supporter of the SCDP for many years, although he now lives in Franklin, TN.