Unsurprisingly, I’ve been having many conversations this week about national and global politics, about power vs. powerlessness, and survival. With the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the assaults on democracy worldwide, and the uncertainties of our future, it is no wonder that these subjects are part of the therapy conversation. Yet, for all the details and myriad particular concerns, the central questions all essentially seem to boil down to: How do we remain active? And how do we stay centered in the storm?
The article below was written around the beginning of Trump’s presidency, as I was working with clients (and myself) around these questions. The same discussion is returning and I’m seeing how my response, and my suggestion about how clients can orient themselves, has remained the same since 2016. In essence this is: practice grief (there are vast losses that the world at large, and we as individuals, are refusing to, or too overwhelmed, to grieve) and faith. But here I mean faith in a specific sense, being the intentional and conscious choice to assume that the world is, in essence, good not bad, given that the existential question of “Is life/these times good or bad?” cannot be answered simply by data. Change-oriented action, in whatever appropriate form, almost naturally follows on locating ourselves in that matrix of grief and faith. But if we do not root ourselves there, our actions with either be spastic and poorly considered, or frozen.
So, may you find some measure of footing in this stormy and uncertain time, and a faith that allows you the space to grieve what is being lost, in order to find and embrace what still remains.