Still Stuck in Post-Election WTFs? 3 Simple Steps to Start Moving Again

In 2017, my daughter and I joined a quarter million people for the Women’s March on Chicago. We were fired up, outraged and ready to go.

Eight years later, I sat on my couch and did nothing.

It’s not because I cared less - in fact, I cared more.

We had a literal promised land on the ballot: A land of hope and possibility. Glory days. America the Beautiful. Spacious skies.

And we had the promise of a wasteland: A land of vitriol, perpetrators, felons and filth.

America chose the wasteland.

I was (and still am) in utter disbelief about how wrong I was about the version of the American dream I thought we all shared.

So, the question I'm trying to answer—and maybe you are too—is: How do we move forward when we feel politically powerless, doomed, disgusted and frozen in place?

I'm figuring it out as I go, but here are three steps I'm taking today.

They say you can “name it to tame it. If that’s true, Corey Keyes author of Languishing: How to Feel Alive Again in a World That Wears Us Down, helped me give language to this indifference I’ve been feeling.

He calls languishing a “wakeup call” and a form of burnout. (OK, I’m woke and burnt.)

In the podcast How to Move from Languishing to Flourishing, Keyes describes how having very little discretion over how things happen can lead to burnout.

If “locus of control” is feeling like you have control over the events that impact your life, languishing is what happens when you don’t.

also talked about this in his New York Times essay: There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing.

Cool. We're languishing. Now that we know what to call it, we can stop being confused or overwhelmed by it.

The Washington Post just published an opinion piece by author Anne Lamott titled, “The Resistance Will Not Be Rushed.” In it, she admits she’s not sure what her role in the resistance will be but that “now is a time of quiet”. I feel that in my bones.

Lamott insists that we’ll begin to notice things growing in the desert, but until then, her marching orders are simple: left foot, right foot, breathe.

agrees. In her exquisite book, “On Our Best Behavior: The seven deadly sins and the price women pay to be good”, Loehnen urges women to give themselves grace as they forge a new way forward:

It will take rested souls to do the brutal work of dismantling and rebuilding. But remember…this work has been done before.

We are standing on the shoulders of the maids and cooks who walked endless miles during the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955.

For 13 months, they stayed off the buses and stood their ground. Their resistance was nonviolent, time-consuming, grueling AND effective.

Soon, I believe we’ll be called to “stay off the buses”, too. Our streets will look different, but our mission will not.

Now is the time for replenishing, wintering and shooting down deep roots to prepare for the season to come.

Kelly Cervantes, who writes took the words right out of my mouth in her recent piece, “WTF”.

Turns out I’m not the only one still walking around wondering what the F%&$ just happened.

Cervantes outlines her post-election “workout” so well that I’m just going to borrow it:

✔ Make life just a bit simpler in this immediate aftermath✔ Stay informed (but with boundaries)✔ Choose where to focus your energy

This work is too important to be haphazard about. Your job right now isn't to solve everything that’s being demanded of you. It's to:

The work of dismantling and rebuilding will take rested souls. And you, my friend, must be rested when the marching orders come.

But in the meantime, left foot, right foot, breathe.

Know someone who might find some ☮️peace in this piece?