Hold on tight and refuse to let go

Trust your body

If you experienced a significant stress response this past week, pay attention, your nervous system is attending to very important changes in your environment. Your intuition and intelligence is calling you into action. Stay close to yourself. Trust in what you are feeling. Don’t let anyone talk you out of your felt sense or make you feel like you are overreacting. Stay in community with each other. Let it burn but do not get lost in despair, numbness, apathy or avoidance. Division and hopelessness is the place they want us to reside.

Chaos IS the organizing principle

The intention is to create a feeling of chaos and confusion while eroding our fundamental human rights and systematically dismantling the structures that support us.

It’s already happening 

We don’t need to wait to see what’s going to happen. We already know what’s at stake. As Maya Angelou tells us, when people show you who they are, believe them the first time.

We didn’t lose access to basic life saving medical procedures for pregnant people (abortions) in a number of states overnight, this was the result of targeted attacks on women’s bodies and health care.

Individuals and organizations trying to restrict our rights have a sophisticated multifaceted plan, are laser focused and relentless in their execution. 

Come together

Culturally, we need to move from individualism towards a more collective focus. We need to be the custodians of the relationships we have with our children, families and communities and our country, even when we feel like we are the only one in the relationship doing the work to move the relationship in a positive direction. The well-being of the global community and the health of our planet is on the line.

It’s complicated 

We voted to protect and expand abortion rights in seven out of ten states while also electing the person who will likely implement a national abortion ban and restrict access to birth control and hormonal treatment. 

The first openly trans person was elected to congress last week. While we voted for a person who will withhold federal funding for Medicare and Medicaid from hospitals that provide gender transition treatment to minors.

These results reflect an internal struggle between our unresolved intergenerational trauma of enslaving, oppressing and dehumanizing people and the desire to move towards greater freedom, equality and access. 

The deep wounds of our history, long buried in subtext and hidden in plain sight, have ruptured and torn through the surface of our skins, hearts, bones and uteruses. We must reckon with how to tip the scales towards more healing and growth and away from repeating the dark trauma of our past. 

Pick one thing, hold on tight and don’t let go. 

Identify something important to you—education, abortion rights, health care, voting, climate change, freedom of the press, trans and LBGTQ+ rights, access to medication and vaccines, free school lunches—and learn everything you can about your one thing.

Become the fierce protector of your thing. Stay vigilant to how it might be slowly destroyed or completely annihilated. We need to be in the room when it matters, which is always, from now until the end of time.

In our absence, they will make one thousand seemingly small decisions that collectively vaporize our rights. The will continue to take our words, redefine their meaning and trick us into signing away our freedoms.

We must remain focused, organized and persistent in our fight for equality.

Jassica Valenti, in her brilliant reporting, has outlined how the new administration plans to criminalize the shipping of abortion pills, gut sex education, vote for fetal personhood and fight for access to the medical records of people who get out-of-state abortions in order to create an abortion ban without saying that they are implementing an abortion ban.

We must hold on tight and refuse to let go. 

Stacey Abrams says:

“We must insist on holding to our power and believing in our own power.”

Watch the news from all sides and talk to each other

Our news media and social media are echo chambers that spiral us deeper and further apart, leading us to distance ourselves from anyone who isn’t aligned with our beliefs and values. The canyon between us has grown so wide that we have lost essential common ground for curiosity and productive discussion. If we continue down this path, the United States of America will be dead and buried alongside all of the mothers and children we have lost due to abortion bans and school shootings.

Support, Donate and Divest

Donate, subscribe and support individuals and organizations that are doing great work. The ACLU is a personal favorite of mine. Disengage and divest your time, attention and money from companies with harmful values and actions.

That’s all for now.

Take care of yourself and look out for each other.

Love,

Kate xx