Everything can be a mirror, if you choose
This election season has found me in various stages of anger, fear, self-righteousness, condescension, rage, desperation, hope, smugness, and utter confusion. I look at what some of the folks on “the other side” of my political preferences are saying, and son-of-a-gun, they’re saying many of the same things “we” were saying during election season last year.
My intellect understands that pundits get their fame and money from generating outrage. My intellect understands that there are many that gain from pitting “two sides” against each other. My intellect also understands that many are doing the best they can to understand, but also get caught up in the political hyperbole. My lizard brain reaction, however, gets caught up in fear for the survival of my beliefs and desires for particular outcomes, and wants to punch out the next person who tells me a blatant untruth about my preferred candidate - not unlike the fear and anger the “other” is experiencing at this time.
I want better for myself. To not only be able to sit with compassion for my own reactions during this election, but to do so also for those I consider as “other”. To remember that (re)acting from a place of fear and anger will often get one nowhere with the “other”. To remember with equanimity that the cycles of contraction and expansion on a cultural/social level take decades, generations, to work themselves through. Then looking in the micro mirror, to know that the changes I want to see within will also take time. Damn, this lesson has been a tough one this year.
May best possible outcome come forth from this election. May all be safe during the process. May you get your ass out and vote.
photo credit: Viqi French
