Still Processing 🔄
Give Yourself Some Grace
I am still grieving the election.
For the past week I’ve dragged my slippered feet across the apartment, made my coffee, and stared listlessly out the window in a fog of misery and confusion.
This may look like giving up, but it’s quite the opposite.
I am respecting the fact that I am rightfully mourning.
A younger me would have shamed myself into some form of frenetic, digital action.
But with age, I now see the long game of it all.
How I’m Processing The Election
When I was younger I used to beat myself up over things like this— convincing myself that somehow all the world’s ills were my fault.
I would fire myself up in a tizzy, somehow believing that I could self-loathe myself into action.
I know now that if I really want to make a difference in the world I need to be kinder to myself. I need to be more patient. I need to allow myself time for reflection so that I may see the road ahead more clearly.
Kindness, patience, and reflection is what I have given myself as I grieved this past week.
Art is Processing / Art is Hope
The power of art may not be tangible, but hope— our internal lives— are what drive us to fight and live another day.
Hope is absolutely essential.
I thirst for it, I seek it out. I feed myself on hope.
As I grieve and process this election I am infusing myself with hope through art.
After the election in 2016 I played my George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass” vinyl on repeat.
It gave me the space to grieve, to process, and to hope for a better future.
This November I am devoting myself, life and soul, to:
The Lord of the Rings
There are many things I love about LOTR, but something that really inspires me is that it is a story about how the smallest among us can change the world.
Against insurmountable odds, the characters always fight to maintain hope, and continually inspire hope in one another to get the job done.
If You Feel Like Garbage, That’s OK, But Don’t Treat Yourself Life Garbage.
Let yourself mourn. Let yourself cry. Let yourself scream into a pillow.
You are not a machine— you are an animal just trying to survive.
You deserve time to process as much as anyone else.
Give yourself a break, if you can, and read a childhood book that brings you comfort.
Maybe visit a local art museum.
Or maybe just watch the entire extended edition of LOTR with all the special features.
Anything that’ll give you the hope and the strength to soon fight another day.
Comments (Let’s Chat!):
How are you holding up?
Any LOTR nerds up in here?
What are your comfort reads / watches?
Listening to:
Thank you for the uplifting thoughts about how to process disappointment.
"If You Feel Like Garbage, That’s OK, But Don’t Treat Yourself Like Garbage." — really good advice.
I love this post. Definitely going through the same stages of grief. I'm alternately avoiding the news because I don't want to deal with it, and then binging on it and wallowing.
Lord of the Rings is one of my comforting coping mechanisms, too, and I have those same extended edition DVDs! I haven't ever upgraded to the blurays because they don't have the special features, last I looked into it. Watching those hours and hours of BTS footage as a kid is what got me interested in visual effects / digital art. Those are some of the best movies ever, and all of the love and care that went into them is insane <3
Other comfort watches: We've been re-watching The Office, and will probably do the same with Parks and Rec sometime in the next 4 years...
And not necessarily a comfort read but I find having more information to be comforting in a way: What's Our Problem by Tim Urban (the Wait Buy Why guy) was an incredible read. He has a way of breaking down complex topics into more digestible bites, and he spent 6 years digging into why our country is so divided. I didn't agree with all of it, but it did shift my thinking in some interesting ways that have stuck with me a full year after finishing it. I'd highly recommend it but it's digital only, unfortunately, and is pretty long (partially because of all of the illustrations).