📿 How Do I Put My Grief To Good Use?

And other post-election contemplations I'm holding

The current banner at our local sign-making shop. Appropriate.

Hello you, Adreanna here for this week’s dispatch of The Laundry — 

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been thinking that after Tuesday’s election, this seems like a very good time to get grounded and focused.  It’s a good time to develop sustained attention. Especially if you (like me) are wondering what happens next, and how we move forward. 

I don’t propose to have any answers on what it means to “move forward” but there are some constructive questions I’m asking myself, and that feels like a solid, generative start.

I was reflecting on how the first time that Trump was elected president, I found myself in the middle of a desperate flurry of interest in meditation. I was a head teacher at MNDFL Meditation Studios in NYC, which overnight found itself running a waitlist for each class. Extra classes were added to the schedule and the practice rooms were arranged with cushions lined up wall to wall in order to accommodate the grieving, the stunned and the anxious.

Our classes had themes that people immediately identified with, like “working with strong emotions” and “developing self compassion”. I often joke (because there’s some truth) that these are practices that folks tend to turn to after they’ve tried everything else. Meditation comes after the food, the drugs, the online shopping, the wine, the Internet and all the other exit ramps that we take to turn away from discomfort.

When these other strategies fail to offer us any lasting relief, then (and often only then), do we resign ourselves to sitting down and looking within. This also happens in moments of crisis; or when an oncoming crisis is anticipated.  In times of turbulence there’s an instinct to get closer to the ground; to lower our center of gravity. 

A question that I’m asking myself to tend to my immediate needs:

What are the practices, routines, and rituals of care that I can commit to today in order to feel grounded and focused?

The morning after this year’s election day, I was scheduled to teach a Lovingkindness meditation class, bright and early at 8am. This wasn’t an election specific class. At least, I hadn’t planned for it to be. I teach for a live meditation app every week and this was supposed to be a standard class. I woke up at 7am, checked my phone to see who was elected president, and then washed the knot in my throat down with coffee. I sat for a few moments before beginning the broadcast just to find my own center of gravity. 

If there was an action, a verb that I would assign to my role of teaching meditation, it’s that my job is to hold. I hold the space of the room with my sustained attention. I hold the perspective that everyone, everyone, everyone has inherent dignity and wisdom. Sometimes I even get to flash that perspective back to people like a small mirror catching a beam of the sun. Watching someone feel this for themselves is my favorite part of guiding meditation. Another aspect of holding, is that I’m responsible for holding my seat. Which is to say that I steady my own mind and emotions so that my “stuff” doesn’t accidentally clutter up the room.

I can count on one hand the times that I’ve cried while leading meditation.  It’s always been after leading a Lovingkindness practice and always in a moment of collective distress. “Fuck it,” I thought on this particular morning, when I felt tears catch on the knot in my throat. “Here come the tears. Grief is now holding this seat with me.” Sometimes the center doesn’t hold, and the only thing we can do is ride the wave of what we feel without making our feelings a problem. 

Another question that I’m asking myself to tend to my immediate needs:

What am I feeling in my body right now and can I allow that to be as it is?

I’ve also been thinking about what happens once the collective urgency of this moment passes and the big feelings begin to subside. When I zoom out and take the long view of the next four years, ten years, two decades (should I be blessed to have this many) I see the marathon of being helpful in the long run, instead of the short term race to soothe. The results of this election were important. Yes. And also I think it’s easy to convince myself that if my chosen candidates are all voted into office, then my work as a citizen is done.

I know that there’s nobody sitting in elected office who can heal our collective calamities, even if policy is an important piece. By that same token, I have to remind myself that there has never been, to date, anyone in office who has the power to cause damage beyond collective repair. History is a case study in how individual and collective action from the populace can bring about lasting change. It feels healthy and life affirming to remind myself of this. It opens questions in my mind of how to be helpful. It galvanizes me to pick up a shovel and put my grief to good use. 

A few questions I’m asking myself when I zoom out and see the marathon over the race:

How do I put my grief to good use? What individual and collective action am I willing to commit to as a long term practice?

One thing I know (for myself, personally) is that yelling into the void of social media feels…public, but not often helpful? I understand why people do it. How else are we supposed to discharge the outrage, grief, and anxiety from our bodies? How else are we supposed to connect with each other and dislodge the systems that cause so much suffering?

(For the record these are also questions I’ve been asking myself in earnest.)

Something I’ve always found refreshing about Buddhism is that it acknowledges that being a human comes with a side of dissatisfaction. The pleasure, the joy, and the miracle of being alive is a packaged deal with the reality that we’ll experience suffering. I’ve found that this takes the sting out, when I really sit with it. It makes dissatisfaction feel less personal. Suffering isn’t a character flaw. It’s an inborn part of the vignette of living. And also I don’t think our delicate nervous systems were designed to witness so much global calamity streaming through the portals of our screens. It can make yelling into the void feel like the only option, beyond finding an exit ramp and numbing out. 

Beyond the options of yelling into the void and numbing out from overwhelm, I’ve been thinking about what a third option might look like. There are so many pain points that exist in the world, I find it immobilizing to look at them all at once. The opiate crisis, climate change, homelessness, healthcare, the criminal justice system, animal welfare… I have this half-baked fantasy that we could all divvy ourselves up into teams, and go to work on the global pain point that calls to our grief, massive systemic change could happen. Many hands make quick work. I also know that grassroots action requires sustained attention - dialing back from the big picture calamity, and taking personal responsibility for being more hands-on helpful to one.

This is a question that I’m asking myself to shake out the immobilization and get more involved in helping out:

What might it look like to find a local, tangible piece of the puzzle and chip away it with sustained attention?

A book that I revisit often is “Think Little” by Wendall Berry. It was published over 50 years ago (in 1972) and I’m continually floored by how timely his words of civic engagement are today. Wendall Berry writes: 

“If we are to hope to correct our abuses of each other and of other races and of our land, and if our effort to correct these abuses is to be more than a political fad that will in the long run be only another form of abuse, then we are going to have to go far beyond public protest and political action. We are going to have to rebuild the substance and the integrity of private life in this country.

We are going to have to gather up the fragments of knowledge and responsibility that we have parceled out to the bureaus and the corporations and the specialists, and put those fragments back together in our own minds and in our families and households and neighborhoods. We need better government, no doubt about it. But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities.”

Another question that I’m asking myself to reaffirm that daily action can be little and local — as Berry suggests:

What does it look like to gather up the fragments of knowledge and and responsibility and put them back together in our own minds and local communities?

I’m not entirely sure for myself yet, but it I know that the pursuit of gathering fragments and putting them back together feels akin to care. And caring for myself and others feels like a solid and generative place to start.

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*What questions are you asking yourself right now? Are there resources that you find yourself turning to over the past few days? I’d love to hear your thoughts. And thank you, thank you - always - for reading along with us here at The Laundry. Sustained attention (to anything) is not always easy to come by and it’s a gift that you share yours with us.

A screaming song is good to know in case you need to scream! And so is a grieving song, a healing song and a song that serves as a reminder of the best of who we are. Bjork is usually my screaming song queen, but this week I’ve had this masterpiece on repeat. From my ears to yours:

🎧 BJORK - ALL IS FULL OF LOVE (LIVE AT THE ROYAL OPERA)