Dreaming our way forward

lessons from Buddhism and wise activists

I hesitate writing this post, when so much has already been said about the election. Analysis, feelings, arguments, and predictions. I’m not against any of these, and I honor the individual ways we are responding. But I have found myself weary of trying to “figure out” what has happened and why it happened. To continue to use logic to solve a problem that feels deeper, more nuanced, and more complicated than numbers can describe.

For me, there has been and undercurrent thought of, “this is the way things are”. I’ve been curious about this and whether it is resignation. We often think of resignation as a negative thing, but I’m not sure about that. I don’t think resignation is the same as cynicism or believing nothing will ever change. It feels more like seeing things clearly, or at least as clearly as I can.

Not-knowing

Even before the election, I had been working with the Buddhist concept of ‘not-knowing’ . My understanding is that in Buddhist teachings, delusion - believing we know - is a core source of suffering, and often gets in the way of clear seeing. I was intrigued by this notion, that believing we know something causes suffering, and was in the multi day process of asking myself what belief was needing to be let go. While listening to an episode of 10% Happier I jotted down these words by guest DJ Cashmere:

I’ve felt fortunate to have this mantra to carry with me over the past week. Remembering that I can have clarity about where we are at, while also acknowledging that the future, what will happen, is not clear. That the future is untold, and that this uncertainty, though scary of unsettling, is also a space of choice. Of looking at what is not known, and deciding who and how to be.

When I was learning to facilitate meditation, I assisted an experienced meditation teacher. We were covering the topic of not-controlling and letting things be. Before class she shared with me what we would be covering and asked that I write some things on a white board as she spoke. As I jotted down her teachings, I wrote the word “ACCEPTANCE”. She paused. Gently, she said, “no, ALLOWING”. For years I have held that lesson in my mind and heart. Learning over time that there is a difference between not fighting with reality (Allowing) and not trying to change reality (Acceptance).

Fostering not-knowing and allowing offer an opportunity for us to feel what we feel, be curious about the whys and the whats, while also allowing us choice for how we show up next. For who and how we want to be in meeting things as they are. That, to me, feels like freedom.

Photo by Oliver Roos on Unsplash

History as a source of spaciousness

Something that feels both true and hard to describe is the value of cultivating spaciousness when we face hard, scary, and disappointing situations. Over time, I have found that spaciousness through connections with history. For example, when I was younger and struggled with anxiety around death, one of the things that supported me in times of deep anxiety and panic was remembering my ancestors. I would call to mind that they too have faced death, and in fact that every human who came before this time has walked through that threshold. This recognition felt like a network of support and comfort. A sense of being held and not alone.

Over the years, and more so in recent days, I’ve read about and listened to stories of women and marginalized people who have faced fear, hate, violence and limited rights. As a woman and mother of a daughter, I feel this, too. And I’ve found myself remembering that connection across time, to those who have similarly faced even harder things. I do this not as a way to compare suffering and say “see you don’t have it that bad” but instead as a reminder that I and we are not alone. That sadly these patterns show up in our messy human existence. And that we again choose how to meet this.

Life keeps moving

I want to say explicitly that my words are not meant to be an instruction for how you should feel or meet this time. I honor the place you are at. I honor that the past and present have shaped how you feel about the election outcome and the future. That who you are and how society sees you and places you will impact how intense and alive this change in presidency will be for you.

But I also choose to keep showing up and to share the ideas and teachings that sustain me. The ideas and lesson of teachers who have been doing the work of change and activism for longer than I’ve had a fully developed frontal cortex. Those that remind me that change is not only, and sometimes not even, won at the ballot box. That what happens in community reflects what happens at large and vice versa.

“We are living now inside the imagination of people who thought economic disparity and environmental destruction were acceptable costs for their power. It is our right and responsibility to write ourselves into the future. All organizing is science fiction.”

―adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

Photo by Tetiana SHYSHKINA on Unsplash

So find your people, share your feelings. But also your hopes. Your desires. Dream about the world you want to create. Dream about love and joy and creativity. Bring curiosity, ask questions about what you see as truth. Remember the long arc of time, the connection to ancestors who have braved challenging and worrisome times.

Sarah

Interesting in building community with other women? Join me and Shandra Bauer in February for a day-long retreat in Madison, WI. It will be a day celebrating and honoring all the parts that make us human: rest, job, creativity, and imagination. Join the wait list here.