Resilience and Electricity

I like building things. Especially with my hands.

My great grandpa was a carpenter, one grandpa was a cement mason, one grandpa worked in the Honeywell Factory

As a person who spends most of my work hours on a computer and on the phone, Zoom, or with people in person I appreciate the solitude, quiet, often involved in puttering around my house and garden working on projects, attempting repairs and getting in a meditative flow while installing a backsplash or new light fixture.

This got me thinking about resilience and electricity.

Bear with me. I believe this metaphor can help.

In the aftermath of the racial justice uprising following the murder of George Floyd by police, the #TimesUp and #MeToo movements, and the reverberations of the Covid-19 global pandemic, most of us have been up close to barely contained rage, despair, and feelings of hopelessness and existential confusion.

If you're awake, rather than asleep, to what is going on in our bodies, neighborhoods, communities, and cultures, we have had to re-visit and recalibrate our resilience strategies in order to survive what can feel like back-to-back electrical surges.

I like watching home repair shows, and one of the first minor upgrades I learned to make was swapping out light fixtures.

It's quick. Fairly inexpensive and visually impactful.

What I have learned - the hard way - through lots of trial and error - is that different outlets and different fixtures require different attention. There are dimmers, LED, and wattage issues that all need to be paid attention to.

My long - time Enneagram coach, and dear friend, Deb, once said to me, “your growth involves learning how to withstand different electrical charges.” Think of it that way. When you hear news of war, violence, tragedy, both personal and global - it can feel like an electrical shock to the system. A jolt. A pain that makes the heart and body both jump and pull away. That's what it can feel like when you're near a live wire. Flammable. Dangerous. And not to be touched.

This is where resilience strategies come in. If you are reading this essay it is likely you acknowledge the value of staying plugged in. Not an intravenous news drip, but not opting out of the world around us, either.

We're trying to find a balance. how do we stay committed and connected to movements for racial justice, gender justice, environmental justice, and more, without overloading all of our circuits - rendering ourselves unable to be of useful service.

Resilience. “Self-care.” Balance. All of these terms have been bandied about of late. That's understandable. Many of us are trying to figure out how to cope with what can feel like a never-ending avalanche of bad news.

Journalist Michael Easter’s most recent book, “The Comfort Crisis,” has been showing up in my reading and listening lately. One of the core themes of the book is that some of us have lost some of our resilience strategies and the confidence in ourselves to do very difficult things.

No question humanity has never before had as much audio and video evidence of what everyone on the planet is experiencing moment to moment. Borders are strange and made up. The very notion of “the other” is harder and harder to buy into now that we are plugged in via satellite to social media where we witness families, fashion, faith traditions, and a glimpse into complex cultures that we, ourselves, are not a part of and didn’t grow up near.

As people living and working in the U.S. we are not, in fact, the center of the universe. Although American exceptionalism is still part of our fabric.

Back to resilience.

And energy.

My resilience strategies do not remain static; they can't. The world, and my world, continue to shift, change, and evolve.

I am an adult who wants to be able to interact with hard truths without crumbling. I don't want to be numb. I also don't want to be so overcome that I can't function.

So what do I try? I learned to increase the charge without fritzing out. I notice where I, in particular, am feeling fragile, tender, frayed at the end. And I begin by just noticing. Gotcha. I'm scared or trepidatious or defensive or avoidant right there. Okay. So what can I try next?

As a white person. What kind of charge can I withstand around racial realities? And where am I fritzing out?

For men, what kind of charge can you withstand when women, non-binary, and trans people communicate their experiences around sexism, misogyny, and gender-based violence?

We can each do this with all of our target and agent, dominant and non-dominant cultural experiences.

As an able-bodied person, what kind of charge can I hold?

As a person raised Christian, what kind of charge can I hold when my Muslim and Jewish friends share their truths with me?

As a U.s. born U.S. citizen, what kind of charge can I hold if the U.S. is on the receiving end of tough feedback?

Resilience strategies can be personal, and at the community level. We can be soft and gentle and still engage with the outside world.

I will continue to take stock of where I can currently handle 20w and where I'm at 120w. No judgment. Just noticing. It’s an invitation to investigate what could benefit from my attention and shoring up.

Justice and liberation start out as inside jobs. I'm curious, how are you observing the charges you can currently hold and where you're finding yourself fritzing out?

Thank you for letting me explore this metaphor as a different way of coming at resilience in movement building.

Next week, my commitment to you is to complete and share an essay about changing demographics and what “we’re” so afraid of.

Yours