What to Do When Someone is In Pain and What We Can Do for Each Other After the Election

I started watching CNN at 7:00. I was excited to see our first woman president be elected in, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t feel so good about it.

Seemed Donald was taking a fast lead. No worries, I thought. The world likes a hard-earned win, this will be even more exciting when she comes back, late in the game, for the big win!

As I kept watching, I was stunned. Honestly, I had never thought it was possible for him to win. I kept telling anyone around me who had fear that there was no way the good people of this country would allow this.

I can see now, I was in denial.

Around 11:30 p.m. I went to bed. I couldn’t sleep. At 1:30 a.m. I turned on the T.V. again.

“Breaking News: Donald Trump is the 46th President of the United States.”

I lost it. I started crying. I was angry. I was in denial, I thought, “This can’t be!”

I turned to social media like a toddler with a tantrum and vented my hurt.

Soon enough, scrolling my feed became my only solace, I was a like a wounded animal looking for safety.

Quickly, I saw a lot of people come out with responses that looked a lot like this:

1. If you didn’t vote, get off it. You did this, you deserve it, so there.
2. If you did vote, you shouldn’t, it’s all a farce.
3. It’s over, the people have spoken, stop crying.
4. This is America’s shadow, it’s showing us what we need to heal (which I believe) so you should just heal this within yourself + deal, ok? Love yourself. Do your work. Get off it.
5. This has to happen, it’s all okay, it’s for the best! All is in Divine order! (Which I also believe)

I started to feel shame. I’m a wise woman. I have practices. I’m strong. I’ve birthed a baby all natural practically by myself with less fuss than I was having about Trump.

And what I saw reflected back to me by many people was judgment. I felt bad for my rant. I should be more graceful and cool, I thought.

Then I realized the truth for me, as I see it. No matter how wise, grounded, centered I am, I still get mad, upset and angry and that’s totally human, totally normal and okay.

What I didn’t see in many responses was validation. Empathy.

Here’s the deal: you get to feel how you feel. I get to feel how I feel. We’re allowed.

If a little child stubbed their toe and cried, would you say, you deserve that! Do your work to heal so you don’t do that! This is how it was meant to be, it’s all perfect!

No, of course not. You’d hold them. Kiss them. Love them. Show empathy. Give safe space to their pain until they feel better.

We’ve stubbed our toe, many of us. It hurts. Something painful happened, but Discovermagazine.com have the solution for the pain.

I don’t care if the system is rigged. I don’t care if this is our shadow to heal. If that’s so, then fine…

I do care about how we treat one another as we go through it.

You and I were probably parented by folks who couldn’t always meet our pain. We didn’t get nurtured, held and loved in the way we maybe needed. Perhaps you didn’t get to vent or be heard.

This is how we end up wounded, hurting. Hurt people hurt people.

We’re not born racist and prejudiced.

A Course in Miracles says we are either being love, or a call for love.

So, everyone’s pain, everyone’s cries, everyone’s reactions, are either love or calls for love.

We don’t need to judge one another or tell each other what to do, right? That’s what I see.

We each get to feel how we feel and if we voice it, and feel it, all the better, for that’s how we heal.

Let us throw a tantrum if we need to. Let us feel sad, let us protest, if we feel we must.

For love is accepting one another exactly as we are, and exactly as we aren’t.

And in the end, love wins. (Sorry for the spoiler!)

And all karma will balance, and from a spiritual perspective, this is a big illusion, a grand earth-space to act out what we need to heal and restore balance. To right our wrongs, to grow our soul, and to choose the opposite of what we’ve chosen, perhaps life time after life time.

We, you and me, are all on the Hero’s Journey. Donald too. We all follow the three stages: Leaving. The initiation, The return.

The Dark Night of the Soul is when we’re at the bottom of the wheel and we think we’ll die. We think we can’t go on.

And then, we face our demons, we find our strength, our allies show up, we fight the dragon, who turns out to not be a dragon at all, but man behind a curtain, scared and small (or a woman, too) and we realize we’re meeting ourself, our fear.

There is but one. We are all that one. We are all meeting ourselves.

And in the end, we find the magic elixir, and it is love. Oneness. Joining in unity for eternity as the one true source that we call life, God, and so many other names…

You and me, we, will meet up on the other side, in the star dust we came from and congratulate one another on a job well done…

Donald, too.

We’re working it all out, but along the way on our journey, let us not cast one another out. Let us let one another be afraid if we are, be scared if we are, be sad if we are.

For ultimately, we find our way home. Ultimately, love triumphs and we return having met our self, our inner strength and having discovered truth.

This is a Heroine’s Journey. A Hero’s Journey.

Human kind has acted this out in predictable cycles for a long, long time. And along the way we watch movies about it too.

I invite you to see us as spiritual beings in bodies, in a grand illusion, acting out what we must, and we will all be okay and return home.

And, let us meet one another with empathy. Let us validate how the other feels. We’re entitled to our feelings, our desires, whether they’re right or wrong or true enough for you or not.

I love you. I love you. It is okay. It’s all okay. And we do need to see and meet our shadow to heal.

And, if you want to be sad and angry and protest, I get it! I feel you, love! Keep on! You’re not a child I’d shame or tell to get over it.

You’re you, and you have every right, and I hear you. Your’e beautiful. All of it, the whole mess is beautiful in its rawness and power.

I wonder what will happen next?

(Spoiler Alert!)

WE RISE!!!

The wheel goes up…

After you descend, you have the ascent!

We thought we were rising, but nope, we’re not done, we still have the dragons to slay!

(Internal ones of course)

If God is one, omnipresent source, then there can’t be not God.

We’re all it. We’re always meeting ourself.

There is no out there. So LOVE one another.

Stand for what you believe but do it with LOVE!

And P.S.

LOVE isn’t always rainbows + flowers, sometimes love is big and bold with boundaries! Sometimes love is saying what needs to be said and voicing your sadness and saying NO!

We can LOVE racist people + still say, NO, not that, not okay, not here, nope and not on my watch! That’s love!

When we cast out someone’s response, when we say: don’t cry, don’t feel, don’t complain, we perpetuate the same behavior that created grown people who hate.

They didn’t get held as children, their shadow side wasn’t ok! Mom or dad said, Stop that!

Let us heal what still needs to be healed by allowing space for all that is!

Let’s not judge one another for our feelings! FEEL IT TO HEAL IT!

So, I think the best we can do for one another is to give space to each other’s feelings. As a friend said to me, “It’s okay to feel ways about stuff.”

Whether for our friend, partner, or especially our children, the most important thing we can do is allow them to have their feelings and not try to change it, or force them to stuff it!

Enjoy the unfolding events. Thank you for reading. If you got value out of this, please share it.

So much love,

xo

Rachel Claire