Are you trying to find the energy to stand your ground? Against a tide of hate and fearmongering, authoritarian power, negative political actions that reach into our neighborhoods and homes and workplaces, and the sheer nonsense of other people who fed on right wing misinformation for so long that any unfamiliar perspective is seen as a personal threat? I also search among typical strategies for energizing my body and renewing my faith in humanity...the outdoors, music, books, conversations, creative projects, family ties...and find that my mind goes toward the disappointments and fears. I expend what little energy I have to pull myself back to me. I believe that I can stand my ground, rely on learned resilience, and face the unknowns with strength because I have done this before. As have you.
You faced childhood bullies. Perhaps you reacted to their threats and the fear you felt in ways that increased the bully's resolve to punish you. Then you learned to respond in ways that stymied the bully's behaviors. You stood your ground. You fought back. You showed the bully's toadies kindnesses they never saw in their leader. You stood up for vulnerable others when you realized that you were not alone. You built a strong circle of like-minded friends who could stand together. You used your voice to counter the bully's verbal attacks.
Perhaps those lessons were hard to learn and required adult interventions. You might now regret that years went by before you learned to respond to the bullies so that they backed off and you were free to be your stronger self. Or you regret that you could not be other than a bystander when you witnessed bullying. That is understandable, especially among the young and immature. Courage is rarely learned in one moment of time; courage cannot come out of nowhere. Courage is not a genetic trait or a commodity available for purchase or trade. Courage is seeded, grown, and nurtured in those who value its rightful place among positive adult qualities. Courage will come only when you call for it and use it!
And you have done that. You faced enemies on a battlefield, witnessed the cowering and freezing of a few who lost confidence in their training and themselves, witnessed the bold actions of many who did their best to defend themselves, witnessed the blind but determined actions of a few heroes. You were there and you came through.
You faced hunger and homelessness and clawed your way back to stability. You persevered with honor through the mixture of torture and thrill of university studies to earn your degrees. You claimed your entrepreneurial spirit and erected a business that supported you and others. You tried and failed many endeavors and relationships but learned the lessons that each failure offered you. You gathered your resources and grew new ones. You did not allow fear to overwhelm you for the short length of time that it takes to kill you. You faced your fears. You clung to renewed hope. You wanted so badly to live another day, another decade, to see old dreams into fruition, to believe that you had a purpose that you defied the fears that spoke in your ears and welcomed the courage that spoke to your heart.
The Donald J Trumps, MAGA, Christian Nationalists, willfully ignorant and resentful conservatives, white male supremacists, oligarchs, neo-fascist Republicans, psychopaths, and bullies of our world will always be with us. We cannot eradicate them...because we are not killers. We love freedom. We know that to cherish freedoms and build strong empathetic communities we must live among those who despise what we are. Just like we learned to stand our ground with bullies and defend others when we were young, before we knew that hope has an expiration date and is often contrived in fantasy, we will stand up to today's bullies who reside in mansions and the White House. We do not create a safe haven for these awful human beings nor do we tolerate their behaviors; we seek only to destroy their power.
And "destroy their power over us" is our goal. As mature individuals and communities, we know the reality of hope and courage is that they are fallacy until our actions are hopeful and courageous. You and I learned already through multiple life experiences that we conquer the fears and mitigate the threats and defeat the bullies and rebuild our lives by action. Thoughts and prayers are no more than fleeting platitudes. However, they might seed courageous actions. When Republicans and sympathetic, nice folks offer their thoughts and prayers after events in which human beings lose their lives and livelihoods, we see cowardice behind the words. They fear change. They refuse to be anyone other than bystanders who express their bravery by filming the harm and posting the videos on social media. Cowardice. We destroy the power that serial killers and bullies and political grifters and cult leaders and cruel despots have over us by standing up to them. Defying them. Offering others a reason to find their own courage.
When I was bullied by a preacher named Fred Drummond, I did not give in to him. I could not destroy him. I could not convince others to destroy him and his narcissistic behaviors. I could only defy his actions and leave, giving him one less person to bully, showing others that he was a coward who preyed on the vulnerable, the weak and the young. My action did not result in his downfall. I am not a powerful person. However, my action was noticed and others stood up to him afterwards. He has never become the successful religious leader or writer that he claims to this day that God promised him. He is merely a pathetic irrelevant preacher who uses others to maintain a semblance of dignity. He is what Donald J Trump truly is...a demented old fool who believes in his supremacy but is a nobody without the sycophants who hold him together.
You and I are wearied but, we are not done. We are capable of standing ground, defying the MAGA/neo-fascist bullies, uniting with others to defend others, speaking truth to power, and making good trouble. We've been there. We've got this. This is where our energy will come from -- our lived experiences that put courage into our hearts and erased the bullies' powers over us.