Changing What I Cannot Accept

Like millions of people around the world, I’ve been feeling uneasy about the America I’ll live in for the next four years.  I’ve been feeling helpless, like I’m finding my way in the dark, or living in an anticyclone of uncertainty and fear.  It seems fitting, as here in Michigan we’ve been blanketing by a deep, depressing fog for many days. 

For weeks leading up to the inauguration, my anxiousness grew daily and I began to have nightmares.  Night after night I dreamt I was trapped on a boat or a bus and couldn’t find space to breathe or a way to get out.  No matter how much I wanted to slow the clock, January 20^th was fast approaching like a train I couldn’t stop. The day of the Inauguration I avoided the media, did not turn on the television and didn’t engage in political conversation.  I took myself to yoga and thought a deep practice might help me realign on a higher level.  Yoga always brings me strength and peace.  That day our practice focused on our fifth chakra, which addresses the throat, and symbolizes our personal truth.  I asked myself what my truth was and was dismayed to find my instinct was “helplessness.”  The further I moved through my practice the more I thought about my truth and realized that I had the power to change it right then and there. Did I want to spend the next four years feeling this way?  A new mantra formed and rang over and over in my mind…“I am in control of myself.”  I did not have control over the outcome of the election; nor do I have control over the people filled with antisemetic, xenophobic, racist, sexist thoughts;  but I have a voice.  I do have control over that.  My first amendment rights are still intact and I am still in control of myself and my actions. 

Yesterday was the Sister March in Lansing, which I was proud to be one of thousands  I saw a great sign that was so fitting for me:  “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” It was uplifting to stand with my brothers and sisters of every race, color and ethnicity who all stand for the same principals.  For me, this March had little to do with partisanship, and everything to do with human decency.  It gave me hope that together we can move forward.  Never in my life have I felt such a real opportunity for change.  Our friends from all over the world marched with us.  Friends in Sydney, London, Cape Town and Nairobi all want the same thing.  This is like no other peaceful protest on earth – together we have made history.  Now is the time to use our voices.  Get involved.  Find a cause you believe in and get behind it.  Fight for it – because we don’t have a leader fighting for us.  Make yourself heard.  Write your politicians and let them know how you feel.  Do you research, talk to your neighbors; stand for something, because as we know, if you don’t stand for something, you stand for nothing.  With this said, I refuse to lower my standards of humanity.   I refuse to engage in negativity, Facebook wars or pointless banter.   I’m “simply positive” that I can join this movement with my morals intact and without hurting others.  Kindness and positivity will join my voice and I will be heard.

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