Stepping Away From My Rage

Finding calm in these outrageous times.

The past few days, as I've been sitting on my porch enjoying the sunshine, a wee hummingbird has been visiting, flying quite close in to gather spiders' web material from the corner of my roof, and using it to build a nest in the holly tree next door. Everything about this fills my heart with joy. It is such a perfect reminder of how sublime the natural world is and how it continues to do its thing regardless of the complete bonkersness going on in the human realm. Things like this provide me with much needed moments of calm in these truly outrageous times.

Replacing my rage with something more sustainable.

Over the past few months or so, I've noticed my ire seems to be dissipating. Not that there isn't any number of things to feel irate about every goddamned day, but my response to the horrors seems to have shifted. It certainly hasn't been an intentional shift, but it feels so much healthier and a million times more sustainable ('cuz you all know we're in this for the long haul). It's like my psyche understands that my body can't handle the 24/7 blasts of adrenaline and bile and has chosen a calmer way to respond to our current situation. The key, of course, is that I continue to look, to engage, to respond, but in a way that is sustainable.

Being a Virgo perfectionist with high expectations of my fellow humans, I have spent most of my life ranting, raging, and fuming over the ubiquitous injustices (both real and perceived) in this world. Throughout my life there has been plenty to feel outraged about, but nothing in my lifetime compares to how messed up things are now. Perhaps it's the immense quantity and intense awfulness of the injustices we are witnessing now that has led me to step away from rage and into more of a 'let's just get 'er done' mindset. I'm pretty sure that if I responded to each atrocity with the rage of my younger days, I would spontaneously combust from all the fire burning inside me, so it's probably not a bad thing that my psyche has decided to take a different route to navigate these hellish times.

Don't get me wrong. Rage serves many people an important purpose. Rage can be the fuel that keeps you fired up enough to demand change. Rage is a very natural response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, caging children in Texas, the obscene corruption oozing outta the White House, our governments doubling down on extraction economy when they all know fucking better... But rage can also be dangerous. Rage can consume us, paralyze us, render us helpless. Rage is exhausting. If you're going to embrace the rage, I hope if feeds rather than devours you.

Detaching from outcomes.

"So, what's your secret for letting go of rage?" I hear you asking. I think the biggest shift for me has been detaching from specific outcomes. You and I both know right from wrong (eg Nazis = bad, fossil fuels = climate chaos, harming children = evil) and we understand that it shouldn't be too hard for others to be able to make these distinctions and act accordingly. Alas, life doesn't work that way, and humans are a bizarro species, and so I've come to accept that the fight for justice is never actually going to end. As I said, we're in this for the long haul. With this in mind, I keep my focus on what I can do to mitigate the worst of the shit being thrown at us, and I celebrate the small victories (which actually turn out to be quite huge victories when we look back in history). As opposed to succumbing to the rage that depletes me, I feel nourished and empowered when I focus on taking action and knowing that there are millions of other people also doing what they can. My actions alone will not close Dilley concentration camp nor stop Carney's misguided power hungry "Build, baby, build!" policies, but we are seeing evidence that, collectively, we are making a difference. None of us know for certain how we will impact the world around us, so we step up and do what we can and hope for the best.

The inimitable Roshi Joan Halifax explains the importance of not being attached to outcome beautifully when writing about compassion:

"And if we’re so blessed, we engage in activities that transform suffering. But compassion has another component, and that component is really essential. That component is that we cannot be attached to outcome.

I realized so clearly in bringing my own life experience, from working with dying people and training caregivers, that any attachment to outcome would distort deeply my own capacity to be fully present to the whole catastrophe.

And what is fascinating is that compassion has enemies, and those enemies are things like pity, moral outrage, fear. And you know, we have a society, a world, that is paralyzed by fear. And in that paralysis, of course, our capacity for compassion is also paralyzed." 

Get 'er done!

I keep going back to how Maggie Helwig responds to each new challenge with something to the effect of, "Welp, I guess this is what we're doing now", and then she does what she can to be part of the solutions, knowing full-well that she can only do what she can do and it might not bring about the desired results, but she's gotta try anyway.

I keep going back to the parable of the hummingbird who saw the fire burning down its forest home where she dwelt with all the other forest creatures (who were huddling, paralyzed by fear), and though she was but a tiny hummingbird, she set about, one beak-full of water at a time, to put out the flames that were destroying her beloved forest home. Of course, the tiny hummingbird understood that she could never succeed at dousing the flames alone, but (in one version of the story) when the other forest creatures saw their friend cast aside fear and despair, and take action to stop the forest fire, they were all inspired to use their own special skills to join their hummingbird friend in fighting what seemed to be the inevitable destruction of the place they called 'home'. Naturally (and collectively), they won, saving the forest from the ravages of the fire.

Stepping away from my rage. Channeling my inner hummingbird. Surviving these terrifying times by doing what I can.

We're all magical unicorns!

What a treat to accidentally come upon this fabulous motivational drawing when I was digging around in folders looking for some stupid tax paper! This is now up on the wall to remind me when I feel the rage rising that I am actually a magical unicorn (and so are you!) and my job is to spread my sparkle far and wide. Whatever it takes, we cannot allow the rage to consume us. We cannot allow it to paralyze us. We've got work to do. I encourage you to invoke your inner magical unicorn powers (you know you've got some!) and douse the flames of fascism with all the sparkle you've got.

Sending y'all love and sparkles,

Jessica (she/her)