In troubled times, values-based action can be a lifeline we follow back towards clarity and purpose. It can lend meaning to life’s most turbulent moments. It helps us focus on what we can control in this unpredictable world. Living by what truly matters to us can create a navigational system that guides and fortifies our efforts to improve mental wellness. Each choice rooted in your core values fosters fulfillment; each anchors you to your best and most authentic self.
Sometimes, we know what we wish we could accomplish in the world, but the effort feels too daunting or the details seem too opaque to follow through on. This is often the case for folks who have been relatively apolitical, but who wish to cultivate a higher level of civic engagement. If you aren’t interested in that, you’re welcome to skip the rest of this post. If you are interested in it:
Welcome! Civil resistance works, and I’m* so glad you’re interested in digging in. My #1 recommendation for beginners is to watch this video starting about 17 minutes in, and follow the step by step instructions it suggests on how to become active in local politics. If you do nothing else, in my opinion, this is the best thing.
If you want to go further, it is good find a political home–an organization you trust, where you can spend time efficiently making change with people who share your values, where social connection helps you keep showing up when the going gets even harder, and where relationships of trust allow you to comfortably let other people carry some of the research and decision-making load. You may or may not be able to find this. A political home is not essential but it sure helps with staying power. This link will take you to a google doc of organizations in the Virginia area that, depending on your politics and other preferences, might be that home for you. To make this process more accessible for you, I’ve included descriptions of the predicted culture and vibe of each organization where I am able, and I will continue updating and expanding it as I have capacity.It is important to the culture of political activism that motivation is a superpower of trauma. Rigid black and white thinking is often, at least for a time, a consequence of trauma as well. Because of this, movement spaces will usually have some assholes in them–people who struggle to accommodate healthy disagreement and/or other people’s learning curves. A high percentage of activists are coming from a place of trauma, especially in radical spaces. Maybe you are too. All of this is OK.
In my opinion, we must honor the wisdom that the lived experience of traumatized folks can impart, and make priority space for folks who are directly impacted–and, we must also prioritize kindness and sustainability. In my opinion, kindness is not some kind of extra that’s nice to tack on after we’ve achieved systemic change; it is a fundamental lifeblood of any mass movement, and mass movement is what we need. As you explore potential political homes, you are likely to have some experiences that are healthy-uncomfortable (in a “personal growth/learning edge” way) and some that are unhealthy-uncomfortable (in a “microaggressions and/or unnecessary unkindness” way). A favorable balance of these uncomfortable experiences is one of the core things I look for in a political home.
It’s OK to need kindness and respect from others in your political work. It is OK to find meetings full of other people exhausting and overstimulating. It’s OK if what you can offer is writing post-cards to voters or letters to prisoners from your dining room table, or cooking a pot of curry and dropping it off at the meeting. It’s OK if you aren’t tireless; tirelessness is an ableist ideal. It’s OK if you get active and then burn out and then spend six months or a year or five years recovering before you come back to the table. It’s OK if you get pissed off at your lead organizer and go find yourself a different project. It is OK if you need and engage in a civic life that mostly looks like quiet office work, or like running a radicalized business, or like raging about how hard it is to raise liberated children. It’s OK–great even–if you go to a protest that’s meaningful to you, wear earplugs so to protect yourself from the overstimulation of the chanting, and then fall behind after two blocks because the pace the organizers have chosen is too fast for your chronic pain to hold on to, and then go home. The visibility of your presence, however brief, is part of the transformation this world needs. Even better, and much much harder, if you can approach the organizers with kindness and skill and advocate for a different pace next time.
If you have done any of that shit, thank you. If you are helping your community re-imagine accessible organizing, perhaps by showing up as your real messy inconsistent tired self, thank you. If your deepest truest self wants to have a voice in shaping this world for the better through a politically active life, welcome to the work. You belong here. We need you in this work, and we need you in this world.
In deep and steadfast affection,
Thomas
Thomas Harper LMSW
Supervisee in Social Work
Divergent Path Wellness
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