How To Not Let A Crisis Go To Waste
I missed shouty Thursday on my personal Facebook wall again, which is doing a post where people can show up and yell in ALL CAPS about whatever is on their mind that day. It’s a neat thing to do but I’ve missed it several times recently. The tough reality is that I've been involved in some hard life stuff the last few months and it just hasn't let up.
Today I’m 3 weeks in to a set of stacked crises involving some of my people. I was involved in another separate life crisis in April involving some of my other people.
Lots of things are falling through the cracks. Some of them are fun and some of them are serious. Some are a bit of both (like Shouty Thursday).
But my focus remains on the current larger life crisis... and so some of the things are going to keep falling through the cracks.
On the big crisis, I don't know what to do. Except what I figure out to do every day; in coordination with the people I'm walking these tough journeys with.
Taking Care of Humans
❤️ I've been talking for a number of years now about connection and community and taking care of humans.
When the sh*t hits the fan, you can talk big talk... but are you going to live it?
I don't know. I'm answering that question every day. I don't know if every day I'm making the right call.
Someone said to me today that part of what they like about me is that I show people love not just in the easy times but when it gets messy and uncomfortable and hard. That it's easy to talk about loving people but it really shows up (or not) when things go to hell.
I've been through hard stuff before. But never one like this.
Always stuff is different. You've got different people with you in different situations.
This time I'm in a different role than I've ever been in. I don't even know what that is but I know that it matters.
I know that what I'm doing matters to people that I love.
Some of the days it's something small like sitting on my rear-end and holding space for healing and safety even though my legs are uncomfortable and hurting from sitting so damn long but I need to be exactly where I'm at and for hours.
Some of the days it's emotional support. Some of the days it's keeping my own emotions from blowing up. Some of the days it's a crazy combination of completely unexpected things that I never imagined I'd be doing. More of those days are definitely coming.
We All Have The Crises
I don't know why I'm writing this here except to say that I bet you've been through crises like this, too. Whatever unpredictable unexpected things they are, or were.
You find yourself in this god-awful situation.
You're terrified and so are the people you are with.
And then the situation evolves and now you're something else emotionally. And then it evolves and now you're something else.
And everybody evolves together and sometimes really fast. And everybody helps who can help and you all just find your way through.
Sometimes people fall out of the mix; sometimes suddenly. Sometimes people who you thought would be around are suddenly seldom seen; if ever. Sometimes new and unexpected people show up. And sometimes key people get covid and have to check out for a while. Just saying. Hypothetically. 🤷🏼♀️
Being “Ready”
When I moved to Washington DC in 2004 from California, one of my mentors told me that I needed to be ready to be the "adult in the room."
That phrase is totally overused these days but yet it's still relevant.
Are any of us ever ready for some of the tough decisions we need to make in tough moments? I don't know.
How do you get ready for the unexpected and the terrifying?
I know this. This world is getting more and more uncomfortable and unstable. We don't know what's coming but we know it's going to be big and we know it's going to be transformational.
ALL OF US are going to have to make very hard decisions in more and more complicated situations.
ALL OF US are going to need way more or way deeper connection and community than what we've got right now.
ALL OF US are going to need to be ready to love humans and to show it. In very deep and serious ways.
Have you been through these kinds of breathtaking life crises?
What might you need in the next crisis?
Can you put some time into building or creating or growing what you might need now?
Get Your People Together
About two weeks before this current life crisis hit, some of my people and I were talking about doing more to intentionally grow more local connection and community. Live it to give it.
Lots of us locally have been dealing with hard stuff and it seems like we could all do with more local connection. So a few of us started in on it.
We'd just started talking to people about how we might go about it when this current life crisis hit. So we took some time this week on Memorial Day to work on that planned, intentional community building with a few of the folks we'd been talking to.
It was priceless to see some of our people who are not part of the current crisis. It's so heartening just to see some of your people and to hear what's going on in their lives. The support we got was invaluable, too. Turns out we needed all the parts.
All of it builds connection.
All of it builds strength and resilience.
All of it matters.
The thing is, over the long term as things get more complicated we're ALL going to need more connection, support, strength, and resilience.
We're going to need to take turns.
Some of us can help and some of us will need the help.
It will change any given week.
This week I'm helping but I've also needed help. I've hit maxed-out, but I'm also finding a 72nd wind or whatever it is. Passed my 2nd wind a long time ago.
I'm doing things I need to do to keep my soul intact and functioning and capable of helping others... and asking for help when I need backup. Which has been quite a bit this week. Actually it's been quite a bit every week.
I'm grateful for those who have helped me. It helps me help other people. We all walk forward together.
I don't know why I'm writing all of this except that I'm sure every single person reading it has been through some kind of crisis and can identify.
When we're in it, we need to process it. We need backup. We need to make tough decisions. We need to sleep and eat and shower and change clothes and basic stuff like that.
We also need to talk to each other.
So that's part of what I'm doing. I'm talking to you. You who have been through a crisis or two. I figured you would understand.
Solidarity is powerful. Part of what we can do is to See each other.
But I'm also writing this because I think we have a lot more crisis coming. There's a lot of casual talk about collapse and democracy failing and blah blah blah. Okay whatever.
But humans are going to survive through whatever craziness is coming. We need to act like we want to survive it and like we plan to.
⭐ We're going to be able to do that with our strong connections and our powerful communities.
⭐ We can be building them now.
⭐ We should absolutely be building them right now right this week right this month. Okay maybe start in June as this month is over. But you get the point.
Take whatever you're doing with your people and make it bigger and stronger and deeper and more resilient and more inclusive and more frequent.
Take whatever club you're in or whatever family or friend group you're a part of and get them together.
Make an excuse. Plan a picnic. Have an ice cream social. Do a potluck, or a pitch-in, or whatever it's called where you live. Pick a topic and do some storytelling. Whatever. Have people over to the living room or the patio or the coffee shop or whatever.
GET. YOUR. PEOPLE. TOGETHER.
Like don't make a plan now for August. Make a plan now for NEXT WEEK.
Honestly this year is going to get super wild and very intense and we might as well get going on upping our connections with our people. And with new ones.
Like for real.
Chop chop.
Get. Your. People. Together.
It’s Time
Big change is coming and we're going to be better off if we lean into it rather than trying to hide. Denial isn't working.
While we're at it doing all of this socializing, we can be getting people fired up about voting and society and recharging this flailing democracy and turning it into something that we want it to be.
No matter what happens, any one of us here can turn the story we're reading here into action.
Don't let our life crisis tale here go to waste.
Leverage it into something that can help you and yours where you are.
Get your people together.
I offer that. Let us all learn from each other. We're better together.
So, like, actually get together.
Also, while you're at it, try not to get dead. Some days it's easier than others, but we need each other and some days the challenge of staying alive is very real.
Let's went.
Onward.
PS — Shift the Country is a nonprofit set up to help catalyze civic engagement to help reach & motivate voters that we might not otherwise be reaching with traditional organizing work. Things have been on hold during these extended life crises but we’ll be back and ramping up soon. You can help us ramp up by inviting us to speak at one of your groups’ events about ideas for getting engaged, or by setting up a time for a conversation to explore options. Email us at team@shiftthecountry.com to get started on speaking invitations. Our responses may be delayed a bit due to said crises but we’ll get to it. Thank you for your support in getting this nonprofit this far, and for your patience as we slooowwwwwly ramp up. It’s happening! Soon!