How to love when dealing with outrage.

Euphoria.
A feeling I seldom experience these days.
Maybe because of less drugs, sex and rock and roll?

But then there were the Women's Marches.  And weekend workshops. And other protest gatherings, of which I've been a part.

Central Park 1890s

I'm not into mobs of people usually, even disdaining a crowded sports stadium as a frightening experience that causes high anxiety for me.

But when people come together in a spirit of intense love, to remove a wrong having been, or about to be committed by others who have given every intention to do so, those gatherings really revive something in me.

Last night I was trying to explain why those experiences hold me fast when confronted by the scary and ridiculous political shenanigans that repeat themselves throughout the ages of our young republic.  Yes, these are not the first times party politics have been played out with shock and awe.

But the steadfastness of those protestors...that's what I'm trying to talk about.

It made me feel something that doesn't happen at other times in my life.  A group of well-intentioned people that causes a spiritual surge of love.  I swear there's an atmospheric shift when these happen. At least on heart levels...

I remember meeting someone I hadn't seen for years at our local Women's March.  She and I both commented upon our pleasure that this was an event full of love, which we'd been skeptically anticipating.  That caused us to share a joy that was somewhat a surprise.

So when I was talking with someone who didn't have that groundswell experience of shared love in community, I tried to explain how that became part of my foundation to deal with all the little tacky experiences that I continue to share on FB.  It isn't to cause any increase in people's level of anxiety.  It is to share facts, and to increase actions when they are possible.  Sure there are some scary things happening...but many of my friends on FB also have the experience behind them of knowing they are not alone...there are millions of us who can link arms (if we choose) for all the causes that need a unified action.  And action is the name of the game...at least in ways of Resistance!

I particularly liked a post which I shared, an urge to stay focused upon the strengths we have together.  I'll share a quote from it, and hope this link will stay available for a while. "How to Get out of the Cycle of Outrage in a Trump World." by Arianna Huffington.

"So we need to go back to the truth that helped the country recover after 9/11: if we are consumed by fear, the terrorists win. If we live in a perpetual state of outrage, Trump wins. Because when we become depleted and exhausted, and sapped of our energy, we’re not as resourceful, creative, or effective. The goal of any true resistance is to affect outcomes, not just to vent. And the only way to affect outcomes and thrive in our lives, is to find the eye in the hurricane, and act from that place of inner strength."

We each have an inherent center of power.  It is innate.  We are born with it.  When we learn to accept and honor it, we find our own strength and power source.  We may name it anything we like, and we often may believe it is connected to an external being, another source bigger than ourselves.  That is fine, and it gives us something to fall back on when we doubt ourselves.

But I have learned part of the outer external being that gives me my reflection of energy, is seeing the inner strength in other people who act from their own source of love.

And that is a surprise, because I'm an introvert, and usually get my own "recharge" from time alone, from being in nature, from meditation and contemplation.  What is this new stuff?  There is energy shared among people? I am so happy to find this.

Of course it can go wrong as well as very right.  I must have my own system of guards and guardians while tapping into the shared love-fest.  No this isn't a sexual energy (at least at my age I haven't found that kind of energy happening in crowds.) It's compassionate love.

This sense of caring among people is very powerful.  It is a real base of love, or Love with a capital letter.  OK, I'm an ex-hippy freak, so perhaps I'm harkening back to the days when we did say "Make Love, Not War."  And there were flower-children around at the time I was having my own children.

But today, in 2017, with Trumpian repeats of strangeness, and with politics run amuck yet again (look at the post-Civil War years in case you don't think we've done this before, or the pre-WW II isolationist years) I am able to walk around in a cautious optimism.

No matter how bad it gets, I know myself as myself.  And I know most of my neighbors will aid each other, and that's beyond politics.

Today's Quote was already given above.