In an ideal world, when we feel stressed–we would actively move towards the things that are going to help us de-stress. But sometimes getting going is the hardest part. Sometimes stress creates paralysis, and we find ourselves pendulating back and forth between “can’t stop moving” to “can’t get off the couch”.
If you are experiencing this, this post might be for you!
It’s five days before Christmas, suddenly Trump is back on the scene with the same vitriol he left with, and I find myself vacillating between two parts:
There’s the part of me that feels extreme gratitude and love for my family mixed with nostalgia of my daughter getting older, and then there’s the part of me that feels intense rage and despair about what the U.S. is turning into.
I recognize that I am in a privileged position to sit and think about these things and that there is always more I could be doing to help, but I also have to admit that activism has felt a bit hollow lately.
I’ve voted, I’ve protested, I’ve left voicemails and written emails, I’ve shared the information that feels appropriate to share, I’ve intentionally tried not to post or center myself at times it’s felt better to listen, and I’ve tried to plug into communities that value the same things I do. I could do more of all of these things, but the minute I start seeing Trump reappear and tapping into the dark underbelly of the U.S. with the same inflammatory language he used to pit Americans against each other in previous years–I have to admit I just want to run for cover.
When I get to this point (usually around this time every year), I’ve started to honor that my desire to unplug is usually warranted. I’m not suggesting I should keep my head in the sand or let these things go forever, but I am aware of the importance of conserving energy when I don’t have a ton of it.
With that, I thought it might be helpful to share a few somatic interventions that help me release what I ultimately tend to recognize as fear and anxiety bubbling up in my body:
1. Reversing the freeze
At the moment, I can logically recognize that I’m at least partly seeing more of Trump because I keep clicking on articles about him (dang you, algorithm!), but it feels like he is gaining traction and getting bigger every day.
This puts me in a light freeze–(Do I consume the information and gear up for the next protest or do I try to just get through the holidays? Is this even real news?)
So now to reverse this freeze I’ll imagine putting Trump somewhere far far away from me (as far away as feels good to me), and I’ll imagine him frozen in an iceberg unable to move. I’ll imagine the comments he’s made about immigrants pinging off the walls and going back into his mouth so that he has to think about what he’s said, and maybe I’ll even imagine him yelling into the air but notice none of the sound gets through the physical barrier of the iceberg.
Then I take my attention back to my body and start to tune into the new sensations created by this imagery.
As you are doing this for yourself, keep in mind this exercise is meant to feel good–this is not meant to challenge you. It might feel safer to put someone down the street so you can still talk to them if you need to or it might feel better to put them on the moon.
Your imagination is yours to explore! The only thing that matters is that you can find some peace in the space between you and whoever or whatever it is you are freezing.
This gives you some breathing room.
2. Cutting the cords.
For me, it feels like the media has a grip on my mind. The media wants me to believe Trump has more supporters than he does, and it wants me to fear my neighbor.
(*Note: Truthfully, I don’t follow politics closely enough to know how likely it is that Trump will get re-elected or what’s going on behind the smoke and mirrors. I’m just working on my own mental health here.)
So now I will imagine there are puppeteers that have placed strings on my head, and I will imagine taking a sharp pair of scissors and cutting all of those strings. I’ll imagine doing this makes the puppeteers fall off their podium, it makes their ratings tank, and I’ll imagine they have to start telling the truth if they want people to listen.
Personally, this brings me joy remembering that my mind is mine and not somebody else’s to tamper with for their own agenda.
If you are doing this for yourself, you may feel more like the cords are tethered to your heart–whatever the case, just focus on slowly cutting the cords and playing around with what happens when you do.
Hopefully through these exercises, you’ve started to regain some personal space. But if not–here’s the final one that is so simple and yet so effective every time.
3. Pushing a wall.
The act is as simple as it sounds. You can physically go up to a wall and push it with all your might while holding the image of the person or comment that you want to push away in your mind’s eye.
Most of the time when I do this, I have a person in mind that I feel crowded by, and this allows me to regain ground. Just now when I tried it I ended up using my energy to create a forcefield around the innocent civilians in Gaza. I imagined meeting every evil with an opposing good and building a protective layer around them.
I wish I wasn’t limited to imagining this, but I truly believe attempting to meet evil with peace is never done in vain.
So for now, I’ll appreciate that I feel lighter and stronger (albeit sadder) than when I started writing this. I’ll go for a run instead of doom scrolling, and I’ll keep praying for guidance.
If nothing else, I hope this exercise helps you get back in your body & recognize how much you might be carrying for other people.
We weren’t meant to carry these things alone.
