I just got back from Europe after seven weeks teaching and writing overseas. It was surreal to be away from my country during the election, and it feels weird to be back, given all that\u2019s going on. Parts of me are in shock. Other parts are feeling deja vu, since I was in Bali teaching a writing workshop in 2016 when Trump won, and I just got back from Malta, teaching another writing workshop and trying to hold the space for distressed American women who were students in my class during the election.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Some parts of me are feeling beleaguered, like \u201cAre we really here again?\u201d Civil Rights parts that try to be as much of an ally to BIPOC as I can feel so much sadness and hopelessness on behalf of my BIPOC friends and sister. Feminist parts just can\u2019t believe half of my country would willfully move women\u2019s rights backwards. Then feisty activist parts ready to fight rise up with a battle cry of \u201cWe shall overcome.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Angry, outraged parts can\u2019t believe half of my country could elect a racist convicted felon who sexually assaults women and wants to be a dictator. Other parts think this is America\u2019s comeuppance, that we deserve whatever we\u2019ve created as the power hungry narcissistic empire that has felt entitled to do horrible things to innocent Indigenous and African people since the inception of this country. Then grieving parts come in and I feel immense loss, too big to touch quite yet, too overwhelming to let take me over quite yet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mostly, I\u2019m grateful for my Internal Family Systems practice and my creative practices. This is why we practice- for moments like these. Artists and writers have always had power in moments like this. There\u2019s a reason they ban our books, because we are dangerous. We tell the truth and we tell it as beautifully as we can muster. We hold our quills and tap on our keyboards. We hold our paintbrushes and put our grief and helplessness on the canvas, where we find our strength and move mountains with the art we make. We start revolutions.<\/span><\/p>\n Putting all our pain on the page or canvas or into our songwriting or cooking or whatever art we can find helps us find Self again, to come back home to the sanctuaries in our own hearts, where we can hold a capacious space for all the parts that come to the surface in moments like this.<\/span><\/p>\n The road ahead will be rough in my country. As Frances Weller says, the \u201cLong Dark\u201d lies ahead. I will share his words, written the night before the election:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI am writing to you on the eve of the elections here in this country. Many of us are feeling anxious about the outcomes. Whatever happens, whoever is chosen, our work will continue to be for the benefit of this tender, beleaguered earth. There is much to do. We have entered a prolonged season of descent, taking us down into the unknown. In the imagery of myth and fairy tales, we have left the ordinary world and have entered the underworld, a sightless terrain that is shadowy and strange. I have come to call this time of descent, the Long Dark. It may be decades or more likely a few generations before we see the farther shore of this crisis, if we make it. I say this not with a note of despair, or with an attitude of hopelessness, but, instead, recognizing and valuing the necessary work that takes place in the dark.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n It is the realm of soul\u2014of whispers and dreams, mystery and imagination, death and ancestors. It is an essential territory, both inevitable and required, offering a form of soul gestation that may gradually give shape to our deeper lives, personally and communally. Certain things can happen only in this grotto of darkness. Think of the wild network of roots and microbes, mycelium, and minerals, making possible all that we see in the day world, or the extensive networks within our own bodies, bringing blood, nutrients, oxygen, and thought to our corporeal lives. All of it happening in the darkness. The requirements for this time are not the familiar ones of achievement and growth, clarity and power. No, this season is asking for a new rhythm, one that is more attuned to humility and listening, stillness and rest. I hope each of you finds little pockets of refuge that support your intimacy with soul.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Artists, writers, creative, activists- we need you now. Don\u2019t stop writing. Don\u2019t stop making your art. Don\u2019t give up. Don\u2019t give your power away. Don\u2019t stop protesting.<\/span><\/p>\n Yes, we can rest in the Long Dark with humility, listening, stillness, and rest. We can go inside to find our reSourcing and tap into Self. We can cry together and go to the ocean and wail. We can also lean on each other and lend each other comfort and community as we prepare for what inevitably lies ahead in our country.<\/span><\/p>\n ACLU lawyers and justice keepers, we need you now more than ever. You worked your asses off last time around. Here we go again.<\/span><\/p>\n Doctors, midwives, therapists, nurses- we need you too. We are midwifing a labor as we breathe and push. Right now, breathe. And when any one of us has enough strength, we push.<\/span><\/p>\n In between, we grieve. And wow, is there a lot of grief to move through our open hearts right now.<\/span><\/p>\n The morning we found out Trump won, let me share with you all what we did in my writing class, in case it helps any of you. <\/span><\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> We applied aromatherapy blends to ourselves and each other. We\u2019re all women, here, and one of us is a BIPOC American woman, so we gave her the mic- because now is a time to let the BIPOC women speak up. We listened and honored her requests. She wanted to have a chance to process the feelings that were arising and to also tap into her resilience. We validated her and each other.<\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> We went inside to check on which parts were surfacing, inviting all parts to feel free to feel whatever they\u2019re feeling. But before we let them surface, we went inside the sanctuary of our own hearts to invite our wise, mature, divine Self to take center stage or call a circle of parts. Self then invited parts to come in whatever way they wanted or needed to come, not to flood the system or overwhelm, but to be with Self, holding space for whatever parts arise.<\/span><\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> Parts then surfaced with all their feelings. We cried. We wrote down which parts were present.<\/p>\n 4.<\/strong> We gave the dominant parts the pen and allowed those parts to write, in first person, blended if need be, but with Self present to bear witness and offer presence, unconditional love, reassurance, and validation.<\/span><\/p>\n 5.<\/strong> We then wrote letters back to our dominant parts, from Self- love letters, words of comfort, mirroring, witnessing, reassurance, hope for the hopeless parts, validating words to help those parts get what they need from Self.<\/span><\/p>\n 6.<\/strong> We moved and danced to allow some of the emotional energy of our parts to flow through our bodies somatically, to breathe, to move, to flow, to get out of frozen paralysis.<\/span><\/p>\n Here are some of the songs we moved to:<\/strong><\/p>\n 7.<\/strong> We hugged. We cried. We wailed in community. We wiped mascara from our eyes. We laughed at our raccoon eyes.\u00a0 And we were able to move through the first of what will likely be many waves of shock, disbelief, denial, bargaining, grief, anger, sadness, disappointment, horror, and all the flowing emotions.<\/span><\/p>\n 8.<\/strong> We then went out into nature to do our best to accept reality, as hard as it is to do so.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As a thank you gift, my students gave me this incredible vintage shawl made of hand-batted Gozo lace, created by a Maltese lace artist who has already passed. As a strategic archipelago of islands in Europe favorable for its safe harbors, Malta has been through many wars and has been colonized by almost every major colonizer. I can only imagine that the women have been making lace to help them get through wars since the Dark Ages. Somehow, thinking about this brought me comfort.<\/span><\/p>\n I touched the delicate silk flowers and thought about what she might have been thinking about when she made this piece of art. As a practitioner of intentional creativity, I like to imagine that she was putting healing blessings and hopes for the person who might one day wear this handcrafted shawl. I certainly felt comforted wrapping it around my shoulders and feel immensely grateful to my students for giving it to me in trying times.<\/span><\/p>\n To those of you who might be experiencing a reactivation of past trauma since the election, just know this is to be expected. We have each other, and that\u2019s what we need at times like this- each other. We need our creativity. We need reSourcing. We need Self energy. We need nature.<\/span><\/p>\n I hope you can all find a way to move through what needs to move within you. My heart goes out to you- wherever you are.We shall overcome. May you all find enough Self to hold your parts in the sanctuary of your own heart- and with one another.<\/span><\/p>\n If you need a community of practice, my partner Jeff and I will be hosting a Zoom writing workshop next weekend, November 23-24, to practice an intentional life review. It\u2019s called YOUR IMPACT & YOUR LEGACY<\/strong>. Times of instability and transition are wonderful opportunities to look back, to hope for the future, to reflect on the past and reorient towards the future.<\/span><\/p>\n Now more than ever, we can use IFS and creative practices to get us through. We hope to see you there.<\/span><\/p>\n Join us for YOUR IMPACT & YOUR LEGACY here.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/lissarankin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMG_4357.heic\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lissarankin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Screenshot-2024-11-13-at-10.40.35\u202fAM.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
<\/a><\/p>\n