Combating Despair: The Good Things Jar
And other tools for sustenance and resistance
Friends,
I want to tell you that I care about you. I want to tell you that even in the hardest, darkest moment, I see your lights radiating out into the communities you are a part of. I want to tell you that even when things are bleak, you and your efforts matter. The biggest lie of any ruling class motivated by greed and control is that we, as individuals, don’t matter. And this is simply untrue. We do matter, each of us. And together, we can move mountains.
Some questions for you:
How are you connecting with your agency in this moment?
How are you remembering what it is you have to offer (both inside and outside the lens of capitalism)?
How are you tuning into the goodness in yourself and in the world to remember what it is we are fighting for?
How are you connecting with others who share your values of building a just, equitable world where all can thrive?
A few years ago, I tried out the practice of making a “good things” jar. This is a practice I’ve seen multiple places, but my initial introduction to it was from author Elizabeth Gilbert. This year, I decided to do this ritual again. At the beginning of the year, you find an empty jar and then, throughout the year, you take a moment to write down when something good happens. I like to do this daily when I go to bed (and when I forget, fill in the days I missed).
The good thing could take many different shapes:
When were you moved by something someone said? When did you have a beautiful encounter with a friend? When did you see a cool flower or bird? When did you go to an event that made you feel alive and connected to something bigger? When did you see something that gave you a feeling of hope or joy? When did you eat something delicious? When did you hear a song that moved you to tears?
You write the good thing down, you throw it in the jar. At the end of the year, you look back and read all the good things that happened over the course of this year.
Here was my jar on January 1.
Here is my jar now.
Do you see all these good things?
These are here IN SPITE of January being one of the longest and hardest months of my life, both personally and collectively. Every single day has brought more communal traumas, more looming threats, more hard uncertainties to navigate inside my own family and our community and world. AND every single day, I have had a good thing to take note of and write down.
Do you know how bullies win? By stealing our attention.
They don’t only come for our rights and our laws and our dreams. They come for our precious attention. They want our nervous systems to be a wreck so that we move into freeze. They saturate us with bad news. They overwhelm us with the sheer audacity of their greed, cruelty, and hate. They demand our attention. They demand our despair.
We will not give it to them.
Because we know that our beloved community members hold within them bountiful beauty.
We know that we are each other’s greatest joy and responsibility.
We know that we are strong together.
And most importantly, we know that the ties that bind us are way more powerful than the empty things they say or do to tear us apart.
That is not to say that the threats and the harm aren’t real.
People’s lives and wellbeing are at risk. The stakes couldn’t be more high.
This is particularly true for those among us who are being most targeted right now: undocumented immigrants, queer and trans youth and adults, BIPOC community members, our incarcerated community members, and all people with uteruses. For our children and adults who participate in our education system and our elders and all those who need our social safety nets.
But in the face of this attempt to strip away rights and protections, we must remember what we are capable of and what we are fighting for in order to be able to fight for it.
Below I’m going to share some resources that have been useful for me in the last several weeks. These are words and practices by smart, heart-centered people who are offering us ways to be connected to our power and agency in these times.
One of the clear actions all of us can take is to make calls to our elected officials to let them know that we object to the decisions being made that put our democracy and rights at risk.
I encourage you to make your own good things jar–to force yourself, even on the hardest days, to find something good to write down. And then to watch as those good things pile and expand.
Remember: Accumulation works both ways. Fear can accumulate. But so can hope. So can kindness. So can acts of generosity. So can mutual aid. So can community.
Remember: It matters that we pay attention to joy, beauty, sweetness, tenderness, connection. Paying to attention to what is good in us and around us–even and especially in moments like this– reminds us of our strength.
James Baldwin wrote: “The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light.”
May all beings be happy and healthy. May we all thrive. May we find our place in community and may we remember all we bring to the table. May we mirror and magnify each other’s light.
Wisdom, Practices, and Tools for Participation:
I love this prompt from YK Hong! Write a list of all the things you are skilled at! This doesn’t have to just be the things you would write on a resume. Can you stay up late to work on things? Can you make people laugh at tense moments? Do you make the best biscuits in the universe? Write down all the things you are good at and then ask your friends and community members what you are good at. Or better yet, do it together so you can remind each other of your gifts, talents, and skills.
I appreciate the experts that are reminding us that we cannot all track everything at once. Read this post by sociologist Jennifer Walter. (I’m also posting below in full). And think: where do you already have expertise, passion or roots? What are two or three things you CAN track and actively participate with? Focus your attention. That’s not to say you can’t stay informed about other things, but you won’t be able to respond to everything. What areas will you be of most service? Where do you feel called to plug in?
Don’t believe him. This piece from Ezra Klein offers really important context for this moment. Shock and awe are the point. Don’t give into the foregone conclusions they are saying are inevitable. Read at NYTimes here or on Facebook here.
5 Calls is an app that easily allows for you to call your elected officials AND for them to track how many calls are being made. They streamline the process of you letting your voice be heard.
Working Families has great resources for engagement. And I deeply appreciated these notes from author and community meme-keeper and oracle adrienne maree brown from a Working Families mass call.
A visual reminder from Alyssa Cole of how strong we are together.
A song (“One Voice” by The Wailin’ Jennys) I like to listen to that makes me feel connected to our communal power. And another one (“Why Shouldn’t We” by Mary Chapin Carpenter).
Thank you for being part of my community.
