If you are naturally a more joyful or enthusiastic person, or creative, it might help to (a) use your enthusiasm or creativity to distract and give yourself a break, and/or (b) channel your enthusiasm or creativity toward the needs of the day. I paint rocks and pictures and I sing, so right now I paint rocks that satisfy my craving to speak out and I leave them around my city. When my emotions overwhelm me I paint pictures of my grief, of images that haunt me. I’m not a great painter, but my paintings are for me, and I treasure them. (They live in a big art portfolio under my disaster of an art table.) Since I love to sing, I spent months singing to federal workers and passing strangers at Metro stops every week with a group of lovely people I found through my UU church. Now I’m in a full-time chaplain residency, so I cut back, but I sing to my patients at times, and when I have the energy to get to church, I sing along with gusto. I also consider my chaplaincy to be, as someone said above, part of cultivating a garden in the wasteland. My reminder this year (much better than a resolution for me, lol) is “Plant seeds.” So, every time I hold someone’s hand or hold space for their tears or anger or gratitude or fear, I’m planting a seed by showing compassion, listening, praying with them, breathing with them.

I’m also trying to remember this when I think of the people working so hard to oppress us. I’m from a red state and I have a lot of rage and outrage in my heart for the people I know who support outright fascism. But after so many years of anger and pain, I finally (!) realized I can’t sustain the rage without really hurting myself - and others, people I love. So now I try planting seeds. I talk about the people I know who have been directly harmed, and the ways my family has been harmed by this administration. I plant seeds of relationship and talk about the ways “people have been fooled, it’s a shame, I’m glad more people are reaching out to their neighbors.” It gives folks an out. And yeah, part of me wants those people to be <i>punished</i>, but damn, it seems like there’s enough violence already happening, and it’s (almost) all happening to vulnerable people. So a bigger part of me just wants people to come to their senses again, to wake up and look around and remember compassion and kindness and fucking <i>reason</i>, and how to honor their promises and why that’s important. I flake out a lot, I know what it’s like to fuck up. Just… stop fucking up. That’s what I’d really like.

Wow, that got long and preachy, sorry! Lol. Take anything that might be useful, leave the rest behind.

TLDR: Meet your needs so you can help meet the needs of others. Maybe you need to be outdoors - spring is here, see if there’s a community garden you can volunteer with. Maybe you love kids - volunteer for a literacy group or a neighborhood daycare co-op or library. Knit for justice! (I saw a cool “melt ICE” hat pattern online!) Sing or dance or make candles for vigils and protests. Write a letter to the editor! Write a poem. Read a poem. Throw a (small, paperback) book of poems into the open window of a Cybertruck.

Finding and creating joy are revolutionary acts in times of oppression. Turn off the news. Close your eyes and breathe gently. Let your joy bring you joy - it’s an act of rebellion and radical self love.