The Struggle is Real

I am personally in the midst of transition. And why is that? Because for years now I have harbored such anger, rage, and negative toxic emotion around this country, our flailing, backsliding democracy, the greed and disgust that I have begun to feel around excessive wealth and exploitation of workers. The fact that everywhere we look we experience a climate disaster and crisis

that has been labeled as historic. Folks, as you close out this year, just think, like, go back in some of your social media postings and see how many climate

crises there have been in the last several months. And there was a time when my rage and anger was useful as things have begun to deteriorate at the rate that they are, my rage and my anger has become for me a toxic anger that has been holding me down and back right in so many ways where I found myself back in old patterns of consuming so much negativity. And by negativity I mean the news, and for me,

I read a lot. But what makes things really bad for me emotionally is when I just have the tea in the background on cable news running for hours, when I find myself just bursting into tears because I can't peel away from the tragedy porn that is playing NonStop. And what I want to offer for all of you listening as I move through what makes sense for me in terms of doing this work while also really truly not just for shit's sake, and not just to say, oh,

we need balance and we need these things. We actually don't need balance. What we need is more love. What we need is more peace, What we need is more joy. What we need is more people to do internal work so that they don't take their shit out on everyone else around them. That's actually what we need. We don't

need a balance of negativity and positivity. As things become increasingly bad, which is what we are experiencing, we need to think about ways to add more beauty, more light, more health, more wellness into our lives because the struggle is real. And I don't just say it as to be like fufu you know, uh spirituality, this, that and the other thing. There is a reason why I am saying it. There is a reason why I am practicing and embodying it, because, folks, what we are collectively experiencing.

Over two thousand children have been murdered. By the time of this recording, that number will probably be three thousand and plus and counting. I read Ahman mohedeen yes post on Instagram of his friend, a fellow journalist in Gaza, who, in the middle of reporting in his full combat gear, found out that his wife and kids were killed by an Israeli airstrike. When I say that we are experiencing and dealing with some incredibly heartbreaking, tragic, desperate grief, this

is what I'm talking about. But marinating in it right and having such rage inside of us isn't going to solve it, because trust me, if it was going to, it would have already I am now, just now, after so many years of study and reading and being in politics and policy and all of these things, finally actually getting what leaders like Martin Luther King were talking about when they were talking about creating beloved community. When he was saying that darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light

can do that. Like it's finally clicking. It was just quotes, right, It was just words for me. Oh, that must be nice. But if somebody's beaten me over the head with a fucking billy club, you know my action is not going to be nonviolent. But I have come now, folks, over the last eight years of yelling and screaming and fighting and resisting and being a warrior princess of the resistance, and realizing that I am doing some serious emotional, mental,

and physical harm to myself. You know, I look and am looking for and reading texts of different spiritual practitioners, leaders, thinkers, scholars and understanding now in a real, in a real and true way. Why just resisting and just being anti racist, being you know, anti this and anti that, and fighting against homophobia, transphobia, islamophobia, anti Semitism and all these things is not really moving the needle, because you need to create spaces of ease and rest to actually be able

to imagine and dream of new worlds. Just the consistent fighting against is just doing this. It's just rubbing thiss together, creating more friction. I'm not saying at all that I have any of the answers, but what I do know for myself is that even when I find myself screaming and yelling in rage, I have a different sense and ability to be able to then let it go and detach from it. Not because I don't care, it's simply

because I care too much. I am a deep EmPATH, which means that I take on the emotions and the experiences of people around me, and that shows up in a lot of ways. Physically for me, I've had to manage my own anxiety and depression and grief. But how can I be of service if I'm saddled with all of that. I can't, and so that's why I find myself wanting to explore love and healing and dreaming spaces

because this shit, this ain't it. I don't understand how Joe Biden came out so aggressively over the killing of the six year old Palestinian boy and talking about hate doesn't live here, and you know, and all of these things, and I'm just like, our tax dollars just went to kill over two thousand children because the hate that Netanyahu's is that he wants to exterminate and destroy has killed

five thousand people, five thousand civilians. Because matching Hamas's brutality with your own brutality, who the fuck is that serving? Who is that serving? Who is that helping? They want to say that there are two hundred hostages that are still being held by Hamas, So you think that your response then should be to demolish two million people and think that those hostages are somehow gonna miraculously return to their families. There's just not logic that is being utilized

right now. It is just ego violence and hatred that is creating this chaos and devastation that is being experienced by everyone, but particularly those people right that are trapped and have no place to escape to. You think that if that reporter who lost his entire fucking family while he was reporting on the devastation that was taking place, that if he could have sent them away, he would have.

They're not allowed to leave They're just being moved around like fucking pinballs while bombs are dropping from the sky. An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind. I actually finally fucking get it. You cannot meet violence with violence. There is too many lives that are lost when that is the attitude led by greed, hatred and toxic masculinity. We don't need to put out more hate into the world, more rage, It doesn't change anything. Compassion, love, expansion,

those are the things, Those are the tools. Why do we think right now that books are being banned because a thoughtful mind, a critical thinking mind, to those that want us to be sheep and narrowed, is a dangerous mind. Why do you think that mainstream media is so hell bent on showing just one side pain and grief because if we were to see everything, then we would demand better.

Because there is no one with an actual beating heart that can look and see the devastation that is happening and say to themselves, only one side deserves our empathy and compassion. Because so long as we're able to continue to dehumanize, to narrow our thinking and our care and only put it towards one group of people and I'm not just talking about the absolute horror that it's taking place in Israel and Gaza. I'm talking about in the

United States. I went to bed last night, as many of you did, and there was a mass shooting in Maine that took the lives of over two dozen fucking people. What are we doing, hey, clients on the rise shootings? People aren't in so much fucking pain. It does not serve us to put more pain out in response to it.

I keep thinking every time that I am in meditation, out on a walk, or just in conversation with folks that are in a place of struggle, that what would the world look like if instead of pushing outwards we cleaned up what was inside. We are a bunch of open wounds walking around harming each other because we refuse to get to the core and the root of our own pain. What is this saying that says that if you want to change the world, see change in the world,

see change in yourself. What we think, what we say, what we consume matters. There are folks right now that think that they are progressive, but are okay with genocide, are okay with war. Because you have all been lied to. We have been lied to and told that violence begets violence, and that must be the way. It's the same lie right that CEOs and shareholders have told workers. My god, if you have rest, if you have healthcare, if you

have a decent wage, then you'll be lazy. America won't be preve if someone causes you harm and you don't cause them harm equal or greater to the harm that they cause, than you are weak. What it is madness, folks, It is madness. We are being led by a bunch of fucking mad men who many believe that compassion and empathy right and pausing and reflecting and making changes to your operation a sign of weakness. What Israel is doing right now is not making them safer. It isn't so

I just you know. It's the same fucking rationale right of Republicans and the NRA that say more guns make us safer. If more guns made us safer, America has more guns than people in this country, we would be the safest country on the planet. We are not. We are actually the least safe country. But every time there is a mass shooting, people buy more guns because if they have a gun, I gotta have a gun. Jesus Christ.

We have got to find a way to break this cycle of madness, and it begins with us as individuals. What are we consuming, what are we digesting? What are we regurgitating? The push right now, folks, is to make us as small, thinking and as narrow as possible. So resistance then looks like expansion. If the powers that be desire for you to share in their hatred so that they have justification for their violence, then resistance looks like love.

We have to understand that we are all being played, and have been being played by people in power who have been manipulating our emotions to feed their own greed, to justify their own harm. We have got to find our way out of this. You know, yesterday the Republicans, the absolute clown show circus that is the Republican Party. Finally, after three weeks elected speaker. And I see all of these organizations, all of these people posting, oh my god,

he's terrible, blah blah blah. His name is Representative Mike Johnson, been in Congress since twenty sixteen. Is an absolute abhorrent person. Voted to overturn the election. Opposes same sex marriage, opposes gay people in general rooted for the Muslim ban. The list goes on and on and on. Folks. When I'm seeing people post and their outraged, I'm like, what the fuck did you all expect? Did you think that there

was a moderate in the bunch? Do you believe honestly that there is a Republican right now who doesn't believe all of those sentiments and policies that are about narrowing our lives, making enemies of our neighbors, causing as much harm and pain as possible, because you see, when people are in grief and despair, then they lose the will to actually write push for progress because they just succumb

to what is. Because when you decrease people's ability to conjure hope, if it's with a mustard seed or not, you own them because they can't seepass what's in front of them, they can't dream of something else. You can't dream when you're living a nightmare. But I said, why are people surprised? Why are we acting surprised? When I say this to you, I really want you to understand I do not give a fuck who the Speaker of

the House is. I do not care because what I know is that whoever is holding that gavel, so long as an R is after their name, they are a danger to every single person in this country, including themselves. So I am not going to waste my energy on one person when we need to develop the consciousness of those people that think there is no difference in their lives between if it's a D or an R that

is in power. Now, I just started out by saying I don't know what Joe Biden is doing as it pertains to our foreign affairs right now, because you can't get on the microphone and talk about kids, and talk about Islamophobia and talk about these things and then give carte blanche to genocide you. You can't trust me when I say that I understand how complicated this situation is. Trust me when I say that I'm not a foreign

affairs expert. What I am as a humanist, and the policies that we are okaying are not centering humanity, they are centering power. So when I look at who whatever version of clown is given the gavel right now, I don't care about that person. I care about everyone else. Recognizing that we are in danger, that does not mean reacting in fear. It means doubling down on what we love and who we love. That means not wasting time

and enner battling their lives with our truth. It means ensuring that the people that are taking care of our kids, the people that are taking care of our streets, the people that are actually doing the work to try and make this country better, have the resources, the support, the love and compassion that they need to keep going. Everyone is not called to be on the battlefield. So what

is your role? Because I will tell you that your role is not watching twenty four to seven tragedy and horror and despair and thinking that then you're going to have the energy and the desire to want to do something. I will tell you that that is the surest way for you to shut down. What is your role? If your role is a baker, to give people moments of

sustenance and joy, then do that. Your role is a gardener to make your backyard, your front yard so beautiful that when people are passing by, they say, ah, let me pause and take in that beauty. Everyone is not meant to be a warrior, but every movement has roles for us all to take up. But it requires us to have the energy and the hopefulness that change can and will happen. We may not see it in our lifetime. That's not the goal. That is your ego saying that that is the goal I want to see. I want

to feel. No, but it's about being able to lay our heads down at night. If you are privileged enough to be able to do so on a pillow, in a bed, in a home that is warm, that is safe. Because I'm telling you, folks, too many people are not centering gratitude for what it is that you have, not feeling guilty, having gratitude and thinking to yourself, what am

I doing to ensure that we can continue? That I can continue and it doesn't look like squeezing every bit of hope and every bit of energy out of yourself. Do you know how many people who have been on the front lines of movements that have taken their own lives or have died of heart attacks cancers because of the disease that has been filling their bodies. That is not how I want any of us to go out, And it's not sure as how how I plan on

going out. I will leave you guys with this, which is what I wrote on and shared on Instagram this week. As the outside world succumbs to chaos, death and destruction, the creation of beauty, art, healing, and peace become acts of true resistance. When the powerful are forcing us to narrow our minds and close our hearts, expansionism becomes our most necessary tool. How are you choosing to expand in

this time of great restriction? That is it for me today, Dear friends on Woke a f as always power to the people and to all the people. Power, Yet woke and stay woke as fuck.