Don't let this political reality derail the progress you've made

Balancing self-care and community care as things fall apart

“We must trust that as the most pro-social creatures on this planet, choosing ourselves and prioritizing self-care organically expands into social care, nurturing a society rooted in empathy, respect, and social justice.” -

Tamu Thomas

, in Women Who Work Too Much

Whew. I feel the need for this right now: Self-care, but not just any kind of self-care. Specifically, the kind that “organically expands into social care,” as Tamu Thomas puts it so beautifully. 

How about you?

Faced with a gazillion Deeply Alarming Unknowns of a second Trump presidency, I wonder if many of us who feel Deeply Alarmed tend to gravitate toward one of two extremes. 

On the one hand, we might prepare to spring into action, mobilizing ourselves and others to protect the most vulnerable people among us. There’s no time to waste. We have to be aware of every step the powers-that-be take so that we know how to resist. And we resist with all our might. Constantly, without pause.

Or, on the other hand, we might prepare to hibernate. We gather a couple trusted friends or family members, focus on the small things in our personal lives that bring us joy and sustain our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual sense of well-being. We tune out the news because what is there to do about it, anyway? It only makes us feel awful.

Not gonna lie, sometimes I’ve thought it would be nice to just hibernate for the next four years or so / Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

I wonder if there’s a middle way. Really, I’m clinging to a hope that there’s a middle way. 

A way of caring intensely for ourselves and others at the same time. Of loving our neighbors as ourselves, without forgetting that this means we love ourselves. We love ourselves well.

Shortly after the election results came in two weeks ago (my goodness it’s been a long two weeks, hasn’t it?), I saw someone post something along these lines: I don’t know who needs to hear this, but don’t lose your sobriety over this.

I’ve never experienced alcohol addiction. But I still felt this post when I saw it. Both on behalf of those who have struggled with alcohol specifically, and also on behalf of all of us who have been making some real progress in different areas of our lives and are at risk of having it all derailed.

For those on a health and wellness journey, maybe it’s: Don’t stop working out over this. Don’t stop taking daily walks over this. Don’t poison your body with excessive sugar over this.

For those with a history of retreating into privileged enclaves but who have been trying to reach out, branch out, connect with a broader community: Don’t lose your others-minded-ness over this. Don’t lose your community-mindedness over this. Don’t give up on trying to connect, build, serve, give.

For those who are recovering from an outsized need to do all the things and be productive every second of the day and meet everyone else’s needs at the expense of their own: Don’t go back to wearing yourself too thin over this. Don’t surrender your hard-fought progress in self-care over this. Don’t neglect your own needs over this.

Do you connect with any of these things?

Or is there another message you might need to hear—something else the Deeply Alarming Unknowns of this season have surfaced for you? Something you’ve been working toward that’s easy to give up on, or something unhealthy from your past that it’s easy to go back to when everything feels terrifying or depressing or just so hard?

Maybe we need some inspirational pants in this time… / Photo by Jake Espedido on Unsplash

 As Brandi Miller (

Brandi’s Substack

) of the Reclaiming My Theology podcast put it in this reel, we are staring down the barrel of some legitimately scary possibilities. Some terrifying losses of civil rights.

In the midst of this, as we figure out what it looks like to love one another in this new era―one that many of us didn’t choose, but that we’re all stuck in together now―I want to see us also keep intentionally and wholeheartedly loving ourselves. 

I want to see us collectively practicing radical self-care, in ways that don’t isolate us in privileged bubbles but connect us more deeply with one another in diverse communities.

Personally, I hope to not let Trump’s election—and everything that has followed and will follow—keep me from practicing the self-care commitments that have become important to me. Things like:

• Going to bed early (and at a consistent time)—giving my body the chance to sleep as much as she wants whenever possible.

• Consuming less sugar—and more of the foods that actually give energy and nourishment to my body.

• Releasing myself from the need to read all the awful news all the time and know every single terrible thing going on in our world. And relatedly: resisting the need to be a (nice white) savior and fix all the things—singlehandedly and immediately, of course, as a white savior does.

• Spending time with people who genuinely bring life and wellbeing to my soul and my whole being.

• Engaging with church in ways that feel life-giving for me, and not in ways that don’t.

• Walking, walking, walking—particularly in places that feel peaceful and/or where I can commune with some awesome trees.

What does radical self-care look like for you in this time, or what do you want it to look like? It’s only going to become more and more important. 

I want to continue to prioritize these sorts of things, and to see them naturally expand into community care. I don’t always know exactly what this looks like―and of course it can look a million different ways for different ones of us in our different communities. But I want to see us, in our own unique and creative ways, aiming for that space where self-love and others-love aren’t even at odds with one another but feed into and reinforce each other.

We don’t have to hibernate, exclude, become hermits, circle the wagons and self-protect at all costs.

But we also don’t have to give and extend and give and extend until there’s nothing left of us. For those involved in evangelical communities at some point in our lives, this may have been encouraged. But it is not the way forward.

I think we can learn to balance care for ourselves with care for our communities, especially care for people most immediately vulnerable to some of the scariest things—deportation and other forms of anti-immigrant violence, racialized violence of all sorts, anti-gay and anti-trans legislation and other forms of violence.

I don’t think caring for our own wellbeing means we hunker down and only interact with a couple people we know and trust and see if we can wait out the next four years (or however long) with as little personal scarring as possible. 

I do think we can find ways to gather and expand and serve and love that call on our all courage—without depleting our own health and wellbeing in the process. 

I don’t pretend or presume to have all the answers as to what that looks like. But I hope to keep exploring it here with you all. Thanks for sharing this space together.