When The Force Is Disturbed: Six Months Later

I hit a hard spot on my recent road of always traveling to that Mountain of Awe I hold as an ideal for living my life at its best. I tried hard, as is my wont to get myself out of the pit which this hard spot soon brought me down into.

For several days I scoured my surrounding scenes to see if I could find how I had gotten myself into this predicament, at first unable to make any sense of it. My difficulty was especially noticeable to me as it is now my birthday month. And princess of my father and extended family I was raised up to be, I always look forward to July --- and – even halfway into August, weather usually accommodating, as a time for celebration. The fact that my daughter and husband also share July with me as a birthday month heightens the time.

But try as I might I could not find joy and celebration inside of me. And outside didn’t seem much better. So I thought and I thought. I meditated and contemplated. I added extra exercise and improved nutrition to my daily practices. Still the darkness lingered on.

What could account for this malaise I asked myself – and – my best friend, Sue who is, like myself also a teacher/healer.  Getting odds and ends off my chest with her, I finally came to a bit more clarity.  I was, emotionally, back where I had been struggling not to be last December. And, oddly enough, especially for me, I experienced myself as doing less well than I had been. Had I been riding on my natural optimism and idealism? Or was it that the brunt of reality, in our new order of living in the United States, was just taking time to impact me.

What to do? What to do?

I went back to my writings; blog articles and book stuff, revisited podcasts of radio shows from the end of last year, eventually finding one, When The Force Is Disturbed: What Do I/We Do?, that showed me the source of my distress. It seemed to be that six months into Donald Trump in the Oval Office, has not brought any discernable evidence of progress, as far as I can see. 

All I am seeing right now is a lessening of upward movement in this country that I am reminded, particularly on the fourth of July, I love so much. Maybe we are just simply in a transition and things will improve. But today the land of hopes and dreams my grandparents chose as the place for building a future for themselves and their future generations seems pretty much without hope and without much room for dreams.

I wish Donald Trump and all of us the very best success possible. And, now I know that many others in this country had been feeling ignored; their many concerns and plights disregarded. I don’t want that for anyone, including myself, my family and friends or nearby community.

With these thoughts in mind, my thinking turned, once again, to what I, and possibly others, had been suggesting as a metaphor for these troubled times, which indeed they are throughout our nation, the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars --

 “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror….. I fear something terrible has happened.” 

Do these words not reflect how millions of United States citizens are responding to Donald Trump winning the 2016 presidential campaign? Six months after I first took up this image, I am finding it harder, at least for the moment, to hold on to my optimism about positive outcomes with Trump in office.

Nonetheless to help pull me out of this pit, I listened carefully to the radio show broadcast, When The Force Is Disturbed: What Do I/We Do?  I did right before New Year’s Eve with my honorary daughter Terry. And found myself reminded and uplifted by my words of advice to her – and – her conscientious insights, as she is struggling so hard to do the “right” thing for herself, her family, her clients (Terry is now a social worker) and her community in these challenging times.

In the discussion Terry and I are having in this program, she is stressing that what helps her most in times like these are –

• Connection with others;
• Validation of her emotions as a means for helping her sort out her thinking and feeling and gain clarity; and 
• Self care.

I think Terry's formula for living through these hard times fits what I think probably helps me most too.

I invite you to listen to that program, now on podcast, to remind yourself of the right path to walk in these troubled times. The podcast lifted me. I hope it might do the same for you, along with its helpful hints on how to live through a time when the Force is disturbed and not promising to quiet down any time soon.