By: Gwynneth Bensen
For some, engaging with the world can feel stressful and scary even on a good day. Now, with hard-won civil liberties under threat, many of those near and dear to me are experiencing a spike in fear based on increased social and structural discrimination and violence. Throughout history, those who face direct and structural violence based on one or more of their identities have developed various pathways to increased self-efficacy and tools to help themselves and one another survive and thrive. So how can we cope in a world designed to make us feel small and powerless?
Coping isn’t all journaling and naming 5 things you can see. Two major ways to exert your autonomy and care for yourself are resilience and resistance. According to Suarez et al. (2020), resilience involves changing yourself to respond more effectively to your environment. Paradoxically, this change often begins with acceptance of yourself exactly as you are. One way to accomplish this type of acceptance is through mindfulness—making contact with your own experience to increase your self-compassion, self-confidence, and repertoire of choices for action. Check in for a moment: what thoughts do you notice coming up as you read this? What sensations are occurring in your body? See if you can name one or more emotions that you’re experiencing, and see if you can observe them without judgement.
Resistance, on the other hand, involves taking action to change your environment. Contacting your representatives, donating to mutual aid funds or larger aid organizations, volunteering your time, and protesting can all be satisfying actions to take. However, Suarez et al. also note that when you don’t conform to the expectations of the dominant culture, simply existing in the fullness of your authenticity is an act of resistance in and of itself. Embracing our authenticity can allow us to form more satisfying connections, devote more energy to community care, and begin to build an environment based on care and support rather than domination and control. With safety in mind, what acts of resistance feel most accessible to you? Which ones might you like to explore moving forward?
Even under the harshest conditions, there is power and choice to be found. The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr asks for “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Dr. Richard C. Schwartz, the founder of Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS), asserts that each of us is born with the inherent capacity for calmness, clarity, curiosity, compassion, confidence, courage, creativity, and connectedness, but that through our experiences, we learn beliefs and survival behaviors that lead us to deviate from these traits. If you would like support in learning to accept your experience and connect with your inherent courage and internal guiding wisdom, please reach out. You already have everything you need, and help is available to assist you in uncovering it.
Gwynneth is a Counselor In Training at The Center for Mindfulness & CBT. A lifelong interest in human emotion and behavior combined with a passion for creating a safe space for the full expression of one’s truth has carried her over to the counseling profession. With extensive experience in entering into the subjective reality of others and searching for underlying motivation and meaning, Gwynneth is committed to facilitating clients’ improvement of their relationships to their internal experiences (thoughts, emotions, self-concept), thus improving the quality of their interpersonal relationships as well. Click here to learn more about her.
Reference
Suarez, E. B., Logie, C., Arocha, J. F., Sanchez, H., & Shokirova, T. (2020). Contesting everyday violence: Resilience pathways of gay and transgender youth in Peru. Global Public Health, 16(5), 706–728. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2020.1856397
