Over a year ago when I started worrying about a possible Trump victory, a few of us began interviewing activists in authoritarian regimes. We talked strategy and politics, tactics and reading the landscape. (Some of those interviews are over at Waging Nonviolence.)

Something every single person fighting authoritarians told us: Protect your psychology. Let your heart stay soft. Their aim is to wear you down.

Everyone talked about the overwhelming, all-consuming nature of living under an authoritarian regime — how an authoritarian attempts to occupy all spaces and times. In response, some of us feel we have to to react to everything and burn out, or others try to tune it all out and shut down.

Nearly every person we interviewed talked about the danger of a calcified heart, that can’t be open to the shifting terrain and to previous opponents when they are ready to turn towards us.

One colleague from Turkey quipped, “There’s always something bad happening every day. If we had to react to every bad thing, we’d never have time to eat.”

Starting this week, I noticed I have been seeking permission from friends to take care of myself and find a better rhythm amidst it all. Today I want to give that permission to each other and ourselves to honor our grief at all the horror we’re seeing and enact behaviors for sustained activism.

The behaviors each of us needs to take will be different, because our needs are different. But we live in a dominant culture where being Human is under attack — so it’s against the grain to feel the feelings of sadness, rage, pain, the inability to stop bad things…

Some ways we’ve tried:

• I’ve been gathering with fellow Quakers during the 12:53pm Minute of Silence. During it all I could feel my heart just breaking with the devastation. After the silence I shared through tears one moment that kept running through me. It felt minor, but our access points to grief can be anything. For me it was this: Illegally fired federal workers have been gathering regularly outside Congress to jointly and publicly do job searches. To organize it each day they have volunteers fill out a form to pick up food, snacks… the regular. But one column really caught me: “Kleenexes.” There are tears to drown a nation. So I’ve been letting my tears come.
• I’ve been working sometimes 12 hour days in response to all this. I know this is fully unsustainable for my life and need to downshift, despite the chaos. So I’ve begun scaling back — because I love life and I don’t want to lose that to the burnout.
• I’m rebuilding my boundaries around social media and news. I’m filtering more.
• I’m seeking more meaningful time with friends.

That same friend from Turkey wrote to me recently and urged: “Take your time. Remember to breathe. Live the stuff that you want/believe/get excited by. Spend time outdoors and with loved ones.” The prophetess Autumn Brown wrote, “Make Art. Make love. Raise your kid. This is going to take lifetimes.”

Another friend shared a beautiful song whose lyrics include: “Good God, if it’s the end of the world, tell me it is also a beginning / ohhh, and let LOVE reveal what is at the heart here for learning.”

Years ago Pamela Haines and I wrote this list of 7 behaviors for Finding steady ground: strengthening our spirits to resist and thrive in these times.

These are just starting points — not advice — but burning ourselves out will only be of service to the authoritarian. We all have to find our pace, our speed, our way.

So whatever wisdom is nestled in your heart about your own well-being, we encourage you to do it. You have full permission be your fully loving Human self.

With gratitude for all forms of resistance in this moment,

Daniel Hunter, Choose Democracy