In a training session on Trauma Resilience the presenter who has worked the earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, and large disasters across the globe directly assisting people who appeared to have lost everything, forever, gave me a life saving question to ask.  She taught people how to help themselves and fellow victims of disaster by counseling themselves and one another into a survival mode for the long haul of recovery. She asked them after listening to stories of loss; “And what else is true in your life?”. 

Make no mistake regarding this current ongoing story of loss of democratic institutions; recovery is a long haul. If you live in a democracy, your power comes and goes over a life time. This current struggle will be part of your life for some number of years into your future.  You are experiencing an internal collapse of structures you thought were permanent non-conscious fixtures guiding such attributes as dignity, loyalty, patriotism and reverence up to now in your life and the nation’s history.  In a sense you are experiencing an earthquake of your version your spiritual and secular institutions.  I want to offer to readers of all faiths and beliefs this same life saving question:  What else is true about your life?

Every new life guard is warned “guard your life first as it does no good for you and the drowning victim to die together.  This writer’s warning to match every hour of activism with two hours of exposure to your version of beauty and happiness was more than a bit of poetry and cheerfulness.  Your body can not survive progressive bitterness, stress and anger over the course of years.  You are in this for the long haul.  If you have a spouse, partner, friend, family, or love, focus on the joy of those relationships. If you have a city park, a gorgeous lake walk, a state park then savor those environments.  If you love doing art redouble those skills and vocations.  If you like to dance then dance, dance, and dance some more. To prevail in this struggle you must outlive or outlast the disaster and that can only happen if you balance your human needs with your activist responsibilities. So ‘good’ for you is to know and celebrate your deeper, true personal sense of good while you move into your adapted identity and next world. That ‘sense of good’ is also truth,