Why I'm Quitting Politics (Sort Of)

Cropped from original

In 2016 I worked my ass off for Hillary (mostly phone banking and canvassing), in 2020 I did what I was able to for Joe (text banking), and in 2024 I did what I was able to for Kamala (text banking, postcard writing, and a bit of phone banking). 

But on November 6 of this year, I realized something I probably should have realized a long time ago. What follows is a slightly edited version of something I posted in the Slack for Vote Save America, the organization I volunteered through during this election:

While our societal problems clearly show up in our politics, as of today I no longer believe...that terrible political outcomes are solved by different or better politics, at least not anymore in this country. Hillary and Kamala both had, in my humble opinion, vastly better politics—better policies, better campaigns, better enthusiasm, etc....and in the end, none of that mattered.

Now, let me be clear: What we (humans, Americans) do in politics matters for sure. What we (VSA) did in this race mattered, and we should all take pride that we fought like hell to try to effect what we believed would be the right outcome.

But it's like treating the symptom and not treating the disease causing the symptom. I mean, how many times have "we" said...hell, how many times have l said that Tump's ascendancy was a symptom? To use another analogy, if the masses hadn't liked what he was selling, he'd never have gained a large enough following to make a real difference. 

On what his rise is a symptom of exactly, much has already been written. And I think we all could articulate some of those reasons. (And I don't just mean, for example, racism! But also: certain groups being ignored by one or both parties/by the government as a whole, being lied to all the time by the right-wing media universe, the system being corrupted by dark money/gerrymandering/lobbying, etc., etc.)

But the kind of politics we end up with rises out of the kind of culture we have, so...there are layers underneath even all of the above. What about human dignity, respect, kindness, empathy, compassion, the greater good? Those concepts aren't just pretty words to me. They're in my heart. I care about people...or I wouldn't be here.

Humans are neurobiologically hard-wired for connection (source: Brené Brown), meaning humans need other humans to survive and to thrive. (And as a VSA friend shared, "David Graeber & David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity basically upends the 'survival of the fittest' [which in itself is a gross reduction of what Darwin was saying] idea of human history to one that, essentially, says the only ways humans were able to survive and thrive was through cooperation & collaboration more than competition. So aside from Brené Brown citing our hard-wired-ness for connection, add also the first 2 Cs I listed ^ to innate human characteristics.")

So when Kamala says, "The vast majority of us have more in common than what separates us," I think...we actually all do. It's a fact of being human. And a hyper focus by some on the differences do not make those differences any larger than they really are. 

All of that means we have to figure out how to get along (better) or...face an existential threat.

Which leads me to this: I've decided that for the foreseeable future, I can't do political volunteering anymore. At least not of the trying-to-persuade-other-voters variety. 

This does not mean I won't still be trying to make the world a better place; it's just that I believe I need to start going about it in different ways. I don't know what that'll look like yet. I just know...it'll be something deeper.

Falling Into Body Love, Part 3

I didn't expect there to be a part 3 to this story (here are part 1 and part 2), but recently, I discovered almost by accident that a few weeks prior, Lindy West had been a guest on Dr. Sanjay Gupta's podcast Chasing Life. As far as I'm concerned, that alone makes it an immediate must-listen. But I also love the episode's title, Lindy West on what we’re getting wrong about weight.

Source: screenshot from cnn.com

Lindy is probably best known as the author of the memoir Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman and therefore as the woman that the main character of Hulu's series Shrill is based on. But she also gained a fair amount of notoriety when, back in 2011, she wrote an essay (that eventually led to her writing the memoir) called Hello, I am Fat, which is well worth reading if you haven't already. So Lindy is basically known for being an unapologetic fat person—and an unapologetic fat acceptance/fat liberation person. 

The very fact that a mainstream, Western-medicine-educated, and famous doctor would have her on his podcast is significant. (For the thin people reading this: Western medicine is not exactly known for its friendliness to fat people.) 

Not only that, Dr. Gupta even said that their conversation was "really touching" and "challenged some of my own thinking." 

He also said, "She taught me a lot about what it looks like to show empathy and kindness no matter anyone's size." I plan to write more about that in a future post.

Also significant—in fact, it was the moment in the episode that thrilled me the most—was when Lindy shared some neuroscience that she had heard about online: 

When you speak negatively to yourself, your nervous system interprets that as a threat [Dr. Gupta vocalized agreement here] and kind of shuts down as a threat response and makes it impossible to make any changes in your thinking or in your life...it sort of slams this wall down between you and the ability to change [Dr. Gupta: "yeah"]. And so if you do wanna change your life, if you wanna change your body, if you wanna, you know, change the way that you think about yourself, the only path to doing that is to start from thinking kind things about yourself and being kind to yourself and that self criticism and being cruel to yourself will never actually lead to change....

Dr. Gupta responded, "I think they got it right so far, what I'm hearing; I agree with that."

When I heard that, I thought, "This confirms my whole approach!" I detailed this in part 2, but weeks before, I had begun what I call a body love practice—without knowing whether it was doing or would do any real good. I just figured it could not hurt...and then a few weeks into it, I encountered this episode. Wow. I am so grateful for this confirmation from the universe.

There's a lot more good stuff in this episode; I hope you'll give it a listen.

Falling Into Body Love, Part 2

(Source)

In Part 1 I talked about how (oddly through falling off a staircase) I had a body positivity epiphany. That epiphany, essentially, was that rather than trying (or more precisely, continuing to try—unsuccessfully, no less) to convince myself to love its appearance, I can shift the focus entirely from what it looks like to what it does for me.

Because, let's face it: For over 54 years so far, my body (on the positive side of the equation) has, among other things:

• Housed my spirit
• Allowed me to experience this life
• Carried me through the world
• Sustained me through everything I've been through
• Facilitated relating to many wonderful people

...and of course much more. 

(And to think—for the vast majority of that time, I accepted the bullshit messages society [and, not for nothing, some cruel people at times] sent its way—and added some of my own. But...I know that kind of conditioning sinks its teeth into us early and is relentless, so ultimately I can forgive myself for falling prey to it. I mean, who escapes it, really?)

Anyway, all of the above is no small thing. It deserves to be acknowledged and appreciated.

And as I said in part 1, I knew I wanted to make this epiphany into a practice. It's too significant to leave to a one-time experience in C's office. Thankfully it didn't take long for me to realize what I wanted to do to accomplish that.

So now, almost daily, I place my hands on my belly, then on my chest, and sometimes other places, and at each place, I say aloud, "Thank you" and "I love you." (For a while I started each time with, "I'm sorry." Because of course, I am sorry for everything on the negative side of the equation that it's had to endure. But going forward with this practice, I'm focusing on gratitude and love.)

Does it feel weird to talk to my body? Yeah, sometime it does. Does it feel weird to tell it, "I love you"? For sure. But I'd rather feel a little weird telling my body I love it than continuing to treat it like crap. I and my body deserve so much better than that.

Do I know whether this is actually doing or will do anything for me? At this point it's really too soon to tell, but I figure it's gotta be better than feeding it ever more shit.

And so now, when I say that I love my body, I do not mean I am thrilled with its appearance. I mean: I am practicing being loving toward my body. I am valuing appreciating it over shallowly criticizing or praising it either one. What my body is (the home for my soul) and what it does for me far, far outweigh both its appearance and how much that appearance meets or fails to meet society's beauty standards. Which are hyper-narrow, ever-changing cultural constructs anyway.

One may consider my body love practice, in addition to an act of self love, to be an act of resistance.

Because it is.

Falling Into Body Love, Part 1

Not H's staircase. Though its layout is the same as H's.
(Source: PC Photography / iStock / Getty Images Plus / Getty Images via angi.com)

The first thing you need to know is: I am fine.

And I'm telling you that because a couple weeks ago, while at my friend H's house, I slipped and fell off the last two steps on my way back down from the bathroom. Like the staircase in the above photo, a) H's turns 90 degrees at the bottom, and b) the railing ends with a large newell post above the bottom two steps. So I wasn't holding onto anything while on the 2nd-to-last step.

Unlike the staircase in the photo, H's does not have carpeting. And the flimsy knee-high nylons on my feet made it all too easy to slip on the wooden step. (I'd removed my shoes right after I entered, to honor the request for same that's affixed to her front door.) 

As I was falling, I put out my (left) hand to break my fall. As a result, the "heel" of my hand swelled up a bit and began showing a little bruising. Fortunately, the pain was not unbearable, I put ice on it right away, and nothing was broken.

Two days later, I saw my therapist, C. I told him about the fall just by way of sharing. He said that falls can be "a lot, somatically," and he used it as a starting point to see what we could discover in terms what was happening with my body. (I'm getting a type of therapy called somatic experiencing, which is "a body-oriented approach to healing trauma and other stress disorders" [source]).

We realized that when I fell, I had put my hand out instinctually, to protect my core and my head. My hand took the brunt of the fall, against the wooden floor.

At one point he asked me what would it be like if I thanked my hand for protecting me. I didn't say anything for a bit because the prospect of thanking my hand aloud felt weird. But he didn't comment on the fact that I wasn't saying anything. I was thinking the "thank you," though. 

And in that moment, tears came, quite unexpectedly. I didn't know where they were coming from, but also in that moment, I realized that throughout my life, society, other people (socially), and even I had given my body a lot of shit (mostly for what it does—and does not—look like). However, my body has always been there for me. And—I can thank it for being there for me. 

This might be the best kind of body positivity. In other words, rather than thinking my way into loving what my body looks like or even putting undue focus on that at all, I can thank my body for doing what it does for me and for what it continues to do for me every moment of my life. C asserted that my body is not judging me for judging it. It is there for me regardless. Which is such a lovely thought.

Side note: I'm so excited that something that felt (mostly) good while it was happening, that was noticeable, that's even memorable and actionable happened in a session. (There've been too many therapy sessions—mostly before C—where that wasn't true.) I'm even motivated to make it actionable. Who even am I right now?!?

Anyway, I knew immediately that I'd want to make this epiphany into a practice. I know from experience that if I didn't make it a practice, the epiphany would recede into my memory, and I'd never actually gain much from it. 

More on that in Part 2.