Three Steps Toward Leaving the Boggy Marsh of (Political) Fear

Three Steps Toward Leaving the Boggy Marsh of (Political) Fear

While trapped in the Boggy Marsh of Fear, Alora’s friend Blaze takes three actions that begin to change everything for the two of them:

1. He pays attention to the habits and patterns of the Raven and Moose that have been putting everyone in danger and keeping everyone in fear. He notices what time of day and from which direction they tend to arrive. This helps him to see that the danger isn’t completely random, striking out of the blue with no warning. He realizes they aren’t helpless victims and there are ways to stay safe.
2. He uses this knowledge to help keep Alora safe, too. He doesn’t keep his knowledge to himself. He shares it freely and unselfishly in order to protect those around him. He remains calm while others around him are panicking.
3. He recognizes that it is foolish to stay in the path of constant danger. He is determined to take control of the situation and find a way to leave the Boggy Marsh altogether.

In this current high tension election season, we too can follow Blaze’s lead.

We can pay attention.

We can pay close attention to the words and deeds of those who aspire to be our leaders.

We can be mindful of the information sources we choose to follow and believe, recognizing that there are often agendas and spin attached to those sources. We can follow the news and social media – AND we can do our due diligence in seeking to untangle truth from lies, plain facts from hyperbole, and reason from rumor.

We can educate ourselves about history and historical patterns and understand that this moment in time did not arrive from out of a vacuum, but grew out of tensions that have been at play for the entire history of our nation. And even longer. We can learn more about our own founding documents – what they say and what they mean and what they ask us to aspire to.

We can learn more about how our government is intended to work so that we can make a rational assessment about how well or poorly it is currently working. We can also try to think rationally about the outcome of any changes to how our government works that our aspiring leaders are proposing.

The more aware we become, the less gobsmacked we’ll be when things unfold in exactly the way these patterns predicted. More importantly, we can keep ourselves safe from the worst potential outcomes by taking wise action now. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes.

We can share what we know.

In the Boggy Marsh of Fear, tensions are at a breaking point and civility seems to have flown out the window. Each “tribe” seems to all think, speak, and act the same way. It can feel scary when the way we understand things goes against the grain. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t speak up and speak out. We just don’t have to be jerks when we do.

We can share what we’ve learned and what we know with others, calmly and rationally, and with the intention of keeping them safe and/or making their lives better. This means doing our best to communicate truth, not spreading rumors and conspiracy theories. It means sharing in a way that might be helpful rather than derogatory or belittling. It means being open to disagreement and dialogue, and doing our best to keep the discourse civil.

In this 280-character, text-speak, 20-second sound-bite world, it’s all too easy to toss memes around and to let them speak for us. And while memes can do a good job of capturing attention and distilling an idea, often with humor and equally often with barbed insults, they don’t excuse us from thinking and speaking for ourselves about the things that are most important to us. I’ll admit I’ve been accused of being too wordy, but I feel like the issues we face right now are far too complex to be minimized in this way.

Let’s relearn how to have a meaningful, substantial, and respectful conversation.

We can get the hell out of the Boggy Marsh.

While we need to stay informed, we can recognize when we’re too far down the rabbit hole and dropping into a fear spiral. We can take a break from the 24/7 news cycle, get off social media for a while, go outside and interact with our friends and neighbors. We can take a deep breath, go for a walk, head to the gym, listen and dance to good music, read a book, make some art, watch something funny on TV. Anything healthy that will move us out of the Boggy Marsh, if even for a moment.

Ultimately, we can learn to harness the wind of change and steer our lives and our world toward the future we most desire. But only if we can shift our focus and our energy from fear to hopeful action.

More on that later. For now, here are some Deep Ponderings for your consideration:

1. Where do you go for information? Who do you trust to have the facts? Are you aware of any bias, agenda, or spin there? Are you willing to fact check and/or look at the same topic from the “other” point of view?
2. How much do you know and understand about the way our government works? How much do you understand about U.S. and world history? Are you willing to learn more?
3. Are you willing to speak up for what you think is right in a calm, rational and respectful way? Are you willing to go beyond the meme and engage in deeper civil discourse?
4. What can you do for self-care when you find yourself getting sucked into fear and/or anger over current political situations?

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When I wrote Fallen, The Adventures of a Deep Water Leaf, I wasn’t writing about politics. Or even thinking about politics. But lately the story has been popping back into my brain and feeling very relevant to the political landscape we find ourselves in today. And not in a partisan way, but in a human experience way. I keep being prodded to write my thoughts down – and to share them. This is the fourth in a series of on-going blogs I’m writing in response to that prodding. Here are links to the earlier posts:

1. https://claireperkins.com/stuck-in-the-muck-of-political-fear/
2. https://claireperkins.com/helping-others-as-a-way-out-of-political-fear/
3. https://claireperkins.com/shocking-events-in-the-boggy-marsh-of-fear/

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