Making it through a 2025 that is NOT GREAT
This year kinda sucks. Can anything help?
In conversations with friends and colleagues, we’ve started to realize that we’re all noticing the same thing: people are on edge right now.
And no great surprise there, especially for folks living in the US. The political climate right now is marked by ICE raids, deportations, threats to LGBTQ rights, gutting of public programs, … I’m going to end the list here to salvage what little composure we have left. With all this in the air, it’s no wonder that people’s nerves are a little frayed. I have come to think of it as a bad government’s corrosive effects on our wellness. (It is perhaps worth noting that, for many marginalized groups, every government has been bad. And this sense of corrosion is something they’ve had to work against all the time; it’s just more mainstream now.)
I don’t know what this sort of thing looks like in your life or nervous system, but for me it has to do with my immediate reactions to things. If someone criticizes my work, I rush toward a defensive posture. If a loved one says something that bothers me, I automatically fume or snipe back. If a troll online says something trollish, I fire off a vicious response. Whereas in calmer times I might take a beat, pause for a minute to reflect, take the other person seriously, put myself in their shoes, instead in these here times I just crank the amp right up to 11.
If you think perhaps the year 2025 is having deleterious effects on your mental, spiritual, and/or relational health, it’s okay to acknowledge that. It’s okay to not be fully okay. But there’s no reason to just fatalistically accept it as inevitable.
Not that I have some one-size-fits all solution for how to survive (thrive??) the next 3.5 years. There are some good list-articles out there, some shorter (“What now?” from the Christian Century editors) and some longer (“How to Survive When An End-Times Cult Takes Over Your Country,” by D.L. Mayfield). One thing all essays like this seem to have in common is that they emphasize, to use a cliché buzzword, self-care.
Take care of yourself.
The thing is, for most of us self-care doesn’t just happen. We need to, like, get ourselves to do it. For instance, my unlikely and frightening running habit is something I enjoy that is good for me. It is one of the most important forms of self-care I have in my life right now. But I never really got back into the full groove of running after winter abated. Between allergies, rain, and travel, I always had some reason to skip half my running times.
No longer. When I recently noticed the corrosive effects of This Year on my wellness, I realized how helpful it would be to regain consistency in my running practice. So this week I have been out there scaring the dogs, cats, and human children.
What steps can you take this week to acknowledge your struggles and take care of yourself? I leave you with one quote from each of the two list-articles linked above:
“While it can be tempting to suppress our difficult emotions, we need to face them. We can explore healthy ways to process anger, fear, and stress—such as spiritual practices, participation in supportive communities, and therapy.” (the CC editors)
“The best way to resist a Christian end times cult that has taken over your country is to live as if the world wasn’t actually going to end. To continue to invest in the things that give you joy and pleasure and hope for humanity—to connect to nature and the earth and the vastness of time and space.” (D.L. Mayfield)
