The Antidote to Fear is Connection

Well. It's been a week, huh? I know a lot of us are dealing with some big, heavy feelings post-election. Personally, I'm feeling some combination of sadness, disgust, disappointment...not surprise, though, which is also sad—this country has been leaning hard toward fascism for a while. We're just being increasingly up front about it.

One thing I've been seeing a lot (and feeling some of myself) is fear. It's understandable. This is a scary time to be alive, particularly for any of us who have marginalized or minoritized identities. The hate is real. The threats to our lives are real. The fear makes sense.

And...fear can be paralyzing if we can't find a way to mitigate it or work through it.

Something I realized in therapy earlier this year, as my family was in the midst of crisis and I was feeling very scared, was this:

The antidote to fear is connection.

I've written about the importance of connection before (here and here). Learning to lean into community and care rather than trying to control everything myself (much of which is not at all within my control, no matter how much I wish it was) has saved my life this year. When I was scared that I was going to lose my Mom after my parents were in an accident in February, my community sat with me and kept me grounded and surrounded by love. My friends and chosen family have kept me going in ways that nothing else could have.

A friend shared this article by Margaret Killjoy earlier this week, which really resonated with me and got me thinking more and more about this idea. Connection—not the parasocial, vague feelings of connection that we can get from social media, but true, deep connection with others (which can be virtual, but if it's at all accessible to you, finding those connections in-person)—is the thing that is going to get us through this, if anything can.

I firmly believe that together, we can imagine better worlds into being. Not with imagination alone—it takes real, tangible, boots-on-the-ground work to build a better world—but we cannot create what we cannot imagine. And we can imagine so much more in community, in interconnectedness with other humans, than we ever could on our own.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: if you're afraid right now, that makes a lot of sense. Your fear is valid. What I don't want is for that fear to destroy you. So, if you're afraid right now, I'm inviting you to think about one or two people you could reach out to. Who can you get coffee with this week? Who can you hop on a co-working call with? Who can you walk with, or sit with, or scream with, or hug? Reach out. Isolation is what fascists want us to feel, because we're easier to take down if we're isolated. There is truly power in numbers, even when those numbers feel impossibly small. We have to start somewhere, and now is the time to begin.