Because of this, once the dust of post-election disbelief had settled, I felt the need to hit the ground running. While my friends reeled and grieved because they’d tried so hard for nothing, the shame of knowing I hadn’t tried at all moved me to throw myself into every cause I came across. I read every article. I signed every petition. I called my representatives. I made stacks of frantic to-do lists.

During this time, a lot of people were talking about the importance of self-care in the aftermath of the election. Breathe, they said. Take a bath. Call your mom. Here’s a picture of some puppies. Is everybody feeling okay?

All of that was fine for other people. The people whose lives and rights were now endangered because of the sort of inaction I was guilty of – those people could process. They could take bubble baths. I had to get out there and fight.

The thing about fighting, though, is that really, you have only one weapon: yourself. You can march in the rallies, you can go to the meetings, you can stay up late poring over all the books you should have read in college, but no matter how passionately you throw yourself into these things, the only tool you have to work with is one with inherent limits. Your body can only coast on endorphins and adrenaline for so long. The further you drag it past its comfort level, the less it works – and your brain goes right along with it.

Last summer, a member of my immediate family was in a coma for a month after suffering what can loosely be described as an aneurysm. Following a successful surgery, he was scheduled to be taken out of sedation over the course of several weeks. I had flown from New Orleans to California to be with my family during his surgery, and I wasn’t sure I could stay long enough to be there when he woke up without compromising my job and income; I was distraught, determined to be there for him but faced with considerable consequences.

During this time, a friend of mine weighed in with a simple reminder: “This is a marathon, not a sprint.” While it seemed like the most important thing in the world to be there the moment his eyes opened and he came back to a changed life, that moment wasn’t the only one he would need support in. Weeks, months down the line, he would still need to figure out the details – sometimes profound, sometimes mundane – of how to return to normal life. Giving up everything just to be there at the most dramatic moment, and compromising my ability to provide consistent support throughout what was to come, simply didn’t make sense.

What I’m trying to say is this: folks, this is a marathon. A four-year marathon (because, so help us God, it’ll be only four) which will require much more of us than we are used to giving. If you want to be a warrior, that’s great. But warriors don’t wake up one day and stroll onto the battlefield. They train. They hone. They take the time to equip themselves with the skills and strength necessary to go out there and get things done.

It may look like history is made through the grand, dramatic actions of a handful of heroic souls, but those actions are just the most visible peak of a foundation of consistent effort. Yes, we need people storming the gates. But we also need people in the background, preparing for when those in the front lines need to tap out. We need people sitting in quiet rooms planning the next move. We need people raising children and growing food while the battle’s being waged, because the world doesn’t stop even for an apocalypse.

Even if it’s the last thing you feel like doing, self-care is as integral to the revolution as action. If you’re not sure how to start, the basics are very simple:

1. Eat. Eat vegetables, eat protein, eat enough. If your activity levels have changed, feed yourself accordingly.
2. Sleep. Give yourself time to sleep, and adjust your evening habits to make sleeping easier (cut off Internet/social media half an hour before sleep, take some melatonin, reduce light/noise in your environment, etc.).
3. Drink water. So much water. Get used to taking a water bottle (or several) wherever you go.
4. Exercise. This doesn’t have to mean hitting the gym, either – just do something that’s strictly physical. Stretch, dance, go for a run. Have sex while your insurance still pays for birth control.
5. Go outside. Even if “outside” is a dumb little stream across from the parking lot outside your office building, put yourself somewhere where you can easily focus on nature.

That should get you started. If you need more specific suggestions, here are a few things that have worked for me:

6. Laugh. Be with friends, watch a stupid movie, get your dog to do that thing with his nose.
7. Build rituals. If you’ve raised a child (or even a pet), you know that consistency is a big part of creating a stable environment. Whether it’s balancing your checkbook or listening to your favorite podcast, make some habits that can be pillars of consistency in your daily life.
8. Give yourself concrete, feasible tasks. If that means calling your senator or donating to Planned Parenthood, great – but if you have to start with cleaning your closet just to get some sense of accomplishment or control, that’s okay too.
9. Pace your news intake. There’s a lot of information flying around right now, and it’s more important than ever to be informed – but again, remember, your brain has limits just like the rest of your body. Bookmark or make lists of things you want to read or research, but don’t gorge yourself on information. You’ll retain and process it better if you take it in controlled doses.
10. Self-care together. It can be hard to take care of yourself when you’ve been conditioned to prioritize others, so do both. Reach out to your friends and find things you can do together, and support each other in taking care of yourselves.

And lastly…

11. Freak the fuck out. Getting things done often means keeping your emotions in check, so it’s important to balance that with letting yourself feel what you’re feeling when it’s safe to. If you need to be alone to do that, give yourself time to be alone. If you need to be with people to do that, find a time when you can surround yourself with the right people.

However difficult it might be, force yourself to recharge – and then charge.

Betsy Arant is a writer and farm worker living in New Orleans. Her work has been featured in Cricket Magazine, The Iowa Source, University of Wisconsin Flash Fiction, The Green Room, Art Scene, Go World Travel, and the Yahara Journal. Her literary installations have appeared in the Wormfarm Institute’s Woolen Mill Gallery and Farm Aid.

The post Self-Care in a Time of Revolution appeared first on Newfound.

Yet, in the middle of this summer that feels as if the world is coming apart at the seams, I find myself turning towards my turn in the classroom this fall with renewed energy and, importantly, renewed hope.

In a recent essay for The Guardian, Rebecca Solnit returns to the topical terrain of her 2005 book “Hope in the Dark.” Hope, Solnit argues, is “not a sunny everything-is-getting-better narrative…” Instead, Solnit suggests, we should look for hope in the unknown, the uncertain, the failure and the unpredictable. Hope dwells in “broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act,” offering “an account of complexities and uncertainties, with openings.”

This account of hope sounds a lot like pedagogy when it is at its best and most vital.

Pedagogy operates in the intersections and interstices between teachers and students, classroom and world, individual and community, public and private, inside and outside. It is both what learn and how we learn. Pedagogy is both an encounter and a process of discovery, praxis and reflection. It calls into question even as it holds us accountable for the questions we ask and the answers we venture.

The kind of pedagogical work we do in the classroom is both profoundly hopeful and deeply political.

But this isn’t the kind of “politics” that centers on government and policy, the kind of political that trades in student learning for standardized tests, polling numbers, and PACs. Rather, I’m talking about what philosopher Hannah Arendt describes as polis – the community forged in the “space [that] lies between people living together for [the purpose of speaking and acting], no matter where they happen to be.”

The classroom is a moment of possibility, an ephemeral potential for polis. But political life, in the Arendtian sense, is also public and plural. The classroom provides a common space and a common world in which we become visible to others as individuals, the sources and vital voices of differing perspectives. This “space of appearance” provides the ground for public engagement and political possibility and offers a model of citizenship built on reciprocity and community.

Solnit writes, “This is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative movements that could not be foreseen. It is also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both.”

Pedagogy demands that we see the world around us. Politics demands that we see each other.

As we return to the formal and informal classrooms of the world this fall, my hope is that we can build the kinds of pedagogical experiences that open possibilities for action and engagement, that allow us to tell the deep histories of the wounds that continue to fester even as we find new avenues for healing.

When our politics seem to fail, pedagogy gives me hope.

Katie Dyson is a PhD candidate in English at Loyola University Chicago. When she’s not teaching or working on her dissertation, she reads the internet.

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