When We Give Ourselves Permission to Grieve
How Intangible Losses Affect the Lives, Love, & Happiness of Black People
When it was announced that Carrie Underwood would be singing at Trump’s inauguration, that was an emotionally neutral moment. However, someone on social media dug up a past video of her mocking Obamacare whilst now stating to People Magazine that it is time for us all to “come together in the spirit of unity and looking to the future.” I became instantly incensed. I do not enjoy the volatility of emotions wherein one moment I can be ”just fine”, and the next moment, upon hearing news I find disturbing, I must utilize multitude modalities to restore a sense of peace and joy.
This is clearly not the first time that someone has used their platform to say something divisive only to turn around and call for love and peace for all mankind. Knowing this type of cognitive dissonance exists, some question why bother to be affected emotionally by it. Well, my response can be found in yet another pivotal quote from James Baldwin:
“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time — and in one’s work. And part of the rage is this: It isn’t only what is happening to you. But it’s what’s happening all around you and all of the time in the face of the most extraordinary and criminal indifference, indifference of most white people in this country, and their ignorance. Now, since this is so, it’s a great temptation to simplify the issues under the illusion that if you simplify them enough, people will recognize them. I think this illusion is very dangerous because, in fact, it isn’t the way it works. A complex thing can’t be made simple. You simply have to try to deal with it in all its complexity and hope to get that complexity across.
Trump’s re-election did not consciously activate any emotion until two days later. My delayed reaction is a habit that began in my childhood where I would pretend that everything was good when it was not. “Everything is okay,” has been my personal mantra to circumvent having to acknowledge and process what I am actually feeling.
After the election, I spent the first couple of days in group text threads and social media posts getting a pulse on how people were feeling. The few people who chose to talk about how they were feeling were met by commenters who were incredulous to any emotion felt and spent. The responses shifted away from emotion and towards intellect and planning. “You didn’t see this coming?!” “I wouldn’t waste one precious ounce of energy on that clown.” “I’m going to sit out these next four years.”
One of the most significant complexities I know of concerning the Black experience in America is the habitual circumventing of the emotional impact of living in this country. We can witness and gather together with collective outrage over moments in life that are expressions of anti-blackness and never get around to acknowledging and processing our uniquely personal losses. The destigmatization of mental health has freed people to not feel shame going to a trained professional to get help with a particular past event. The next step of destigmatization for black mental health is to engage in the consistent practice of processing all our unresolved emotions, especially the ones we ignore. Emotions occupy real estate inside our bodies and when that real estate is toxic, we will experience its mental and physical effects.
The scope of public incidents surrounding anti-blackness is vast. They are as macro as witnessing an unarmed black man being murdered or as micro as being followed by security guard in a store. No matter the scope, each occurrence introduces a deeper level of complexity to our grief, the desire to heal from a loss that is intangible. We have seen brutality and ignorance, but how do you go about grieving the feeling and experience of a loss of safety? This is what I believe is the source of Baldwin’s assertion that to be conscious is to be in a state of rage.
When you have someone rise to power who coddles white supremacist groups, even if your physical life is not presently in danger, the sense of potential harm, already stored in your cells, persists. What then do we do? My suggestions are not new, just necessary.
1) Decrease stress
If you are well-practiced at suppressing your emotions, begin today to find one thing in your life that reduces your stress. You know what you need. Is it therapy? Setting a boundary with a friend or family member? (Nedra Glover Tawwab has written two books on this matter: Set Boundaries, Find Peace & Drama Free).
I also cannot more highly recommend a particular type of therapy called EMDR which helps you disconnect from the trauma of your past so, although the experience still exists, it is no longer a part of your identity.
2) Increase joy
Sometimes the pain of life causes us to be numb to things that we once enjoyed. My prayer is that you rediscover hobbies and friends that are good for your heart and nurture those them.
3) Process all the unresolved emotions that is within your power to do so.
Grief does not have separate compartments inside our hearts. Grief is cumulative. Each unresolved incident is like an individual strain in an interconnected circuitry of pain, heartbreak, and disappointment. It behooves us to clear out as much of these toxic emotions as possible. I know quite a few African-Americans who specialize in the field of grief recovery. I am happy to make a referral should you be ready to begin the work.
The greatest example of self-care I saw last week was the choice that Kamala Harris and Michelle Obama made to skip the pomp and circumstance. May every choice we make be ripe with the boldness to choose, love, and heal ourselves.
