Fwd: Reflections to use if helpful

[Alex Lofton]

SF fam:

Not sure if helpful or resonant for any of you or folks in your communities, but resharing what I sent to my team on the ground here in Michigan this morning as last night’s results became real.

Take care of yourselves and those around you,

Alex

co-founder, Landed.com, +1 (425) 753-2539

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Alex Lofton <alo...@2024victory.com>
Date: Wed, Nov 6, 2024 at 09:53
Subject: Fwd: Reflections to use if helpful
To: Alex Lofton <al...@landed.com>

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Alex Lofton <alo...@2024victory.com>
Date: Wed, Nov 6, 2024 at 9:50 AM
Subject: Reflections to use if helpful
To: MI GOTV Team <MI-GOT...@2024victory.com>

Team: given the top-of-ticket outcome from yesterday, I wrote a note directed towards others but realized I really did it for myself. I know you all are likely sharing a similar message already with organizers and others you've built relationships with, but wanted to shared it with you in case any of the frame is helpful. Or if you need it for yourself, that's mighty fine too.

Like I mentioned in Signal, call anytime.

Alex

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Fight, Flight, Freeze: all of it is right

You laid it all on the field. You did what was in your control. We came up short.

What you’re feeling is right.

What you’re feeling won’t last forever.

What you’re feeling means you’re human.

You are not alone. The vast majority of other humans on this planet wanted a different result. There are FAR more people out there who share a common commitment to care, compassion and decency than do not. An electoral result like this does not equate to a world that hates more than it loves.

But, all of that may not change — for quite sometime — how it feels inside right now. And, again, that is right. Don’t fight it. Let it happen.

Fear is incredibly powerful. It makes some of us want to fight, some of us want to flee, and some of us want to curl up in-place as if to prevent anything from happening at all ever again.

Some of us may be experiencing real and actual threats to life and limb. There may be very real reasons some of us must fight or flee. For some of us, to protect one’s mental health, we may need to block-out everything and everyone for a time just to regain footing. 

Still, for most of us, what we are feeling as a result of this electoral result pulls us into our worst nightmare of a future yet to bear out. It’s not to say we might not be called to face the monster we’ve always tried to avoid so desperately, but take stock: am I being captured by what could be or what is, right now, right around me, in this moment? 

For most of us, we are quite literally safe, no matter what our body is signaling to us. This is reality — because reality is only and ever this one moment. There are a multitude of futures ahead, and action to prepare and react to the future we experience together will be imperative. But in this moment, you are safe and you are not alone.

The story of humankind is one of trial and tribulation, then triumph and comfort, only to come all back around. We owe our very existence to those who bravely kept going despite the odds. I think about this often — a descendent of Black slaves in America, if they had given up, I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to experience loving, being loved, and the dumbfounding beauty in every raging river, delicate flower, or lightly falling snow.

You are right to feel what you feel. And you are not alone.

Now is the time more than ever to reach out, ask for help, a hug, a joint-cry, whatever it is you need. There will be a tomorrow for what comes next, but right now, let yourself be as you are.

It WILL be okay. Because we will make it so.

In solidarity,
Alex

--

Alex Lofton (he/him)
GOTV Director

Michigan Coordinated Campaign

425-753-2539 | alo...@2024victory.com