A Word from Laura: Less Than Full Capacity

“It’s the election. I can’t stop worrying about it. I keep going back to look at the polling numbers. If Trump is re-elected, we’re doomed. And if he is isn’t, it’s going to be ugly.”

“It seems like we’re literally at the end of the world. I can’t believe we’re seeing evidence of west coast fires here in DC.”

“My heart is breaking after the whistle blower’s news of what’s happening to women in detention centers in Georgia.”

“I just hate getting out of bed…”

This wasn’t my exact Zoom conversation with friends, but close enough. We hadn’t even talked about school frustrations or church life or when a vaccine might be available. One friend shared that she couldn’t get rid of her anger with Trump; another, that she was worried about what would become of us. Everyone conceded at some level that they were not operating at full capacity.

I don’t believe this is just my friends; I can imagine you’ve had some similar conversations, whether on-line or in-person or over social media. The negativity bias seems strong these days, and easy to justify. Negativity bias reminds us that negative thoughts, events or interactions tend to have a much stronger effect on our psychological processes than emotionally neutral or positive counterparts of the same intensity. I see this in myself – particularly those moments of sleeplessness around 3:30 am!

Psychologists encourage all kinds of practices in response: taking a moment to recognize some kind of goodness from your day, writing a note to a person for whom you are grateful, taking a specific, concrete action in response to your specific anxiety. (If you’ve been writing post cards for Reclaim Our Vote, consider that this may be one of those actions!)

You may be doing those things, though, and still having trouble getting up in the morning. These days, I have more of those kinds of days, too. It’s a natural reaction to all the stuff better described by words not suitable for church publications.

In light of the “stuff” I simply encourage you towards extra grace and loving kindness. Starting with yourself. Be gracious with yourself, forgiving yourself when you can’t find your phone, but it’s right where you always leave it. Share loving kindness with the person who forgets the meeting because he forgot today was Tuesday, especially if that person is yourself. None of us are operating at full capacity. And the truth is, full capacity is quite rare anyway.

God’s truth right now will not be found in the election, no matter what the outcome, or the cleanup of the fires on the West Coast, or the dissolution of detention centers, except in so far as we learn to share a little more grace and love. In terms of what’s going on, these are the times we’ll discover that there’s always more going on than we thought.

Hoping for some extra grace and kindness in your life, Laura