The Week That Was, Resilience, and Leadership
Last night I attended a poetry reading at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It was a perilous week in which to schedule such an event, but then what event would have been more suitable? I have a sports-nut friend - who just last week I asked to pull back on his sports-related texts to me throughout the day - who told me he had temporarily given up sports because “they were too real.”
The event was part of a series, planned by the poet Hanif Abdurraqib.
“I Guess It Was My Destiny To Live So Long is a series of nights and events that center on the spirit of June Jordan's work: not just her politically radical approach to poetics, but also her radical and expansive approach to the love poem, the form and urgency of love as a central topic, and the understanding that people, collectively, must work to build a new world.”
Last night featured the poets Sarah Kay, Anis Mojgani, and Clint Smith along with Abdurraqib.
The poets Anis Mojgani, Clint Smith, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Sarah Key
I went to the reading with my poet friend Caitlin, and over drinks and dinner before the event, she shared her grief over this week’s election. She, like many people here are scared, scared that people like them will lose long-fought for freedoms, or that a fight for dignity and autonomy - for agency! - for people like them, the “childless cat ladies”, the LGBQT+ community, women in general would be eroded. It's one thing to disagree on economic programs, on foreign policy, but it's quite another to tell groups of people that they are not as human as other groups.
And I share that grief. That is a hill I will die on, and if that turns off some of my clients, so be it.
The poets talked a lot about that grief, and their poems came “pourin’ off every page like it was written in my soul from me to you,” as Dylan put it. The poets were souls with a mouth.
And the crowd, who nodded and sighed at every whisper of dread, also laughed. Hanif told this story about how his friend’s toddler daughter was grief stricken. Hanif said, no problem, I’ll talk to her. Hanif had found his resilience.
He carefully approached the young girl, not knowing what about this week so aggrieved her. It was bath time. He was sweet with her, and asked her gently, what’s bothering you:
“I have to clean my body all the time.”
She was upset that she would have to keep doing this over and over, day after day. I understand her. I mean, I just did laundry last week! Don’t I get a certificate, like it was jury duty?
But Hanif also knew that the girl was allowed to watch Bluey after a bath. He asked her “How much do you love Bluey?” She held her arms apart and said “This much!”
Then he asked her do you love Bluey more than you hate bath time?
Problem solved.
She had learned to endure, and to keep her eye on the prize. Maybe I’ll watch a Seinfeld rerun after my next laundry.
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The American Psychological Institute defined resilience as “the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.”
Banksy “Love is in the Air (Flower Thrower)”. Credit Graffitistreet.com
It goes on to say “a number of factors contribute to how well people adapt to adversities, including the ways in which individuals view and engage with the world, the availability and quality of social resources, and specific coping strategies.” People are not born with or without resilience. We all have it to some degree, and can develop it by following the right practices.
Dr. Lucy Hone identifies three traits of more resilient people:
Resilient people accept that shit happens. The Buddha says “life is suffering.” That doesn’t mean that he welcomes the suffering. But he has to accept it, because it is a fact. We accept it, and we look for ways to better prevent and cope with the specific circumstances of the suffering. But life will also involve suffering, and that’s why you need to develop resilience.
Resilient people focus on things they can change, and accept what they can’t. When we are dealing with adversity, we must quickly assess the facts on the ground, and then ask ourselves how to move forward. This is not meant to subvert the grief process; we all deserve time to process what happened.
Resilient people ask themselves if what they are doing is helping or harming. By asking ourselves this question, we take agency over what we are doing to deal with the situation.
Leaders frequently are first recognized as such during times of crisis. They are the ones who exhibit those traits of resilient people that Dr. Hone identifies, and step up during the crisis. Think Mayor Giuliani (pre-Four Seasons Giuliani) after 9/11. Or, if you are a Game of Thrones nerd like me, think Littlefinger’s bit of evil wisdom that “chaos is a ladder.”
Winston Churchill advised us “if you’re going through hell, keep going.” Or you may prefer the Japanese Proverb “fall seven times, get up eight.” If suffering is going to happen, you can accept it and keep moving, or you can let it conquer you.
London During the Blitz, photo by George Greewell, © Mirrorpix/Getty
Time and again this week I am in conversations where people catastrophize this week. Don’t get me wrong, I started watching The Handmaid’s Tale in 2017., but it is quite wrong to assume the catastrophe has happened. We are not in Hell yet; right now it's our imagination of how things will play out based on assumptions we are making. We are giving up agency. Catastrophizing keeps people stuck. This applies to the personal, the geopolitical, and the business worlds.
Note it is equally important not to be pollyanna. Everything is not great. But there is a job to do, and we can still visualize the light.
When we expose ourselves to constant stressors, we leave ourselves in constant fight or flight mode, trapped by our sympathetic nervous system. This happens when we doom scroll. Or when we leave on 24-hour news. The SNS keeps us alive. It is meant to deal with threats we see that we must respond to immediately. It was not meant for the modern information deluge. When people expose themselves to this flood of threats, we are trapped in this fight or flight mode.
By contrast, the parasympathetic nervous system controls our rest and digest response. It lowers blood pressure and heart rate. We feel calm and composed. When our thoughts and actions are guided by our PNS, we have actions to the functions of the neocortex, including abstract planning, goal setting, creativity, and reasoning.
Your SNS says you are right to catastrophize, your PNS tells you have agency. Don’t let your SNS win dominate; it wasn’t designed for that purpose.
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As leaders, or as friends, as family, how do we help our organizations, our families, communities move on from traumatic events?
First, we must give people an opportunity to express their grief. It is part of the healing process. Resilience does not mean sweeping grief or loss under the carpet. It means doing the things to get through it and start to move beyond it.
As you are listening to these stories, acknowledge and validate their emotions and thoughts. “I understand that you are upset that we laid-off these workers. I’d be scared too if I believed there was a chance I was going to be next.” The leader must acknowledge that people lose their jobs.
But then they must also explain what is being done to prevent a new round of lay-offs, and, most importantly, explain what workers can do to improve the situation. Show the people their own agency.
Doing small things to help people get through tough times is also important, according to Dr. Hone. Offer instrumental help in small ways - offer to cut their grass, give people a needed day off.
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Margaret Thatcher said that "You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” That is where we find ourselves today. Let’s find that resilience to bring autonomy and freedom to all people. In today’s situation, I find that what I can do is to express my values as clearly as possible, without anger, and make a loud case for them. Attitudes change. In 1970, women couldn’t buy a house or get a credit card. We have made progress, and some of that progress is sticky. In 2012, Barack Obama didn’t support gay marriage. Our attitudes have shifted, but it will not be a straight line. We keep fighting.
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I Was Told the Sunlight Was a Cure
Hanif Abdurraqib
for the cloak of despair thrown over our bright & precious
corners but tell that to the lone bird who did not get the memo
dizzy & shouting into the newly unfamiliar absence of morning
light from atop a sagging branch outside my window—a branch
which, too, was closer to the sky before falling into the chorus
line of winter’s relentless percussion all of us, victims to this flimsy math
of hours I was told there was a cure for this. I was told the darkness
would surrender its weapons & retreat I know of no devils who evict themselves
to the point of permanence. and still, on the days I want
to be alive the sunlight leaves me stunned like a kiss
from someone who has already twirled away by the time my eyes open
on the days I want to be alive I tell myself I deserve a marching band
or at least a string section to announce my arrival above
ground for another cluster of hours. if not a string section, at least one
drummer & a loud-voiced singer well versed in what might move me
to dance. what might push my hand through a crowded sidewalk
towards a woman who looks like a woman from my dreams
which means nothing if you dream as I do, everyone a hazy quilt
of features only familiar enough to lead me through a cavern of longing
upon my waking & so I declare on the days I want to be alive I might drag
my drummer & my singer to your doorstep & ask you to dance
yes, you, who also survived the groaning machinery of darkness
you who, despite this, do not want to be perceived in an empire
awash with light in the sinning hours & we will dance
until our joyful heaving flows into breathless crying, the two often pouring
out of the chest’s orchestra at the same tempo, siblings in their arrival & listen,
there will be no horns to in the marching band of my survival.
the preacher says there will be horns at the gates of the apocalypse & I believed even myself
the angel of death as a boy, when I held my lips to a metal mouthpiece & blew out a tune
about autumn & I am pressing your ear to my window & asking if you can hear the deep
moans of the anguished bird & how the wind bends them into what sounds like a child
clumsily pushing air into a trumpet for the first time & there’s the joke:
only a fool believes that the sound at the end of the world would be sweet.
