AFFIRMATIONS in A Dark Age

Years ago, after my first divorce, my friend Peter took me aside and showed me a list he'd written up for me of affirmations he suggested I repeat before the mirror on a daily basis. The idea seemed kind of foolish and desperate to me at the time. I couldn't relate to the words, which didn't make sense to me. I felt overwhelmed with feelings, and language felt like little more than an intrusion on the process of letting those feelings go. Grateful to Peter for his thoughtfulness, I folded up the piece of paper he'd given me on which his positive sayings were written and put it aside.

A few years after that, while getting ready for a move, I found the piece of paper with Peter's affirmations and re-read them. They were simple--phrases like, "I am worthy." "Today will be a good day." "I believe good things will come to me." By then these daily affirmations were a part of me as they are common to the 12-step AA program to which I and many friends, including Peter, belonged. As a recovering alcoholic a few years into AA, I had become well-versed with its positive thinking and sayings, many of which were by then engrained in my belief system. A day at a time, and a step at a time, are examples of two I still often use.

Peter's list of affirmations came to mind today as I considered the various encumbering and threatening acts of the current administration, and the suffering it is incurring everywhere, and how it is affecting people and economies and even changing the way we think--communally and individually. Some of us want "to be a part of the solution instead of the problem," as we used to say in AA, so I'm revisiting the idea of affirmations for the current world order, searching for words that make sense to me moving forward as both a writer and activist, and that relate more than ever to important themes such as world peace; environmental justice and healing; disenfranchised people, at home and abroad; and the excesses and price of privilege, and those who wield it. These themes resonate now more than ever.

What does a list of affirmations or reminders related to these times look like? Affirmations that might help to counter the dark wave currently overwhelming so many:

Inner peace fosters peace at large

Love not hate

Mindfulness over impulsivity

Generosity instead of greed

The earth and all its beings matter

Brown lives matter

Black lives matter

Indigenous lives matter

Immigrants matter

I will step mindfully over this earth, careful not to harm beings, mindful of others and their needs and help in whatever ways I can.

As a writer, I will include, not bypass the disenfranchised, which need to be seen and heard in life and art more than ever before.

As an artist, writer and activist, I will support my various communities and work ceaselessly for justice, equality, freedom, and healing.

I will survive. (This one in honor of June/Pride month) 🌈

I would look forward to seeing other positive statements/reminders/affirmations any of you who read my blog might have to share.

                                                                           Photo of Green Tara by Arya F. Jenkins