A couple of days ago, Vice President Vance came to my little mountain town in central Vermont…and we rallied. It was estimated that somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 people showed up to line Main Street with messages of descent. As big protests go, this was small. But to put this in scale, you have to know that the population of the town of Waitsfield, Vermont, where 1,000-3,000 people gathered to speak their minds, is just shy of 1,900 people.

It felt like Mother Nature knew we were there to speak for her, because the single digit temperatures parted and made way for a warmer-than-usual morning—no rain, no snow, no wind, no bitter cold, just for a few hours. By the afternoon the snow blew sideways, and the temps plummeted back down to where they had been so quickly you could watch the thermometer needles spin. But for a few hours, Mother Nature made it easier for us to gather.

And we did.

I don’t pretend that our rally is going to change any decisions coming out of D.C. today. I don’t think anyone with far-right conservative agendas is saying, “Whoops! We pissed off the people of the Mad River Valley! We better pull back on Project 2025.” But what I do know, firsthand, is that rallying made a difference. It made a difference in how we felt.

Gathering and swelling our voices felt like a relief. It felt like hope. It felt like humanity. It felt like personal power. It felt like taking care of each other.

It felt like speaking up and standing up and holding each other up.

It felt like not giving up.

Without a doubt, it lifted us up.

And that matters.

That’s resilience – the strength to keep moving forward in hard times; the fortitude to choose to be and see light in darkness.

Our resilience is our most valuable asset right now. We need resilience so we can take care of ourselves and each other. We need resilience to be courageous enough to speak, otherwise we risk going silent. And isn’t that the thing we all hope we will never do in a moment like this?

Some experts theorize that the current administration is moving so rapidly and aggressively against constituents’ interests expressly to tear down our resilience. If the masses are made to feel powerless and despondent, we become easier to control in the name of the interests of a very small minority. When our basic needs are not met – our need for safety, our health and our access to healthcare, our access to truth and education, our financial and employment stability – we have to focus only on survival. We cannot fight for our rights, for our neighbors’ rights, or for our democracy if we have to fight to keep the wheels on day by day.

To thwart this plan, we have to stay resilient, even in the face of these mounting stressors.

Your resilience is an act of resistance.

I felt my own resilience bucket fill to the brim through the simple act of rallying with my neighbors in my little mountain town.

Gather. Use your voice. Come together. Hold each other up. Keep your bucket full. Your resilience is your superpower.

xoxox  

-Lindsay

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I will keep doing whatever I can to continue to RESOURCE YOU UP!!

1)   Workshop for therapists, teachers, doctors, pastors!

If you are taking care of others in these wild times, you know that IT’S HARD TO BE A CAREGIVER RIGHT NOW! Let’s talk about it.

Register now. 6 CEs available for mental health providers in Vermont

I am hoping to market this paper free…please help me spread the word by forwarding this on to your colleagues!!

2)    A reminder that you can pick up my Resilience e-course for $10. Use promo code STAYSTRONG at checkout to get the discount.

3)    Women’s rights are under attack, and there’s no time for us to be stymied by our own internalized repressive beliefs that make us doubt our own power. It’s time to shake that off. It’s time to rise.

Here are some options:

  • Work through my Women’s Awakening e-course at your own pace.
  • Send me an email to get on the list to come to my next retreat.
  • Get in touch to sign up for some personal Women’s Awakening Intensives, in Waterbury, VT, or via Telehealth.

4) Want to hear and see more about the rally? Here’s a link to an article from VT Digger. We even made it into BBC News, and the Jimmy Kimmel Show!!

The little state that could.

Let’s resource other people, up, too! Know someone who might benefit from something in here, or from periodic positive messages? Send this their way.

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