My 2025 A to Z Challenge theme is activism. I’ve been a Black Lives Matter activist for over a decade. I’m not an expert. I do have experience to share and I’m hoping to learn from your experiences, too. We’re all in this together.

An important aspect of self-care is taking care of our mental health, especially in chaotic times. Let’s talk about some of the newer research on emotions, things that most of us weren’t taught in school or at home.

There are lots of tools to help us identify and work through emotions. Brene Brown published a book a few years ago called Atlas of the Heart. The internet has colorful charts like this one, where the center shows emotions that most of us can identify, like fear and happiness, and then moves out to help us identify more accurate words to describe our feelings.

With these tools, we can change our emotional states away from what isn’t working for us toward emotional states that work better for us. We can seek gratitude, delight, desire, and determination.

I want to highlight two emotional experiences that many of us have now or may experience as we become more engaged in activism.

The tricky situation of addiction to outrage

Let’s start with outrage. It’s addictive. This is not our fault. Social media algorithms are designed to increase our outrage because it keeps us glued to our screens, scrolling for the next thing to be outraged about. Many of the memes that we’re shown, as well as the comments on them, are generated by bots and don’t even come from real people.

There is an illusion that we’re doing something when we share the thing that cause us outrage. Often all that we’re doing is ramping up the outrage in ourselves and the people who think like us. That’s just what the other side wants is for us to be spinning our wheels and cycling through outrage instead of taking more effective actions.

The general advice is to limit our exposure to social media. What works best for me, when I get myself to do it, is to forbid Facebook for large blocks of time – particularly first thing in the morning so that I can start my day focused on something else, like my community or an action.

The delicate art of calling in Trump supporters

The second emotional experience to think through is how do we deal with Trump supporters. Some of the emotions that we might feel are anger, betrayal, fear, insecurity, indignation, contempt, and disdain. Unfortunately, none of those help us build the sort of relationships that change hearts and minds.

The first thing to do is assess the other person. Are they here for a debate because they want to intimidate me? I don’t have the time or energy, so I will disengage. For every troll comment that I get, I’ll make one more call to Ann Wagner, because if I’m going to talk to someone who isn’t open to my ideas, it might as well be my representative in Congress.

But if the other person seems a little open and, especially, if they’re feeling a little betrayed by the people that they voted for, then this is a golden opportunity. For every Trump voter that we convert, it’s the same as getting two non-voters to vote.

So, take a deep breath. Attempt to breathe away the contempt. Use the mantra “Be curious, not judgmental.” See if I can find a little compassion for this person who has had life experiences that I don’t know about. If I can get myself to feel curiosity and compassion, then I’m ready to engage. If I can’t, that’s fine, too. I’ll disengage and declare that today is a good day for some self-care.

Here are a couple of resources to guide these conversations.

This video from Dr. Kira Banks is a conversation with someone who wants to find ways to connect and engage with co-workers and others in her life.

I also rely on the book Being White Today by Shelly Tochluk and Christine Saxman. The scripts are designed for anti-racism conversations but many of them will work in this situation, too.

What I learned from those two resources is that these conversations need to start extremely gently. Humans encounter big feelings when we face changing our mindset. I may be talking with someone who feels anger, fear, or guilt and they aren’t sure whether to direct it at me or at the people they voted for.

Don’t expect to change anything with one conversation – the goal is to provide people a spot for a soft landing.

We want to do more listening than talking. Mirror back to them what I hear them say. Be curious, not judgmental. Ask questions like: How did you come to that viewpoint? What, in your experience, led you to believe that is true? How are you being impacted by what’s going on?

Listen and be supportive. If they seem open to the idea, ask them to call their elected representatives. Their calls can be even more powerful than mine because they can truthfully say that they voted for that person and expect them to take their interests into account.

How are you feeling today? My emotions oscillate with events. Senator Cory Booker’s speech and the win for the Supreme Court of Wisconsin powered wonder and amusement and hope. The whiplash of the Republican President’s tariffs and the market response led me toward compassion for people who will suffer the impacts of job loss and recession, contempt for the chaotic implementation, and anxiety about the future stability of the world economy and world order. Saturday’s rallies filled me with pride for my fellow Americans standing up to say Hands Off the things that make our country work and with hope that we can find a path together to a better world.

Manchester & Weidman in St. Louis County at about 1pm on Saturday. At 11am, there were over 1500 people. Several of us came over from our weekly Black Lives Matter vigil. We considered ourselves the relief crew and stayed until the end at 2pm.