Dear Friends,
My wife and I just watched Trevor Noah’s new special, Joy in the Trenches. Filmed at the elegant Warner Theater in Washington, D.C. which is not exactly neutral ground these days.
Buried inside Trevor’s jokes, one question kept surfacing. When things get hard, who actually shows up. Who has the courage to act, and who just watches on the side line.
History doesn’t send a save the date calendar invite. It just keeps happening while we’re busy with carpooling our kids, daily work meetings, making dinner, and just living.
Every generation has faced its own version of “the world is upside down.” I remember the anti-nuclear protests in Washington while I was in college in the 1980s. We were certain the world was coming to an end. Ours just comes with the intensity of 24/7 feed reminding us every hour.
So here’s the real question, the one underneath the comedy. Not “will history call.” It already has. The only question left is who you’ll be when you pick up.
And let’s remember, great leaders like Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony, Nelson Mandela, and Gandhi were never guaranteed an outcome. MLK was arrested nearly 30 times and beaten even more times for refusing to accept the racist policies of his day. He was even spied on by his own government. None of these historical leaders knew if they would succeed. They dove into the ocean anyway.
As therapists, we sit at the intersection of a client’s past family history and the history unfolding right now shaped by the world.
You hold this every day, even when no one names it. Clients walk in carrying fear, economic anxiety, moral injury, and potentially grief for feeling unwelcome. Some want to talk about politics and identity while others can’t bear it to others with no interested.
Either way, your job isn’t to have the right opinion. It’s to stay regulated and present enough to be in a relationship. To help them move through the anxiety and the depression, and find their footing again. To model what it looks like to feel everything and still not collapse.
Our team has been honored to be working with The Outer Work Project, and one line of theirs has stayed with me. “Not be a hero.” Something smaller and harder. Know who you are right now, in the middle of all of it, and choose on purpose who you’re going to be next.
We might not be able to see it, but we are in the middle of history right now. The question isn’t whether it reaches you. It already has. The question is who you’ll be when it does and how do you support those in your world.
Thanks again for reading.
With warmth,
Brian Spielmann
P.S. Here’s a reflection for the Therapy Wisdom Hub: when history calls in your own life, who do you tend to become? And is that the person you want to be? Click HERE to share your thoughts in our free community…
What you´ll learn:
- Vestibular Engagement for Emotional Regulation
- Using the Eyes to Hack the Stress Response System
- Subtle Sounds to Release the Peri-Trauma Response
- Effective Self-Holding and Self-Swaddling Techniques
- How and When to Apply Bilateral Stimulation
- Integration and Completing the Stress Response Cycle
