The hot weather has dissolved into a hazy memory and a cooler, sharper feel of autumn is in the air. I had forgotten, as I do every year, that autumn brings with it a sense of excitement, of new beginnings. The beginning of the academic year and for many the start of a new phase in their lives, whether school, college or university. Even for those of us who have long left education, there is a sense of things changing. Although we tend to associate winter with death, it’s actually autumn where the plants die, the leaves fall and the old makes way for the new. Autumn is the season of death, however beautiful it may be. We need the lush abundance of summer to transition to the millions of tiny endings of autumn. Without those many deaths, we wouldn’t clear the way for the new shoots of spring.
Following the news this week, it’s hard not to feel a sense of potential change in the air. It finally feels as though we may have reached a tipping point with the American president. Donald Trump’s former lawyer has testified at his involvement in a pay off and it is hard not to feel a small of sense of excitement: is this it? Is he finally going to go?1
It is hard not to intensely dislike Donald Trump. For me, he embodies everything about human nature that I abhor. He lies, he cheats, he seemingly has no respect for others. He appears to be driven by power and greed. He has allegedly sexually assaulted many women. His does not appear to be living a value-driven life. Instead he seems to stumble aggressively from one conflict to other, driven by the contingencies of the moment with little space for reflection. He is not the kind of person I would want my children to be.
And yet I wonder if we can be grateful to Donald Trump. For hasn’t his behavior highlighted what really matters to us? He has clearly shown us what value based living isn’t, which makes it easier to clarify for ourselves how we do wish to live our lives. I’m not quite advocating a What Would Jesus Do style heuristic2 but our reactions to his bullying twitter rants and misrepresentation of the facts are an incredibly useful guide to our underlying values.
So if you don’t like Donald Trump, think to yourself “what is it that I don’t like about him?” Is it bullying? Is it misogyny? Is it racism? Lying? Then think about what it means not to embody those traits. What are your values that underlie your reaction to Donald Trump? For me it’s respect for others, being genuine, compassionate, kind, honest. He seems to violate all of these keys values for me, leaving me with a sense of disgust and fear.
So here comes the tricky bit: Think again about your reaction to Donald Trump again. I feel anger, disgust, contempt even. I want to get rid of him as president, perhaps even destroy him as a person. Wouldn’t it be great to watch his whole narcissistic house of cards collapse around him, leaving him sobbing to himself preferably in a Saddam Hussein-style hole in the ground? Wouldn’t that be amazing? A victory for right-thinking, good-hearted people everywhere.
But hang on, what kinds of values am I embodying here? It doesn’t sound awfully compassionate to wish someone to be so utterly destroyed. It sounds as though I’m actually embodying a lot of Donald Trump’s traits here: a wish to bully, to denigrate, to destroy. A need for personal validation by whole-hearted destruction of those I consider my enemies. Do I have so little faith in myself that I need to see Donald Trump destroyed before I can feel vindicated?
In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) we would think about allowing our reactions to Donald Trump to be here, to be felt and experienced. It’s okay to feel rage at his behavior, to feel disgusted by his tweets. This is just part of our experience, an emotional reaction that tells us something about what matters to us. So it’s not that we’re wrong to feel those emotions3, let’s notice them and experience them. However we don’t have to act from them. We can pause, reflect, and choose to act from our values.
So what kinds of values do I want to embody here? What kind of person do I want to be in relation to Donald J. Trump 4,? I would like to be kind, compassionate, loving even. I would like to respect the fact that’s he’s another soul like me, doing his best while having this whirlwind of a human experience. Can I really say that I’ve never behaved like Donald Trump? Have I never lied? Abused my power? Have I never attempted to manipulate facts to make myself look better? Have I never acted from fear, anger and rage? Okay Donald Trump may do all these things on an unbelievably epic scale but let’s face it, we’ve all been there, we’ve all done some of these things during our lives.
So here’s how I want to be: I want to acknowledge the difficult feelings that arise when I witness Donald Trump’s behavior. I want to acknowledge that somewhere along the lines I’ve behaved as he has and I’m sorry for this and ashamed of it. I want to extend love to him and understanding. I want to say to him: “I feel your pain, for I have felt it too”. I want to remember that he is human: confused, lost and hurting as we all are at times. He is just like me and I am just like him and neither is better than the other.
