Trying to maintain perspective with shadow work since the 2025 American inauguration
It was the worst of times … it was the worst of times …
“With perspective, we see that we can choose how to respond to life … Wisdom, is when we channel what happens in our lives, towards the responses that serve harmony, that serve peace”.
George Thomspon: The Subtle Art of Losing Yourself — Full Life Changing Documentary
The trouble is … this is not a drill
It’s February 20, 2025, and it has only been one month since the new administration has taken office. Period. Thee end. … Because we all know what’s going on in America right now.
Buuut here is another writer’s perspective. My angle comes from the perspective of attempting to maintain shadow work as a first-and-a-half-ish generation Mexican American living during the reign of Donald Trump.
The video below breaks down the meaning of shadow work:
Shadow work is not for the faint of heart. It takes a level of self-awareness and the desire to appreciate and continue on the path toward self-actualization:
an ongoing maturational process of becoming one’s authentic self.
The Concept of Self-Actualization and How It Impacts Our Lives
by Hugh Winig, M.D.
I’m currently at year 176 in my shadow work👵🏼🫠 and you’ll be able to tell where that’s at by my perspective in this article.
Times feel so heavy right now that everyday online chatter has pretty much feigned living the lives of snails and sloths, barely making it out of what felt like the longest January in history.
Some of us have aged significantly with worried frown lines and flat asses from being morbidly addicted to screens plastered with some semblance of the “news”. I, am definitely “some of us”.
Shadow work? I don’t know her.
As I try to remind myself of the healing I have experienced so far, preparing me for these triggers of all triggers, I tell myself through shaky mindful breaths to take it day by day. But this is beyond what I was afraid of, and I don’t know how that could have even happened.
The gross lack of initiative to prioritize personal development over the sins that come with idolatrous power in America is so damning.
Our very existence is being mauled away like rabid hyenas eating their prey alive … leaving nothing behind. (Trigger warning, the video is gruesome but relevant)
Although I couldn’t even watch past a minute of the linked video, this … is what it feels like to watch vainglorious melolengos (Spanish slang for idiots), prosecute souls in the same breath they fondle their egos.
With this new administration, my culture along with all other minorities, have been exploited and raped of our dignity on a whole new level. Despite these attempts at limitations, we persevere in our life’s quest to better ourselves in unique ways that celebrate each individual’s culture. Something that comes naturally with the support of a higher power. Something that was established in humankind way before Columbus was credited and celebrated and will far surpass Donald Trump’s shameful attempts.
The trouble is … we are fighting for peace in a country with an administration that values patriarchal financial power over integrity, emotional intelligence, and humility.
Perspective
My perspective is one of a 1st and 1/2ish Mexican American, born in the United States, to parents whose families are from different parts of Mexico (first born to one parent, 2nd born to the other parent).
My parents grew up poor and worked their way to retirement from longstanding respectable jobs in America. They worked very hard to give our family what we have today. This appreciation is a sacred sentiment many children of immigrants have for their parents. Because of my parents, I hold a degree and 20+ years of experience in early development and education.
This is my lived experience. And although I have assimilated into the American culture, mostly as white presenting, I have code-switched my way through success. But I refuse to turn my back on my people. I strive to understand opposing thoughts, but for the life of me, I don’t understand Latinos voting for Trump. The way everything has transpired so far has affected me beyond my understanding.
I’m baaaaack: When vices creep back into your life
When my soul hurts to the core, my negative coping habits are ignited, and right now, my soul is aflame for the people living in our country. ALL OF THEM. Not just the people I personally don’t like, and I personally feel are dangerous.
Yes, that even means the man that is Donald Trump. Like the tyrannical Scar from The Lion King and his clan of executing hyenas, the presidential administration is impervious to life’s challenges and traumas. (Click on the link to read how closely the Trump administration and Scar’s plot are related).
Their lived experiences, whatever they are, have brought them together, and they are all wounded souls with such a negative perspective on differences that they will stop at no one to inflict the same pain they felt during their life-altering traumas.
And that’s what separates us. The perspective of those who dance to the beat of a new culture’s music vs those who complain and are bothered and inconvenienced by that “loud annoying music” that goes, “tum, tum, tum, tum”.
When those negative perspectives inconvenience and challenge us, we often turn to our subconscious habits to cope with a litany of vices. Any of the Seven Deadly Sins, pick one: sloth, greed, gluttony, wrath, envy, lust, and pride.
We all have habits, often subconscious coping mechanisms we’ve acquired in our lives that at one time, protected us. The problem isn’t that they worked, because they served our perceived state of mental safety for a good chunk of our lives; the problem is that they worked so well, we got to a point where we want or need an unhealthy amount, an overabundance, of said vice.
“The difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates … Passion creates, addiction consumes”
Dr. Gabor Mate In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounter with Addiction
And this is where I meet you today. Officially the first 30 days in 1,460 days of this presidential administration … fingers crossed, because that too is at risk of being shat on.
My vices of choice
Sloth✅ Gluttony✅
Only a few days into this administration, I noticed I was watching A LOT of true crime, back-to-back political rubbish, and cop cams before bed. The more emotionally heated and loud it got, the more comfort I felt from my dysregulated nervous system.
These streamed YouTube videos were like drugs. I had to work hard to pull myself away from overindulging in dramatic content that angered me to no end.
Once I was aware, every day that I didn’t allow myself to get sucked in felt like a huge step. Like earning a medallion for actually resisting my vice. If I just stayed away from the drama, I could make it to the month mark for my next medallion. But it was so comforting to fall asleep to.
The dopamine hits from the intense emotions of worry, fear, and anger dysregulate my nervous system, taking me back to the feelings I am so accustomed to. Quick shallow breaths, watching victims walk on eggshells, absorbing heightened emotions instead of observing them, all while I stand on the sidelines behind a screen, knowing I’m just safe enough to be out of immediate danger but close enough to feel.
I caved … For a cop cam video.
The excitement felt from the anticipation of being in that heightened anxious state … who’s gonna act a fool this time? A crooked police officer or an entitled Karen? And trust me, it did not disappoint. But it was the last one I watched. This one was a family dispute, and I had pushed it too far, even for myself.
Cop cam episode
There’s a Spanish dicho (saying), “me gusta la mala vida”, what can I say, I like the bad life. In a roundabout way, this dicho is pretty much saying, bad habits die hard.
How will you respond?
The trouble is … my life is about how I, respond to situations. What I, allow to get under my skin. And what gets under my skin, is the trigger I, need to make peace with. The same thing applies to you and even to Donald Trump, because although he’d like to think he is immune to such things … mmmNO.
And right now, it feels like we have an unhinged entitled child who never learned how to regulate his emotions, running the country like he is a salesman bartering with lives, land, and resources.
After that cop cam video, I found myself rapidly sliding backward, falling into disbelief, fear, and anger. All the healing and shadow work I had done thus far, started to fade away. And I started to feel out of control, sad … hopeless.
Because in the far back of my mind, I remembered that life is all about perspective … Right? That’s what we’ve been taught. We have to see circumstances in a better light and not react as “victims”. Not to narrate the story with who we see ourselves as through the eyes of the other person, because that doesn’t have to be our reality.
Why try so hard to do good, when this continues to happen? Everyone you talk to feels like they’re the ones doing “good”. How do we bridge this divide when the majority of people elected an arrogant convict as a leader?
Minorities have fought for years, to gain access to equal rights and education, despite economic disparities in America. We’ve worked that much harder, passed cultural and intergenerational traumas and the mental health issues that come with it, towards education and self-actualization, so that we’re no longer seen as the undesirables and savages.
We’ve worked to blend into America’s society. We’ve learned that being fhaabulous✨ with our style and food and speaking any language other than English is likely to garner scrutiny. And now it’s encouraged.
For what? We are finally side by side by appearance and title in society. We’re getting esteemed positions and fighting for equality, only to come face-to-face with an even stronger opposition.
“Now wait there, Jo-saaay … there’s more of y’all than me in this department. We can’t keep educatin’ y’all”.
We all have had to deal with some form of racism in one way or another, but not to this extent. Not to the extent that a man elected to lead the “free world” is hanging up his framed mugshot in the hallways of the White House.
Is this the cap on how far minorities are going to make it in society?
Now our faces are shit-stained from the heel of Donald Trump’s platform shoes. Clearly indicating, that no matter how far we get, they’re always going to think they are better than everyone else.
That, is what we now aspire to? That, is the “leader” of the “free world”? And now even as citizens, our free speech is in question if it doesn’t align with the regime.
FUCK. THAT!
I am literally at the end of tools in my healing and shadow work toolbox, here. What is happening right now, is the type of racism we’ve all felt and have been gaslit into thinking our perspective of the situation isn’t the way it really went down. That was just 30 days ago. Before the laws and constitution were blatantly challenged and changed to make racism legal. All the administration has to do is name their racist act something flowery and wash their hands of it. Is this my perspective too?
This story is part of a series. I was serious about watching back-to-back videos 😬 but in doing so, I’ve learned so much. So, I have some more to share.
I’ll be discussing the topics of eugenics, technocracy, and sharing stories about Mexicans that far-right conservatives don’t want their children to learn in schools because,
“There’s no room in our classrooms for things like critical race theory. Teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayer money “
Ron DeSantis: Florida Governor
In addition to that gem right there, I’ll be looking into stats, definitions, current tax legislation, complex post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood traumas, emotional intelligence, the moral dilemma in civilization, Babel: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R. F. Kuang, minorities in leadership, and what can, We the People, do to protect the rights of human beings in the “free country”.
Thank you for reading ✌🏼
All you Black folks, you must go
All you Mexicans, you must go
And all you poor folks, you must go
Muslims and gays, boy, we hate your ways
So all you bad folks, you must go
*Some links in this article take you to an affiliated page. If you make a purchase, I may receive a kickback at no extra cost to you 🙏🏼
