In addition to being clarifying and affirming, resistance work also hurts sometimes. Facing where the United States is politically right now puts you in touch with the violence being done to people of color, immigrants, Muslims, people with disabilities and women. We haven’t even begun to turn the tide yet, meaning we deal with fighting from behind every day.
Resilience is survival for those of us who can’t shrug off corruption, the abuses of vulnerable populations or our responsibility to keep defending democracy.
Yvette Thijm is the Executive Director of Witness.org and a pioneer of strategies for addressing the depression and PTSD that affects human rights defenders around the world. This week’s episode looks at the stories we tell ourselves that can either set us up to collapse when the stresses peak, or give us a steady grounding to keep persisting.
