When I heard Donald Trump was running for president, I honestly believed it was a joke.
A publicity stunt.
A way to get attention.
When I first heard someone say they actually liked him as a candidate, I thought they were seeking negative attention – trying to get a rise out of someone. Never would I have imagined this man would be elected President of the United States of America.
When I heard Donald Trump had won the election, my heart sank. Although I wanted Hilary Clinton to win, I did not vote for her.
Why?
When it came time to vote, nothing tempted me to cast my ballot for Donald Trump. Deep in my bones I knew I would not – could not – vote for such a person. The problem was, I had been a part of the conservative Christian church for many, many years, and I believed the voice which said, “Christians must not ever vote “for abortion.” I felt this conviction in my body. I could not bring myself to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate. I could not vote “for abortion.” And so, I voted third party – I honestly thought it was my only option. I believed if I voted for a Democratic candidate, I would not be able to live with myself.
I believed I was following my deep convictions – after all, my body told me I could not vote for a Democrat. I would get a sick feeling – a knot in my stomach, at the idea of violating this belief. I unconsciously assumed this was either a prompting from the Holy Spirit or a deep truth within myself for me to feel so strongly.
Christians are not generally well taught on the difference between listening to the Holy Spirit and experiencing agitation in our bodies. We are taught to seek “peace” as a guide for making decisions.
Which option gives you peace? Go with that one.
The problem is there is a difference between peace from the Spirit (or peace from within) and the peace of selecting the option which avoids a negative bodily reaction (such as stress, a tightening of the stomach, etc.). Our bodies are designed with a predetermined physiologically programmed response to stress. This stress response can get stuck and unhealthy coping mechanisms develop. For example, when acting in a particular manner may result in rejection from our community, our bodies react against such a behavior to protect our need to belong.
When we are taught over and over that to belong we must believe specific things and act in specific ways, our deep desire to belong can lead to a physiological reaction in our body protecting us from rejection from the support system of our community. We internalize what we are told, and the idea of acting against these ideals becomes unthinkable – and our bodies help us know this on a visceral level. And Christians have inadvertently taught that this is the work of the Spirit, rather than the body’s natural response to a threat to a sense of belonging.
And so, four years ago I voted third-party because something deep in my body told me I could not vote “for abortion” and something deeper told me I could not vote for Donald Trump.
I did that four years ago, but I will not do that again.
A lot has changed in me in four years. One change is my growing understanding of how the body’s systems respond to stress, how trauma works, and how physiological reactions have been conditioned through repetition over time and are not in fact the specific work of the Holy Spirit. Bottom line: just because the body reacts against something does not make that something innately “wrong.” The body’s reactions are a result of conditioning, pure and simple.
This means, I have the freedom to consider ideas and options apart from my body’s reaction to them. I can separate myself from all the pre-programmed ideas of what I should be, how I should be, and what I should believe. These concepts were the result of conditioning and not a reflection of what is deeply true about myself and what I actually believe and feel deep down, in the stillness of who I really am.
My new journey also has much more room for shades of grey. Seeing the world as mostly black and white allowed me to support a political party based on one issue alone and without consideration for the complexities of life, politics, power plays, etc. It was not as if I did not feel these other considerations but the conditioning of “vote only against abortion” was so strong I believed it would be morally wrong for me to give space to any other considerations.
This is no longer the case, and my new freedom allows me to do what I wanted to do four years ago but could not – vote soundly against Donald Trump, and to do so vocally.
It is not as if I hate Donald Trump. I am not angry at Donald Trump or the people who created the space for him to rise to power and support him still today. I can see beauty in him. I see in him, the beauty of a broken and wounded child who suffers greatly.
A man who is still a boy – a boy stuck in his own traumas.
A boy who is hurting deeply.
Unfortunately, it is just not wise to make a broken and wounded child the President of the United States. Broken and wounded people are not disqualified from serving in positions of power, but broken and wounded people who are psychologically stuck in the traumas of their childhood and have not progressed on the path of healing have no business being in positions of such power.
There is likewise something seriously broken in a political party who would nominate such a wounded child to the position of President of the United States. Manipulation, shame, fear, and control are tactics used to convince a country of wounded and broken people that they want Donald Trump to be their president. I just cannot bring myself to unite in any way with such a party.
And that is why this year, with a clear conscious and no second guessing, I will be voting for Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Even if that old anxious response visits my body as I vote for a pro-choice candidate, I now know this for what it is – a conditioned physiological response. I am practiced enough in the art of giving my feelings space (rather than pushing them away or being controlled by them), that I can acknowledge my feelings with loving-kindness while continuing to follow through with my intention to vote in alignment with who I am.
I accept myself for where I was four years ago, having grown these past four years in my ability to mindfully consider myself with a spirit of loving-kindness rather than judgement. And even though I will continue to do my best to look at all people in that same spirit of loving-kindness, I will not silence my own voice for the sake of others’ comfort or for the sake of fitting in.
I will not be voting for Donald Trump. I will not be voting third-party. I will be voting for Joe Biden, and I will do so with a clear conscience.
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