having to fight for love
hearts high, y’all, and shoulders back
Here we are, day three of having to reckon with a reality that is too gargantuan to chew, yet somehow we must swallow and digest it. I feel as though my face will forever illustrate the fatigue and disbelief raging inside of me, like I was hit by an entire MAGA bus. I feel like this cannot be so, yet I am faced with the madness that it is.
I’m feeling so much. In all the hollowness and anger, there is also great love—a love so big and so encompassing that I am consumed by it, spilling beyond the confines of my olive skin. As I do the courageous act of continuing through this static electricity of despair and defiance, day by day and even minute by minute, I am finding that every time I practice love, every time I let my mind and mantras guide me into gratitude, whenever I get the words and images of worst-case scenarios out and away from my mind and replace them with webs and dreams of what is still possible through love, I am given the very thing I need to continue on.
Today, as I found myself singing all the things I love out loud—I love you, Earth, I love you, sun, I love you, birds, I love you, trees, I love you, bed, I love you, home, I love you, love…—I felt my heart do the courageous thing of beating on. Softly, it spoke to me and said, You have to fight for love.
We have to fight for love. It is our greatest responsibility to ourselves and to each other. We have to resist the currents of time and the illusions of normalcy that will try to convince us that love has limits, a tolerance, a violence, and a single lens.
We have to remember over and over again love is infinite. Love is abundant. Love is free and freely available to me and to you. Love would never take another’s power, choice, agency, or free will away. Love would never justify taking, killing, harming, vengeance, or profiting from the suffering of anyone or anything. Love has no hierarchy. Love does not harm.
And yet, we know this person and their platform do, and will continue to do, hurtful and hateful things, disguised as love for this country, as love for our freedom, as love for our democracy. The hollow in my chest knows better. The eternal pit in my belly knows better. And still, I’m wrestling with the dismay—how could we not all know better?
In this fight for love, I am reckoning with relationships that reveal blind loyalty to someone who is blind to them—their needs, their care. I realize that yes, yes, yes, I love them, and yet no, no, no, I do not like them right now. I do not want to give them my time, my space, my light. To know that you can tell me you love me and also vote for someone who is a convicted rapist, a felon, and so many other not-so-loving things tells me more than I can digest. And love tells me that’s okay. We all need space to breathe and get clear. We all do.
I am realizing that the work I do is love, and in these last three days, I have had to practice that love wholeheartedly, even as my heart shatters. Fifty percent of our country voted for Harris, and the other half for him. That fifty percent lives in each and every space I share, each and every room. Be it with women in recovery and corrections, kiddos in juvenile care, seniors in day treatment centers—every room I have stepped into these past three days has held people half as heartbroken as me and half in elation over their “massive win.” And I have had to make space for it all.
In that role, I have found I can. I am able to create and foster a space that welcomes all people and perspectives. I am able to open my heart and love even when I do not agree. And I want to model for those around me that it can be done. Just watch me. Watch us all as we hold this space together. In honor of that which unites and in curiosity to all that does not. This is the practice of yoga which to me feels like love. to let it all in. to meet who we are. and to do all within our capacity to return to the center of chests and move from there.
Watch me do the very thing this agenda and all it’s allegiances aren’t able to do. And that’s when I wonder, Will I be able to love them, too?
I think my love will look like staying true to my heart, which means I have to stay true to humanity. My love for them will be my continued fight and disciplined devotion to freedom, to justice, to truth. I think my love for them may need to be the love that moves through me and honors what I need to do. Be it distance, be it space. Be it temporary or even permanent distaste and distrust. My love for me, for the people, for the planet—and my prioritization of peace beyond any profit, beyond any point, beyond any pain—will guide me. This is the practice field. This is the battleground. Hearts high, y’all, and shoulders back. It’s time to fight for love.
And so, even as the weight of this dismay lingers like a shadow, I remind myself that love is a practice—a choice I make, even when it feels impossibly hard. This isn’t a conclusion or a cure. It’s an invitation, one I extend to myself and anyone who feels the fatigue of these days. The choice to fight for love isn’t a declaration made once; it’s a heartbeat, a quiet vow I come back to, over and over.
Maybe, just maybe, in learning to hold space for love—love that listens, that expands, that doesn’t harm—I can breathe a little easier. I can stand a little taller, and I can model the compassion I wish to see mirrored back. And I hope you might join me in this, however you can, in your own time and way.
Together, let’s try to make room for love, as it is. Let’s let it guide us, even when we feel far from peace. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe, in the end, it’s everything.
join in here or email me here: kerikenneya8@gmail.com
On the sunny side of things, there was one room I was in over the last three days where we weren’t divided in half, yet still held together in heart and wholeness. Ahh! I want to thank everyone who shared space with me as we processed and navigated the whiplash of events on Wednesday evening. In the cry for urgency and community, we came together—and for that, I am so grateful. I am deeply thankful for the community we have, and for the one we will continue to fuel and foster. I am so thankful we found each other in this world and this lifetime.
It felt so good not to be alone in all the feels, in all the grief, and in all the dismay. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And on the 19th of this month, may we hold a similar space once more.
One where we can talk, we can listen, we can process, and we can contemplate where and how we go from here.
On Wednesday, a few common themes became clear to us all:
Our bodies remember. Our bodies remember 2016, and we are experiencing the residuals of that time, along with the shockwaves of this moment, here and now. In all that our bodies hold and all that they remember, we must be diligent in our practice of self-compassion and self-preservation. Please, take the best care of yourself, and remember that all are worthy of this care as well.
We are unsure, unclear, on how to proceed with relationships around us that have shown allegiance to this agenda. Most, if not all, of us feel like the black sheep, feeling the hurt of knowing that the people closest to us can see the world in that way. We also celebrated the discomfort that comes with this, knowing with certainty that we are on the right side of humanity—and history, as we will come to know it. Grief in one hand, gratitude in the other, and a whole lot of uncertainty—yet certainty—in between…
And the inner guidance to put some space between us and social media, to drop the doom scroll, and start becoming more strategic in self-preservation and care. We also validated the need for each other, for spaces to talk, for spaces to share, and for spaces to truly love, liberate, and listen.
I look forward to creating a space for all of this—and whatever else needs to breathe and come to life again—on Tuesday, November 19th at 7 p.m. EST, through Zoom. Come as you are, with all you are feeling, holding, and moving through. And as always, I love you, I love you, I love you.
I am hearing LOVE LOVE LOVE from the Animals and my Guides so loud and so insistent these last few days. How can I show up for all with Love, in Love, from Love. I love the synchronicity of your message with what I'm receiving too. And I look forward to - and am grateful for - your community on the 19th. I will be there. Love you dear sister!!