Dear President Trump, Reading some of your tweets (btw: it will never be ok with me that you are ruling/governing via Twitter) over the weekend blasting the Mueller investigation, McCabe, and Comey I realized I forgot an important angle in the takedown of a democracy. In addition to having damaging goods on your allies you … Continue reading “Things are not getting worse. They are getting uncovered.”
Coping and Self-care
Tender truths
Dear President Trump, I thought for sure I’d written to you about confirmation bias before, but I just did a quick search of my running letters document and I couldn’t find the term. It’s an important idea to understand so I’ve been remiss. Essentially it is how we tend to preferentially pick out things in … Continue reading Tender truths
Mental health and masculinity
Dear President Trump, We have posters all over the VA that say “It takes the courage and strength of a warrior to ask for help….” Some have a silhouette of a single solider with his head in his hands and others have a male hand reaching down from a military vehicle to help another male … Continue reading Mental health and masculinity
Blind white privilege
Dear President Trump, I want to circle back to the ideas I was trying to develop yesterday on Lent and waiting. I actually feel less like I’m waiting for something to happen and more like I’m enduring what is happening, doing my best to hang in with the toxic uncertainty and the daily surges of … Continue reading Blind white privilege
“Don’t Believe Everything You Think”
Dear President Trump, It must be as rare as hens’ teeth since I’ve only seen it three times to date, but Wednesday I saw my favorite bumper sticker: “Don’t Believe Everything You Think.” I immediately thought of you. However, before I launched into an internal rant about your thinking, I dutifully reminded myself that this … Continue reading “Don’t Believe Everything You Think”
Let’s go back to end of year album rankings
Dear President Trump, In the past when we counted down the final hours of a year, we listened to various gurus’ music rankings for the year. Seems pretty quaint now as 2017 winds down, but still, I’d much rather think about such trivialities than reflect on all the damage inflicted on the country and the … Continue reading Let’s go back to end of year album rankings
“The softer I am with myself, the easier I am with others”
Dear President Trump, This morning I edited a paper for work about a qualitative study we did with Veterans who have PTSD who participated in a mindfulness-based stress reduction class at our VA and I came across this quote from one of the participants: "What I’ve learned about me is that the softer I am, … Continue reading “The softer I am with myself, the easier I am with others”
Harmonious balance isn’t harmonious or balanced if it’s static
Dear President Trump, Sometimes magic 8-balls keep giving different answers to the same question and sometimes the same answer keeps coming up no matter what the question is. These maddening patterns are probably just due to chance or the quite limited number of “answers” housed in whatever that weird liquid inside the balls is, but … Continue reading Harmonious balance isn’t harmonious or balanced if it’s static
Doubling down on harmonious balance
Dear President Trump, I am not sure where I've been -- I just learned today about the Catheter Cowboy ads John Oliver is running on Fox & Friends for you. Apparently they started back in February so I've been missing out. I hope you’re learning something, anything, from them. I also saw your statement today … Continue reading Doubling down on harmonious balance
Studying uncertainty
Dear President Trump, I'm not sure how long I’ll keep this up, but I asked myself (the Universe, God, etc.) again about what is keeping me from being consistently in harmonious balance, sensing it isn't enough to stop with yesterday’s idea that my well-being is independent of everything going on. I do think there is … Continue reading Studying uncertainty
Daily Trump Letters 