Caring for Ourselves Through Advocacy Grief

Image: Cynthia with her eyes closed hugging a dog.

My body feels like I’ve been crying all day although I haven’t shed a tear. Sometimes when I take a big breath in, it stutters like a sob. An exhausted feeling weighs heavy over me, making it hard to work up motivation to do anything. I guess by this time in life, I’ve experienced enough to recognize what this is by now.

It’s grief.

Image: Fingers holding a card that says, "We're
barely hanging on and I for one thing we're
doing a tremendous job."

It’s tempting to tell myself I shouldn’t feel this way. I am not a person who lost my federal job or life-saving medications from USAID. I’m not in imminent danger today. But some folks are, and all of us will eventually experience the effects of harmful cuts. The Trump Administration has attacked a wide swath of programs like USAID, education, national parks, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Oceanic at Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and more. I fear many things for all of us, but I worry especially disabled people, immigrants, queer folk, and people in poverty. All empathetic people are entitled to grieve for our country.

I’ll be better off to recognize it and treat it like what it is, so I can move back into action. Chances are that it will come back in waves as news rolls in. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.

If you’re feeling this way, too, what are we to do?

Immediate Self-Care

The week I spent in D.C. for the Shot@Life Summit was dire for global poverty-fighting programs. A 90 day pause in USAID foreign aid turned into the elimination of 90% of all USAID programs. (This has since changed to 83%) Volunteers had a demanding day of lobbying with odds against us. My emotional reserves were depleted.

First, I needed to eat well, drink water, and get a good sleep. Next, I drove to the animal shelter and asked for the snuggliest dog in the place to take on a doggy date. His name is Alfred, and he lived up to his reputation. Sitting in a park, breathing fresh air while he leaned on me restored my soul. In fact, he’s so good at that job I took him home to foster. He’s sleeping in a sun beam snoring into his paws while I write this.

Image: A dog lying on a carpet with his paws around his nose.

I know Alfred is a temporary fix. Fostering an animal is also not an option for everyone. So, this brings me to my next topic of strategic self-care.

Strategic Self-Care

The long game solution for me is community and action. Those things can actually change the situation we’re in. My interactions with staff and volunteers of groups resisting cruel policies remind me that I am not just one small voice. I’m connected with smart, dedicated people that saw much of this coming and put plans in motion to resist.

Image: A meme from RESULTS with
self-care advice. Text in blog.

RESULTS put out an excellent social media post on the topic. They said, “Take care of yourself and your community. Remember, we’ve been preparing for fast action. There’s a lot of chaos in the U.S. right now. It is overwhelming. But let’s remember that we’ve been preparing to protect anti-poverty programs. We have a strong community that only grows larger and louder. Be in spaces with each other, take heart with each other. Take a beat. And then keep going.” 

RESULTS also posted resources to help us acknowledge and process our emotions. This page from them offers “10 Tools for Mental Health Resiliency” as well as tips for practicing self-compassion and self-care. (Trivia: Did you know “RESULTS” is an acronym, and that the second “S” stands for “support?”) #5 on that list is about getting enough sleep. It's not in the suggestions, but I highly recommend ending your digital day at least an hour before sleep to avoid upsetting news just before your head hits the pillow.

Protecting yourself from unexpected triggers

Taking that idea further, I protect myself by drawing boundaries on my digital world to avoid being triggered into sadness especially after work hours when I need to rest and heal. I’ve asked friends to stop texting me with bad news whenever Trump or Musk do something outrageous because it yanks me out of whatever balance I’ve achieved. You can use my wording if it’s helpful:

“Thank you for telling me. I know it’s upsetting. Please send this kind of news to my email, so that I’m prepared to see it there. I have to draw a boundary for myself to prevent unexpected gut punches when I pick up my phone. It will help me maintain my mental health. I don’t want to block you, but I need to be able use phone texting for daily activities.”

Moving forward

That’s about as much as I can give in a single blog post. We’ll have to do the rest together offline. Remember to ask for help from trusted friends and fellow advocates. Caring for each other is as much a part of advocacy as making phone calls and writing media. Take the time to tend to yourself. But don’t get stuck in it too long. We need you.

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, 

and that is an act of political warfare.”  

- Poet and activist Audre Lorde

Image: Book Cover

Buy an autographed copy of “From Changing Diapers to Changing the World: Why Moms Make Great Advocates and How to Get Started” at my website www.changyit.com or order it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or any independent bookstore!

 

Advocacy Made Easy: Writing an Op-ed

Image: Cynthia wearing a hat and holding
up a newspaper open to her op-ed.

I’ve dragged my feet writing this particular “Advocacy Made Easy” blog because there is nothing easy to me about writing an op-ed. Yikes! That’s a big admission from a writer known for breaking down advocacy actions into easy steps anyone can do. This kind of advocacy writing takes more effort, but when you get one published, it’s worth it!

I’ve had 11 op-eds published in my 17 years as an activist. Not too shabby, but small compared to the 120 or more letters to the editor of mine published in the same timeframe. Why? First, op-eds take more time and care to write. I only spend about 20 minutes writing a letter to the editor and a few hours on a blog post, but it takes me several days to finish an op-ed. Second, newspapers don’t have as much room for them. They might post several letters to the editor with every edition, but only publish an op-ed from a reader once in a while.

It takes more effort to craft an op-ed because of the greater length and creativity involved in holding a reader’s interest to the end. I also take much more time to research relevant statistics and fact-check my wording since op-eds come under more scrutiny than letters to the editor.

What is an op-ed?

Image: A newspaper with Cynthia's op-ed
called "Measles: Not just a metaphor
for personal choice. It has a picture
of Cynthia and three Ugandan kids

An op-ed is an opinion piece between 500-700 words that’s not written by the newspaper’s editorial staff. They are often written by industry experts, members of Congress, or other prominent individuals. But anyone can submit an op-ed! As long as an editor considers a piece well-written and of interest to readers, they may accept op-eds from an average member of the community. Publishing an op-ed is a good way to control the narrative of your issue and build empathy for your cause.

Here are my best tips to boost your chances of an op-ed being published…

Grab attention with a compelling hook

Use a creative idea, or “hook,” in the first paragraph to engage an editor’s interest. Simply referencing a past article that ran in the paper isn’t enough. Op-ed hooks tend to be clever or poignant or very current. It doesn’t need to be an inflammatory hot take, but it helps to have a twist on a common way of thinking.

Here are some examples of hooks I’ve used:

• Charity isn’t enough to provide food at Christmastime, we need federal programs
• Congress ending the child tax credit is like children behaving badly when moms aren’t paying attention
• Contemplating the Saturn rocket replica at Space Camp and thinking the end of AIDS could be the next big “moonshot”
• Asking what elected officials did over summer vacation to protect kids from gun violence when they go back to school

Use EPIC format

Image: Cynthia pointing to a powerpoint
slide explaining EPIC format

When I don’t know where to start my op-ed, I use the easy-to-remember “EPIC” format. “EPIC” is a handy mnemonic for remembering an order to build your case for an action and engage your reader.

Engage: Grab the reader’s attention with a question or a startling statement. You could use a surprising statistic or a question. 

Problem: State the problem that you want the reader to address. 

Inform (or Illustrate): Inform the reader of the solution or illustrate how the solution can help. 

Call to Action: CLEARLY state what you want the reader to do. It’s best if you can do it in the form of a question that should be answered with a “yes” or a “no."

Be personal and original

Image: Cynthia's op-ed about foreign aid with pictures
of her with four children at a health clinic in Uganda

With the longer word count of an op-ed, you can take the space to develop your personal connection to your issue. Unique and original work are what editors are looking for. A reader should be able see why you are the right person to be writing the op-ed. It could be because of your lived experience with the issue or your perspective from a role you hold in the community (teacher, mother, doctor, volunteer at the food bank, crossing guard, etc).

It’s important that your op-ed is original. Never copy and paste writing from another author and submit it as your own without consent. This happened to me by a well-meaning fellow advocate who mistook my writing for a template from an advocacy organization. As a professional content creator, it was crushing to see my words published under someone else’s name. Even if you use a sample template from an organization, don’t submit it word for word. Add your own turns of phrases and personal details. Some papers care about originality so much that they’ll ask you if you already submitted the piece elsewhere and may decline if it’s not exclusive to them.

Be cautious using AI writers. Artificial intelligence (AI) can generate an op-ed, but it can’t capture your own personal experiences in life. AI generated pieces look rather bland compared to writing from someone passionate about an issue. If you absolutely insist on using AI as a place to start a draft, take the effort to put yourself in the piece to make it more appealing. My college kid who works in a campus writing lab helping other students with writing assignments tells me the writing lab tutors can spot an AI piece a mile away and "it's usually laughably bad." Don't put yourself in the position of being judged poorly by college students.

Don’t give up if you’re rejected

Image: Jane's byline for her op-ed titled "Saving USAID is
both a humanitarian and economic imperative"

What if you spend all that time and effort on creating a masterpiece and it gets rejected? Sometimes they’ll pass on it and when they do, just submit it right away to another paper. If you don’t hear from an editor, send them an email with the subject line “Wanted to make sure you saw this piece about ____.” This happened to my friend Jane last month, and the editor just missed it. He printed it soon after her reminder.

If you still don’t hear anything in a week or two with a message like “We like it, but are waiting to find a day to run it,” then send them an email saying you’re withdrawing your piece and will submit elsewhere. That way, you formally told them and can tell the next paper that this is still a fresh opinion piece not printed anywhere else.

If it never gets published, it might a good blog post. I originally started this blog as a place for my misfit letters to the editor and op-eds to be published. Years later, I turned the blog into a book! Who knows what can happen to your writing?

Have you ever had an op-ed published? 

What are your favorite tips or tricks for getting published?

Image: Book Cover

Buy an autographed copy of “From Changing Diapers to Changing the World: Why Moms Make Great Advocates and How to Get Started” at my website www.changyit.com or order it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or any independent bookstore!