Episode Description:

In this episode of What If? For Authors, Claire takes a deeply personal and urgent approach to addressing a fear many are grappling with in the wake of political turmoil: "What if my country collapses?"

Drawing from her experience as an Enneagram-certified coach, Claire provides a framework for navigating the overwhelming emotions that often accompany these moments of uncertainty. She explores the power of grounded nervous system work, community connection, and the unique role that authors play in shaping culture and fostering resilience through storytelling.

Key Takeaways:

Why it's crucial to recognize that you cannot save your country alone.
Strategies to co-regulate with others and create calm amidst chaos.
How authors can reclaim their agency and wield their words as tools for healing and transformation.
A story of endurance, support, and unexpected hope shared by one of Claire's Enneagram mentors.
Reflections on how each Enneagram type can contribute to collective healing and action.

Why You Should Listen: Claire doesn’t shy away from the hard truths about the moment we’re living in, but she also provides hopeful reminders. If recent events have left you feeling paralyzed or powerless, this episode offers both validation and actionable insights for moving forward as an individual and as part of a larger community.

Support the Show: If you found this episode helpful, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform and share the show with your fellow authors. Every review helps more writers discover this resource.

Join the Conversation: Share your thoughts with Claire by emailing contact@ffs.media or connect on social media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm glad you're here. My name is Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book for authors, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain.

I was not planning on doing this topic for an episode, but it's so clear that we need to talk about it. It's been a point of discussion, if not concern in every coaching call I've had since the U S election earlier this month, even with clients who live outside the U S so there's, there's really no point in pretending otherwise.

Let's talk about it. Let's ask the question on many people's hearts and minds. What if my country collapses?

First of all, if you're thrilled with the results of the U. S. election this year, I'm not [00:01:00] sure that this is the episode for you. If you're genuinely curious about the emotions of people who voted for the other side and are open to hearing the legitimate concerns laid out and discussed, if you're open to wondering if your vote might have unintended consequences for people whose lives are just as valuable as yours, Then of course, you're welcome to stay and listen with the intention of understanding.

But if you voted for a bunch of Republicans that are not open to the possibility that your vote will have very real and negative consequences for others, and frankly, for you too, before long, then this episode is not for you. You can go listen to something else. You're free to do something else. Before you head out though, I would be remiss to not leave you with a quote from the German Lutheran pastor Martin Neumuller. I might be mispronouncing that. , and you might've heard this quote before. [00:02:00] So he was a supporter of the Nazis during the rise to power and eventually became outspoken against the Nazi Party.

In other words, he was a man who changed his mind, or rather had his mind changed. He said, First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

The idea that we can scapegoat one or two groups and that the fire will never come back to burn us is one that has been debunked throughout history. So I hope you can come to terms with what you've unleashed and do what you can to set it right moving forward. Like Neumuller did. Again, probably mispronouncing that.

Okay, yeah, that's what the Enneagram shadow work allows us [00:03:00] to do. That's why it's crucial for growth. It allows us to see what we've done, take accountability and determine the best path toward making things right, if need be. So if you are someone who is very excited about, the Trump victory, I hope you'll take that quote with you on your way out.

Okay. If you're one of the people who is disheartened, disillusioned, or even despairing as a result of the U. S. election, this is the episode for you. It's also for anyone abroad who might experience a similar situation as it is likely to happen in various countries in the coming years. As authoritarianism, fascism, and oligarchy starts to seem like a better idea to certain folks.

I don't know. I don't If you haven't picked up on it yet, I'm not going to be unbiased here in that I don't feel neutral on what to me seems like a matter of compassion, accountability, and connection to ourselves and our fellow humans. I'm [00:04:00] not going to mince words in this episode. I don't think it's the time for that.

And I honestly don't know how to explain to people why it's important to care about others. So I'm not going to waste our time on that. Maybe I'll try it a couple of months or so. Maybe I'll have the energy to throw my energy right into the garbage disposal at that point. But for now, I simply do not feel compelled to pretend that I think voting for Trump is morally excusable.

Even if someone does actually believe that the economy is bad and Joe Biden is to blame, I don't think it's morally excusable to vote for Trump. This is my one coming out. I understand that. I haven't worked all the way through some of the anger and moral righteousness I feel right now. So this is what you're getting though.

, you know, at the end of the day, I've been a victim of sexual assault on more than one occasion by men in positions of power over me. And so I do find it personally distasteful that anyone would be so cynical [00:05:00] as to accept that a sexual predator is ever the best pick for public office. That's a degree of cynicism that I hope to never fall victim to.

Anyone who doesn't believe that he's a sexual predator does so despite overwhelming evidence not because of any lack of it. When someone is so set on believing something despite the evidence far be it for me to waste my time and my precious life trying to convince them otherwise.

Anyway, I think it's important for you to know that I'm not sugarcoating anything today because I'm actually going to give you what I consider to be a hopeful message and I need you to understand that I wholeheartedly believe it myself, despite how much anger I felt over the last couple of weeks. So again, I recognize that anger is the vice of my Enneagram type, so I had to wait until I could work through that.

To at least get a whiff of serenity before I could sit down and record this episode. I don't want to [00:06:00] impart any additional misery onto anyone here. At the same time, I'm not here to assure you that everything will be okay because it will not be. When we zoom out though, we may notice that everything has never been okay.

And it has also been extra not okay for particular groups of people. So I won't lie and tell you everything will be okay because that not only dismisses your feelings, but I think it dismisses reality. What I will remind you of today, though, is that you still have power. Lots and lots of power. And you can find ways to experience moments of being okay.

Maybe even joyous in the midst of everything, not being okay.

First of all, I'm not really convinced that America will collapse. Contrary to the title of this episode, it might, you know, I've been wrong before, but that's hardly anything you or I [00:07:00] can prevent individually. Right. If you feel like it's up to you to stop all these crazy things from happening, that's probably why you're feeling exhausted today.

Okay? It's not up to any single person. To be clear, you cannot save this country on your own. I really need you to internalize that it's not your responsibility or within your power. And if you believe it to be on any level, all you'll end up connecting with is a sense of complete powerlessness.

If you were raised to be hyper independent, then somewhere inside of you, you might actually believe that you're responsible for cleaning up this mess. So the first shift we want to work on within ourselves in this new environment is the idea that we must do everything on our own. That is not true.

Never in history has any one person cleaned up a mess this big on their own. It's always been a group effort. That gets us out of messes like this one. So let's take a deep breath. [00:08:00] Let's inhale deeply through the nose into the belly and then exhale all the way out. Do that a few times whenever you notice the feeling that you're in this alone.

You are not in this alone. None of us are. And that's great news. We are here for each other. And the best way to be here for each other is to do the things I talk about in these episodes to stay grounded and connected to your agency.

A lot of what needs to be done individually for ourselves is nervous system work. So this looks like increasing your quiet time for meditation, prayer, stretching. Deep breathing, terror, whatever helps you feel spiritually grounded in the present and calm.

But even our nervous system isn't an individual sport. We co-regulate with the people [00:09:00] around us. It's a lovely little design feature of the human body. It's easier to reach a calm state when you are around someone who is in a calm state.

Similarly, it's really difficult to reach a calm state when you're around someone who is dysregulated. Trolls, for instance, are dysregulated people by nature. They want to dysregulate others because misery loves company. So it's crucial to our journey toward being better regulated and better regulating our nervous system that we limit our exposure to trolls as frequently as possible.

That can be a little bit difficult as an author, but it's not impossible. Choosing who we spend time around and when during the coming months is going to be an important decision for us and our well being, as well as our ability to just get the words done, because we're writers, remember?

But this choice is within your power, so don't give it up.

And that brings [00:10:00] us to really exploring all of the power you and I still have. I want you to think about how many quotes you saw in the days following the election that were passed around the internet from movies, TV shows, and books. People wrote those quotes, writers like you. And those quotes are what society looks to in dark times. Authors shape our culture. Always have. And our culture has been imbibing poison lately, clearly.

But you have the power to write words that change people. You have the power to write words that heal people. Words that keep people going when times are exceptionally shitty. That pull people back from the precipice of cynicism and keep them hoping enough to keep going, to keep fighting for themselves and for others.

If you don't see the power that you hold in your hands as an author, [00:11:00] it's because you're running scared from it, not because it's not there.

If writing feels frivolous to you in light of recent events, here's what I have to say. You either need to stop fighting how important your stories are to people out there, or You need to write more important stories. So my purpose on this earth as an Enneagram Type 1, as a reformer, and this is just as I see it, but my purpose is to light a fire under your ass.

Okay, to wake up myself and others to what is right and good, and what collective action is needed to move us toward that. We each have a gift to bring, and to get to that gift, we have to cut through the fear that keeps us from it. What did you think we were doing all this work for together, right? Just to fuck around?

No, we have important work here. Not more work that can be expected of a single person, but important work all the [00:12:00] same.

When I think about the writers and thinkers I respect the most They by and large existed in dark times, in dark places. They faced oppression way more than any white woman like me is facing today.

The dark times are when we find out what we're made of. And I hope you accept that challenge with hope in your heart. I really do. The day after the election, I silenced my phone. John was in Houston for a case, so I had lots of time to practice solitude in the morning. One question that started really tugging at my attention was this.

What if I'm built for this moment? Now there's a what if for you, right? What if I'm built for this moment? The strange thing is, I felt a certainty almost as soon as I asked the question that I am built for this moment. How could I not be? I was shaped by the events leading up to this moment. [00:13:00] Now, I may not fully see yet how I'm built for this moment, but I know that I am in a way of knowing that really just lives deep down in my bones.

And, I believe that you are too.

Maybe you still have to learn how you're made for this moment, but we each have a pretty big hint that our writing may be a part of that.

I've since started uncovering how I made for this moment bit by bit. And while I don't expect you to be particularly interested in me and all of my personal stuff, I'll explain my logic so that you can apply the example to your own life if you want to.

I do believe that I was built from my core all the way up to be a menace, to be a problem for people who are taking advantage of others. Now, if someone who knew me as a goody goody in middle school heard me say that, they might disagree, but I think even that perfectionist part of me is a crucial piece.

I [00:14:00] always want to know the rules, which is how I can find the loopholes and exploit them for chaotic good reasons.

I also care more about following my conscience than staying safe, which my nervous system doesn't always love, but which works well as a reformer. So I've been writing satire and sharpening that sword since I was in high school. I love poking fun at bigots. Nothing makes me feel more alive than undermining egomaniacal authoritarians by making people laugh at how utterly silly they are.

I've been reading psychology, sociology, philosophy, feminist theory, critical race theory, and history just for fun for years now. And continuing the work of deconstructing all the structures of control that interfere with the liberation process. I have a pen name entirely dedicated to satire. I have readers ready for the next book without even meaning to.[00:15:00]

I've built myself to be a problem for others, for the right people in a moment such as this. Now this is probably not how you were built for this moment. Almost assuredly not. We can't all be built in the same way. You're probably just looking at the odds, not built to be a menace, but that's okay.

Maybe you are, maybe you aren't either way is fine. But I think if you look closely at the work you've done through the years, the skills you have and your unique outlook and position in society, it will become obvious how you are built for this moment, how you've built yourself for this moment without even meaning to.

There are important dishes that each Enneagram type brings to this potluck. There are elements that this moment is calling out for that each type can offer.

You don't have to offer the one associated with your type either. You can bring that, or you can bring another one, or you can bring a few. I mean, [00:16:00] truthfully, we can each bring all of them in small portions since we have all nine types inside of us. So let me just give you a jumping off point. If you're struggling to understand how you might be made for this moment, here's what I see being called for from the nine energies of the Enneagram.

One's moral courage and integrity. Two's steady compassion. Three's the path to change. Four's artistic disruption. Fives, context and clarity. Sixes, courage and cooperation. Sevens, joy. Eights, advocacy. Nines, reconciliation.

Personally, I'm trying to bring all nine of these to my life, but I'll admit that my lowest type, the nine, is definitely showing here because the idea of reconciliation is a tough one for me. I struggle a lot with the idea [00:17:00] of reconciling with certain people, but I can reconcile with parts of myself and that's important work too.

Maybe the most important. That being said, speaking with nines does give me a better understanding of the importance of reconciliation. So thanks nines. I'm going to leave a lot of that work up to you though. Best of luck. Okay. So take a second and ask yourself this question. How am I built for this moment?

I suspect that the fear that many of us feel is a result of worrying that we aren't built for this moment, that we don't have what we need to personally withstand it, and that it will crush us under the weight of it. What a powerless feeling that is. But remember, you have power. And I believe that accessing it might start with discovering how you are absolutely built for this moment.

I'm going to tell you a quick story that was [00:18:00] shared with me by one of the Enneagram teachers I've been lucky enough to have. Her client, Chris, which is not his real name, was a competitive endurance cyclist and had a big multi day race coming up. He was also a type six, the loyalist whose core fear is being without support or security.

So as the race day drew closer, Chris became fixated on this fear that his bike chain might snap when he was in a remote section of the race. So this wasn't like the Tour de France, so it's not like there were camera crews and volunteers all around. Now this particular fear became a sort of vortex, sucking in his attention until he was just totally fixated on it.

The problem was that he couldn't think of a solution that would work, and he wouldn't let the possible outcome remain unsolved. His bike chain snapping while he was in a remote area was a worst case scenario that he couldn't think his way through. He didn't see how he could keep going if that happened.[00:19:00]

He was without a good answer, no matter how much he fixated on the potential threat. And now we've probably all felt this at some point in our lives. With some coaxing, Chris participated in the race. And on his next meeting with my teacher, he told her that the worst had happened. On the final day, with the finish line not far away, as he attempted to pedal up a long steep hill in the pouring rain, his bike chain broke.

The worst happened, and he still didn't have a solution.

When she asked him what he did in that scenario, he showed her the front page of the local paper. It wasn't a picture of the race winner victoriously crossing the finish line with their arms raised in the air. Instead, it was an image of Chris, but not just Chris. Two other cyclists had seen him struggling with his broken bike chain.[00:20:00]

Rather than forging on, they had him get up on his bike and locked hands behind him, and together they pedaled him up the hill and helped him finish the race in the pouring rain. Chris's fear of his bike chain breaking had given him such tunnel vision, left him so panicked that he overlooked the obvious and perhaps the only possible solution.

that other people would show up for him. And lo and behold, that's what happened.

I shared this story with my email list recently, and it made many folks feel a sense of hope that they hadn't connected with in a while., I should note that I shared this story before the election because I needed everyone to understand that even if the outcome you dread comes to pass, you might be surprised by who shows up for you.

I spent the day after the election reaching out to all of my friends, checking in, seeing how their coping mechanisms holding up, because, I don't know, asking, how are you kind of seems stupid in this [00:21:00] situation. We don't always get the outcome we want, clearly. But we can always choose each other. We have that power within us until our dying breath.

Now, I suspect I don't know, but I suspect that there were a few cyclists who rode right past Chris and his broken bike chain, who didn't even consider that stopping to help him was an option. We can choose to be those people just as easily as we can choose to be the ones who stop.

God, I have so much to say in this episode. I really do. I have so many thoughts. Mostly, I'll say this. All right. You do not get to opt out. There are too many people who can't opt out even if they wanted to. I get it. I get the hopelessness, the devastation, the grief even. I feel all of that too. But when I zoom out, I am not in immediate danger as I'm [00:22:00] recording this.

Not yet. And that's important. Maybe you're in the same position. So Let me tell it like it is because that's the theme here. I'm white. First of all, I'm not subject to racist scapegoating. Does it hurt me to see others subjected to it? God, yes, but I don't get to vicariously feel their pain and immediate danger to the point of being too hurt to carry on.

Do I get the sense that people of color may not trust me because of the way so many white women voted this year? Yes, sure. But my discomfort is not to be confused with danger. It's crucial that if you, like me, are a white woman, we do not equate the two things. I'm also currently not pregnant. So my physical danger is not at risk.

In that way, in the foreseeable future, I'm a citizen, so I have certain protections. And because I'm a white citizen, I literally never have to worry that someone will [00:23:00] challenge the legitimacy of my citizenship. I'm cisgendered and in a heterosexual marriage as well. Nobody is going to be legally challenging the legitimacy of my marriage.

Though Texas is trying to make sure I can't leave it, but that's another story. And no one is demonizing me and unjustly implying that I'm a predator just to score political points. So I could go on, but I think you get the point, right? Yes. I'm concerned about how things may evolve in the future. And I'm not so ignorant as to think that people will never come for me, but for the time being, it's crucial to both my wellbeing and those of the people who I feel responsible to support that I recognize the truth.

My bike chain has not snapped yet. I should not be waiting for people to come help me because yes, my legs are tired from the ride, but my bike chain has not snapped. Maybe that will change, but I do believe it's important for us not to let ourselves [00:24:00] take on the threat that others are facing so much that we center ourselves in it.

We cannot stop pedaling because we're worried about other people's bike chains. To do so is the dark side of privilege. Now, if you are one of the people whose bike chains are snapping almost immediately following the inauguration, or who might be listening to this episode farther down the line, and your bike chain has long since snapped, and there are many of you, unfortunately, I hope that you can turn your attention away from the haters and toward the people who are ready to help you in any way they can.

There are a lot of us. So now is not the time for rugged individualism. And if you hear a voice telling you to withdraw from others, to pull away as the only guarantee of safety that you must save yourself no matter the cost, I cannot stress enough how important it is to not listen to that voice. We need each other now.

We're in this mess because [00:25:00] too many people became isolated, and isolation breeds fear, cynicism, and despair. All necessary ingredients for conspiratorial thinking and adhering to authoritarianism. The antidote to that is not further isolation, no matter what your fear tells you. So please, please, please ask for the help that you deserve.

Reach out, even if it's just to one person. And for the rest of us, those of us whose bike chain has not yet snapped, I need us to be absolutely fucking for real on if we're centering ourselves in this more than we need to be in the present moment. If you're white, you don't get to be so depressed about how racism played a major role in the election results that you give up. If you're a man, you don't get to be so sad for the women in your life that you resign yourself to this being the way it is. If you're a citizen, you definitely don't get to be so worried about the safety of immigrants or the livelihood of dreamers that you fall [00:26:00] apart and do nothing.

As my fellow Type 1, Michelle Obama, said in her recent speech, Do something. You're an author. Start there. Do something, especially if you write in genres where you have readers on the other side of the political spectrum. Show them a better way through your stories.

Show them a world where people care for the stranger. Unite to fight greedy autocrats and learn to treat people from different backgrounds with respect. Create characters that show courage and the fear of insurmountable odds and who stick their necks out for each other. Show true critical thinking.

Show how community is stronger through diversity. You have so much power at your fingertips. Yeah, that can be frightening, but so is sitting by and saying nothing while simple cruelty becomes policy. Live so that you can live with yourself, is what I'm saying. Your books don't ever have to [00:27:00] be bestsellers to change someone's life.

And isn't that wonderful? But you do have to write them. If you are still grieving a future that will never come, if you're still afraid, I get it. If you absolutely need time to process this, take that. But sometimes writing is the best way to process things like this. That's how most of us became writers.

So just consider it. Also do yourself a favor, especially if you're a head centered type and stop trying to make sense of the nonsensical. Stop trying to understand the logic of the illogical. Those are dead ends and quicksand. Allow yourself to turn your attention toward showing logic in motion. And this is why we do the work, y'all.

This is why we learn to live next to our fear instead of in it. America has not done the work. It has not done its shadow work. [00:28:00] And you can see the results of that in so many citizens believing that things like genocide and concentration camps happen in other countries. Not this one. Except it's .

Happened here already. What happened to the Native Americans fits every definition of a genocide. And that way our country was built on genocide and we didn't call them concentration camps, but we call them internment camps, immigration detention centers, and for profit prisons. Oh yeah. And there was all that slavery for 400 years.

So we have changed the names of things so that those who haven't done their shadow work could look away and keep the ugliness at arm's length. But these ugly things will keep happening in America until we are able to look at the shadow together, to call it by its name and say that, yes, this is the America we know.

And then we need to do the long overdue work to right the wrongs. So if you can see the [00:29:00] horrifying effects on a large scale of not doing the shadow work, then you may better understand the importance of doing it on an individual scale. We aren't ready to say we're fighting on the side of justice, compassion, and liberation if we haven't confronted the ways we've benefited from injustice, where we lack compassion for ourselves and others, and where we still attempt to exercise control over the external world.

Confronting ugliness starts at home. So if you've been doing this work, thank you. If you haven't started it yet, now's the time. We do this so that we can figure out how we're built for the moment and healing ourselves and integrating all the good, the bad, and the ugly of being human. We get to discover how we are exactly who's needed in this moment of this timeline to care for our friends, to raise brave and compassionate children and to inspire others to do the same.

[00:30:00] I understand that some of us may feel like giving up. I've observed that feeling in myself. But at the end of the day, we must not choose that. Roll those shoulders back and take a deep breath. You aren't built to take on the whole problem, but you are absolutely built for your part in this collective effort.

So, if you're wondering, what if my country collapses? I say that the answer is pretty simple. We build it back up together, and we make better allies to each other by doing the deep and difficult work that everything in your ego is begging you to avoid.

You may wish this wasn't the moment in time you were living in. The situation in which you were raising your children. You may wish none of this had happened, but as Gandalf said, so do all who [00:31:00] live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

And of course, Gandalf did not say that. A writer wrote that.

I don't know about you, but I'm renewing my commitment to fiction. Because it matters, because it changes societies from the inside out, because the choice is still mine, because there is power in that, that can't be taken away or banned, no matter how hard some might try, and make no mistake, people are going to try, they already are.

That just shows me how terrified the truth makes some people, and that makes me want to speak it and write it even more. The next time you feel powerless, turn your attention to all the power you have. You have the power to envision a better world. The power to show that world to others. The power to [00:32:00] brighten someone's day. The power to advocate for yourself and others. The power to change someone's heart. The power to bring joy to the world.

The power to not give up. What are you going to do with all that power? That's it for this episode of What If For Authors. I wish I didn't have to do it, but I did, and I'm so glad you're here to listen. you want help figuring out how you were built for this moment, You can book some time with me.

I'm here. Go to ffs.media/schedule. I'm Claire Taylor and I hope you'll join me next week for another, hopefully less spicy, episode. Happy writing.