Cleansing a Challenging Year

A Challenging YearThe darkened skies and hot red-shaded sun of our debris-filled atmosphere here in California could not help but darken our mood. Our confinement in our homes to prevent breathing noxious particles bodes ill for an apocalyptic new normal marked by climate change.

We have been spit out of a roiling two years of politics marked by ignorance, corruption, nepotism, increased debt, lack of support for the military and federal law enforcement, and dangerous national and international policies that have stunned even our most conservative thinkers. Each day we receive our news alerts and grit our teeth for another day.

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Struggles in the New Year

The New Year in California started with a continued deluge of rain, which brought heavenly moisture to our dry land and dry bones — and has caused some to feel soggy, cold and constricted.

The New Year also brought chaos on the political front with an endless bombardment of controversial executive orders reflecting a lack of circumspect and prudent leadership and stabilizing governance in a time of transition for our divided country. There has been little collaboration with other governmental department heads, or experienced qualified others – even the President’s Cabinet – thus appropriate dialogue that encourages civil and community discourse has not occurred. Rather, announcements resulting in cataclysmic change have caused chaos, fear and shock waves across the globe. The President continues to exhibit his significant personality disorder discussed in my post titled A View of Character – The President-Elect, and his impairments dominant the stage and result in faulty leadership on all fronts. The press continues to observe and report even though attempts are made to suppress what doesn’t compliment the leader’s frail ego.

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A View of Character – the President-Elect

We have endured an extremely long and difficult election and transition season. The polarization of the two sides has resulted in strife within our families, relationships and communities. How do we reconcile what seems irreconcilable for many? There are deep divides related to differing value systems that, at the moment, seem challenging to cross. Yet we are one people and embrace a tradition that honors our differences and shows respect for multiple points of view. It is with that spirit that I write this post.

My comments in this post may be controversial and I invite dialogue. Civil discussion and debate are essential as we venture forward at this critical time in our history.

I have written multiple posts about character types on my website over the past few years as a way to facilitate understanding of our own styles and coping patterns and as an aid to understanding those around us. I will use character typology as a point of reference as we think about the election. President-elect Trump has been a highly controversial figure who has evoked feelings of idealization, hope and excitement as well as feelings of alienation, repugnance and disdain. His character type, his life-long defensive structure, incites strongly polarizing sensibilities. As president-elect, he is in a position to lead the country and the free world – yet his personality problems have overshadowed, for many, any sign of inherent potential to be an effective, gracious and respectable leader.

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