I’m having a hard time as votes are being counted. As results first started coming in, I noticed my anger. And then I silently used the wordhateas I watched myself project my anger onto whole groups of people, whole states, whole portions of the country.

I began weeping sporadically. Feeling powerless. I wrote in my journal about my feelings of unworthiness. I should have done more to prevent this—even though I don’t know what that might have been. And as though I were entitled to a world as I would have it.

I turn on the news. I turn off the news. I go to Facebook and Twitter. I leave social media. I walk outside. I check my phone for updates.

And, in the end…and in the beginning…and in the middle, I go back to the words of Rev. angel Kyodo williams shared on November 2:

"Our anxiety comes from the desire to have things be different. There's going to be the day after the election. And the day after that. We need to be present to what is regardless of the outcome you want. My ancestors had to prepare themselves over and over again for moving toward a freedom that was nowhere in sight. We prepare for life as it unfolds, not our ideal image of it. That is literally the only path forward."

I return to the Spiritual Leadership practice of doing my inner work. It may be the hardest practice of all. I want so many things to be different than they are — including myself. Yet the only path forward is to be right here in this real place, right now at this real time. For fleeting moments, I release my desire for things to be different than they are while stumbling toward what I cannot see but my heart knows is possible.

Whichever way the voting goes, I need this practice.

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