I wrote a previous post about OKness, a basic tenet of my values and of Transactional Analysis, or TA. Not only are all people born OK and are always OK in essence, life works a lot better when we see ourselves and others as OK – meaning that we have worth and dignity and can think and feel and take responsibility for ourselves.
What do we mean when we say we are NOT OK?
I was recently at a protest march where one woman carried a sign that said, “We are NOT OK” with an upside-down American flag. Flying the flag upside down is a distress signal. Many of us are in distress, specifically because people are not being treated as “OK” by our government. They are not only facing judgment, but also a possible deportation or prison sentence, or at least intimidation. So, when we say we are NOT OK we are expressing our opposition to the way vulnerable people are being treated. As citizens, we feel responsible for speaking up and doing what we can to stop it.
The goal is to move toward OKness - a moral and righteous society that operates under the rule of law for everyone. We in the US have never lived up to treating everyone equally. We fought against the Nazis and cold-warred against the totalitarian Soviet regime. We enacted legislation and social programs and made forward progress toward equal rights.
Instead of moving forward, in this crucial moment, our US government is embracing Nazi rhetoric, dismantling the rule of law, eroding institutions that serve the people, shifting massive amounts of wealth to oligarchs, promoting falsehoods, and harming the vulnerable.
Now we need to object to what is being done in the US, with creativity and in solidarity. The escalation here threatens democracies everywhere. We are NOT OK with this.
Today I received a forward with a valuable message from Peter Coyote, a Zen teacher and author / narrator with Ken Burns, that reinforced the need to come from a place of OKness even when, or especially when, demonstrating against an unjust regime. If we show up in anger or violence, we will only provoke more violence as well as distrust from the population at large.
He concludes with this:
"Wake up.
Vent at home.
In public practice discipline and self control.
It takes much more courage.”
On the personal side, when we feel Not-OK it is a signal. It is a chance to step out and observe what is going on with us and do something about it. It is not our natural, healthy way to be Not-OK with ourselves and in our relationships. If we stay stuck in feeling that we are not good enough or do not belong or have no hope for ourselves, it’s time to find a resource to help re-set our sense of well-being. It could be a friend, a course, a therapist, a support group, a trusted family member.
Humans often need help with our self-regulation. We can be reminded of our OKness while being encouraged to use our own thinking and feeling to make good decisions.
We need to notice when we are judging other people as not being OK. If we are stuck in judgment and anger, we need to take a look at how we are feeding the situation instead of improving it. Even when we are politically opposed to what other people are thinking and doing, we don’t decide that they are not OK. We can be angry with people without deciding they are not OK.
Being OK comes with sovereignty to choose our responses.
One response is to declare, collectively, We ARE NOT OK, when people – or any beings - or our values - are being harmed in our name.
I believe we will see millions of us showing up to say this loud and clear, as I will be, again this weekend.
Hey Lucy, I like this, however, I'm a bit confused. When we have mass killers, say like the Nazis, how can we say they are OK? Yes, perhaps many of them were "just going along" or "doing their job" so they were really OK, but were they? When people do heinous things to other people are they OK? I find this confusing. For argument's sake, aren't there times when it's necessary and good to fight back? When it's OK to be angry (other than in the privacy of your home)?