t’s really important to feel these hard feelings and acknowledge them. It’s also important to explore the ways that Donald Trump’s election can provide us with real time opportunities to learn to exist differently by making our material and nonmaterial needs equally important. We can do this by slowing down and taking a moment to understand how exactly Trump’s election impacts our material and nonmaterial needs, as well as our fears about not being able to meet them. When we take time to explore these needs and our fears about meeting them, we can also see our creative power to meet them in new ways as individuals and in community.

When we understand the world around us, we don’t have to react to chaos. Instead, locating ourselves in systems and history empowers us to respond to chaos in ways that align with our inner wisdom. In chaotic times we have a nonmaterial need to locate ourselves in systems and history to avoid being overwhelmed. By unpacking hegemonic transitions, we can locate ourselves in systems and history.

When we learn to equally emphasize our material and non-material needs instead of prioritizing our material needs at the expense of our non-material needs, we start existing differently than human beings have for the last 500 years. When we create organizations and communities that equally emphasize material and non-material needs, we create systematic opportunities to exist differently.