Celebrate You
A year-end letter from Alexa James, NAMI Chicago CEO.
December 31, 2020
Friends:
You. Thank you. I honor you. I am deeply grateful for your strength and love. Can we celebrate together? This is my hope for today and for this year.
Today, tomorrow and the next I will celebrate the joy of change, the discomfort of growth, and the brilliance of what I now know is the definition of love: showing up for someone else, seeing their truth, when our own hearts are broken in pieces. I give myself permission to celebrate this year, this life, because of the commitment I have seen in this beautiful NAMI community and for my deep gratitude that we have loved this way.
Most of us have spent our life avoiding pain. We numb, we hate, we disconnect, we overcommit, we blame, we shame, we compartmentalize. We are very good at managing. Managing is a tool, but it does not build resilience. And resilience is what I celebrate in all of you, today and every day.
This year has been horrific, with loss unimaginable. 2020 was not an equalizer. It was inequality and injustice staring us in the face, and those who had turned a blind eye to centuries of injustice, should no longer, could no longer. While I watch people looking to 2021 with hopes that tomorrow will return us to where we were before, count me out on going backwards. I celebrate our stark awakenings.
At NAMI Chicago, our lens has changed. Our hearts are forever different, and we use that to build wellness and resilience from the inside out. We do not have the luxury not to. It is our duty to you, it is our privilege and responsibility to create a space of wellness so we can show up. I hope I never go back to managing.
Resilience has been at the center for many, this year, to brace ourselves from the trauma we’ve experienced at rates we couldn’t have imagined. That in itself is trauma: the death of expectation, the disappointment and surprise of dramatic change, the unsteady nature of this world.
I thought for years that resilience was the calluses we develop, the armor we wear, the ability to hold a meeting while holding back tears or wanting to scream, to soldier on. But resilience is not avoiding or distraction. It’s not passive or transactional. It is the quiet behind the disruptive noise. It requires speaking our truth and looking pain in the face, knowing that adversity is everywhere and suffering exists in our souls at levels unimaginable. And to build resilience is to actively participate in choosing where our attention is paid.
Can we pause there? Can I ask where your attention is paid? Where do you spend your beautiful and limited energy these days? When we are pulled into filling the emptiness with toxic thoughts or relationships or behaviors that just make us feel emptier, we get stuck in a stress response that weakens us. It blocks our ability to connect, grow and practice gratitude.
Building resilience is shedding what doesn’t serve us, acknowledging how uncomfortable that is, leaning in and asking for what we need from those we love, and leaving the rest. Resilience is not a luxury. It is a tool, a practice, a necessity if we truly believe in humanity and healing together.
Resilience is growing forward in response to pain. If we do not, if we stay stuck, we sleepwalk through our lives and exist in chaos. In chaos, authentic connection isn’t possible and we have no room to see or hear others. We need more connection, and less chaos.
Building resilience is a choice. It is finding gratitude when it feels unjust. There are days when we wake up and only feel struggle. We go to bed not believing hope is holding our hand on this journey. When gratitude feels out of reach, reflect on this: it starts with you. Have you thanked yourself today? Yesterday, the last 364 days? For showing up, for being raw, for giving others moments of kindness and compassion? Have you loved yourself enough to forgive yourself when that wasn’t the case?
Knowing that there is deep pain and grief, loss and natural disasters ripping our world apart, I choose today and tomorrow to find joy and celebration. You have permission to choose that, too. To accept what you cannot control, and step up for what you can, and should, change.
We do not have the luxury of walking into 2021, 2022, Saturday, Tuesday, Friday, without putting ourselves first, thanking ourselves, and actively working to build resilience in ourselves. Our kids are watching, our staff is reading the room, there are people around us who are unseen.
To the painful, strict, intolerant, honest, 2020: thank you. You have been a teacher.
We celebrate you, our beloved community. And we want you to feel it everyday. Reach out and we will reach back. Always. We don’t have the luxury not to.
With an inspired heart and deep gratitude,
Alexa James
CEO, NAMI Chicago