140: Embodying Peace in the Face of Trump's F*ckery

In a powerful comeback episode, April N. Baskin unpacks the roots of her deep, intentional peace amid the chaos of Trump’s 2nd presidential term. Balancing raw emotion with spiritual insight, she shares how various factors and strategies have properly resourced her to fundamentally withstand oppressive forces without sacrificing her inner calm. With a mix of fierce honesty and gentle invitation, April lays out why embracing this peace is an intentional, revolutionary act—and she lets you know how you can join the conversation through Buzzsprout messaging!

Discussion and reflection questions:

1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
3. What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
4. If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
5. What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Links:

• Blog Post with link to the healing, inspirational, and educational playlist: Adversity Alchemy aka Collective Liberation or bust 
• Link to beautiful Youtube video of Shungudzo's song, "Already Free" - one of many potent songs on April's custom Adversity Alchemy playlist!
• Any other links or references! Shoot us a text and we'll endeavor to oblige. :)

Interested in hiring April as a consultant? Submit a written inquiry here or schedule a quick initial consult with her.

For a limited time, you're invited to join April for a free 5-day 1:1 challenge (30-45min daily, at an optimal time you'll select together with April).
Click here to schedule your free 1:1 Challenge scheduled with April today! 

Follow us on Instagram - @joyous.justice

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our services, programs, and to get connected!

Transcript

In this episode, I won't be heavily swearing, but as the title indicates, variations of the F-bomb and its friends may show up here and there. In case your or other sensitive ears are nearby, I wanted you to know. Now on with the show.

You're listening to the Joyous Justice Podcast with award-winning social justice leader and coach, Kohenet April Nichole Baskin. Let's journey into the realms of love and liberation together, dissolving internal barriers and deconstructing systemic oppression from the inside out. Whether you're leading change in an organization or your own life, your next step to advancing Joyous Justice starts here.

The Joyous Justice Podcast is coming back online, and I'm so excited and honored that you are here.

For the last couple of months or so, when people have asked how I'm doing, most frequently I've said that I have been experiencing and feeling a deep sense of peace, and often I would follow it up by saying that this sense of peace is not a shallow or lighthearted peace. It's a deeply rooted, purposeful sense of peace, and unsurprisingly, in light of some of the awful and horrendous circumstances and events that we're seeing play out here in the U.S., this has generated some curiosity about my orientation.

So I wanted to take some time here to really articulate how and why I'm embodying and experiencing peace—a deep peace in the face of Trump's fuckery.

In ways that are similar to many people in my networks and movements, I am deeply, deeply concerned by his presidency and what he has said that he has planned and what he's enacting. It is extremely harmful and alarming.

My experience of the two times that Trump was elected, I think, was the reverse of many people in my networks. This time around, a lot of people were expecting it and were extremely disheartened but weren't surprised. And I had the reverse experience. Unlike a lot of people, I did—unfortunately—sense that he was going to win the election when he was running against [then Senator] Hillary Clinton.

And when he got elected, I was very meditative that morning; a lot of people were in despair. I spiritually and energetically buckled down. I was aware of what was to come. I thought it was going to come sooner than it did—a lot of the things that I anticipated might happen are now happening in his current term.

And honestly, that was part of what contributed to me launching Joyous Justice. And then, more recently with this election—just for context—I know I obviously wasn't alone; however, this past November 6th, conveniently slash inconveniently (which was my birthday, worst birthday ever), I was devastated. I was absolutely devastated. I was nauseated.

I thought it would be miraculous if Vice President Kamala Harris won the election. But I still thought that was a miracle that was within reach and that it was so deeply necessary for so many reasons. Also, to be clear, I didn't think that Vice President Harris getting elected would resolve many of the things that I'm concerned about, but it certainly would be helpful in preventing the devastation that Trump was planning to enact and is in the process of enacting.

More recently, I'm going to get into various reasons why, but part of my peace has come about quite honestly, which is aligned with a lot of how my experience has been now, a year and a half out from my Kohenet ordination—which I used very explicitly as a portal through which to intentionally engage in my Afro-Indigenous coming-home work around my identity, around healing internalized oppression, and around reclaiming and more powerfully owning my sixth sensory capacity and ability to work with and perceive energy with greater precision, and also be in a more trusting relationship with Spirit.

I came by this peace, honestly—it wasn't something that I intended. It emerged from within me after I took some time.

I think about eight weeks to be in a process of deep mourning and unapologetic despair, spending time literally on the floor. For some reason, that's helpful for me at times, and processing big emotions is, for me, actually being on the floor sobbing. I took time to just be in the terror and upset as someone in my personal life who has been working through detaching from abusive relationships, to reconcile and grapple—I can still feel it now, of course.

I moved through my horror about having, yet again, an abuser in office as someone who is a highly sensitive person and who is very sensitive to my environments. I worried about my well-being and my ability to function, and I let myself have that space. I hadn't planned on talking about this in this episode, but it's what is emerging—so hopefully it's helpful for you or others who are listening, for me to share earnestly.

And I recommended this to Grounded & Growing-niks—the participants in my Grounded & Growing program—that for those days, those initial days and weeks, it is essential for them to prioritize moving through and honoring whatever thoughts and feelings were moving through, because if we didn't, those feelings and energies would still be there and would likely be subliminally affecting and impairing our capacity to make clear decisions and to function powerfully.

So it's worth naming and crafting this episode in my mind's eye. I realized my current stance and outlook has not only been the result of the internal emotional and spiritual process that I just shared with you immediately following the election, but, in fact, it actually has been years—and arguably generations—in the making.

As I've talked about this more, and particularly was agitated a couple of times—subtly but significantly—in conversations that I've referenced to you with mainly one person, honestly, someone who I really love, someone who's a beloved and a comrade in the work of advancing collective liberation, and we are at different points in our healing journey and we're in the process of reconnecting, we'd had one call and it was really beautiful, wonderful, and exciting. Then, on the second call, there was a subtle tension in the call, and it really inspired, prompted, and agitated me to think more about why I feel the way I do—because what I felt was not what this friend said, but rather a profound resistance and upset about me articulating that I feel and am embodying a deep sense of peace in this moment. And frankly, I really understand it. I get it, and my intuitive spiritual sense is to double down on it and make an effort to begin to articulate the underpinnings and the reasons why I feel this way, and the purposefulness and the power that I believe it holds in this moment.

The other day, I decided—even though the list feels infinite—that it still felt worthwhile to actually try to list out the reasons for me personally. And I came up with 27 reasons. Now, don't worry, I'm not going to share all 27 reasons in this episode.

Now, before I get into some of the specific reasons why, I wanted to give a very fun update, which is that there's now a way for us to be in a bit more communication—through my podcast hosting provider, Buzzsprout. If you go to joyousjustice.Buzzsprout.com, you can see all of the podcast episodes, the podcast overview, and you can click on this episode (episode 140). At the top of the show notes, there's a message—a little link that says, "send us a message." And if you click that, especially if you do it from your phone, a text message will pop up and you can send me a text message. And to be clear, I won't receive it as a text message. I'm not sure yet if you can send a voice memo that way, but you can send me a text, which I will receive in the online platform.

So if you're hearing something in this podcast episode and you would like to ask a question or share a thought or a story, I would love to hear it or read it. Keep that in mind as we continue into the rest of the episode.

As I shared toward the beginning of this episode, this work for me began with Trump's first election. I think it's worth naming explicitly that I am someone who appreciates honoring leadership and generally uses titles with people. And ethically, that does not make sense for me with the current—as Dr. Barbara Love would refer to him—as the returning occupant in the White House. To me, the harm he's done, his lack of ethics, his... for all the reasons, doesn't feel okay for me; hence, I'm referring to him as Trump, or as the current White House occupant.

So, from his first election, I had that morning when I learned that he won, I had this intense spiritual moment.

I just got into this kind of prayerful state. I got clear in that moment; I recognized that likely many people would die and that, in the face of that horrific destruction, targeting, and violence, I was going to root deeper and pull from the wells of my living and ancestry—both of which are relatively and quite immense—and cultivate immense internal strength, resilience, power, and capacity to lead more powerfully than I ever had before.

And in the days that followed, I felt the inspiration and, at times, direct communication from my ancestors around the legacies of, especially, two—but also many other ancestors as well. But the two stars who showed up and helped me access, in those moments, actual joy—because I'd been on a healing journey for a couple of years at that point, of reconciling and healing my relationship with joy. As y'all know, with the title of this podcast, I've since come around. And after the first election of Trump, I wasn't clear that that still made sense.

But then, through various means, I kept having the legacies and memories of specifically my Grandpa Joe, my Grandpa Joedell, and my Gram—my great-grandmother, Grandma Faye (but we all called her Gram), legendary woman. And as I was feeling grief and despair, I just kept getting reminded—and reminding myself and getting nudges—that Gram was the descendant of impoverished Pennsylvania coal miners and navigated the Great Depression as a young person, and experienced extreme poverty and adversity. And Grandpa Joe—I don't know if I'm feeling their spirits or energy with me; I'm just feeling this well of emotion. And Grandpa Joe and his family endured the Jim Crow South and various other indignities and forms of oppression and adversity throughout his life, and also my Gram throughout her life. And their legacies were ones of love, of listening, and of joy. My Grandpa's famous saying, when you would ask him how he was doing, is that he'd often put his hand on his pot belly and twiddle his fingers, and he'd say something like, "Ah, I'm 60/40," meaning 60% positive, 40% garbage—but more positive than negative. So I'm not complaining.

And this was a time when there was lots of talk of toxic positivity. And I was very clear overall that the joy I was experiencing was not toxic positivity. At that time, in part, I was orienting to it as a form of resistance. I've since elevated that understanding of it.

But it felt purposeful and divine and in service of my values and my dreams. And with my Gram and my Grandpa Joe's legacy, I didn't feel the need to worry about that because I never experienced their positivity and their love as toxic in any way—they never denied the hardship they endured. They would talk about it when it was necessary to talk about it. And they lived from love. They championed love in their leadership. And that was enough in the first few months of Trump's first term in office to carry me through the distress and despair, and help me access joy and empowerment in a moment when most of my colleagues understandably were quite overwhelmed, upset, frustrated, and struggling in sorrow, in grief, and in horror. And I was navigating all of that too, but I was able to stay afloat and feel joy because I thought, simply stated, if Gram and Grandpa Joe could access that joy and navigate that joy—given all that they went through and lived through—I damn sure can, and I damn well better.

Again, for context, I have a very active, robust trauma-healing practice and also self-care practices and routines that help hold me in that. And that's part of the context of the "damn well better" is because I am properly and well-resourced to do so. And that's speaking about me—for me. I'm not projecting that onto y'all or onto you. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's coming from an inner, loving conversation with myself.

So that's the first reason: I already had some momentum from Trump's first term—that story, among other things, inspired me to launch Joyous Justice—because now is a time when I think fundamentally a lot of people are misunderstanding (although maybe not, because part of that's up for debate). So I guess it depends on what kind of reality or future you think is the default versus what I believe—that we co-create our reality and our future. And the more we nourish and resource ourselves to do so, the more we can powerfully do it. So for me, this is not the end times. This is a time that feels like that. This is absolutely a collective moment where there is destruction underway.

But, as various people have spoken about beautifully, for me, this is a key choice-point, a milestone period. Also, to the next point I want to make: this is a time, a period, where multiple—roughly either right now or soon—this is a time that multiple traditions and ancestries have spoken of when love for the feminine and the earth and what is natural (essentially, various forms of decolonization and collective coming-home work and movement toward our ancestry and our inherent divinity) will be underway, and there will be a shift on this planet. And I believe that that's what's underway right now.

And part of what that means is that there will be destruction. So that is also part of the understanding that undergirds and supports how and why I'm embodying peace in this moment.

I planned on sharing a few other reasons, and if you would love to hear them, then feel free to send me that text via joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. But I'm wanting to keep this episode, as I mentioned, more potent and pithy. So I'm going to shave off some of what I was planning on talking about—or maybe it'll come through, but it's going to come through in a less linear fashion. I'm trying to keep this episode somewhat organized for your listening pleasure, but I feel like it's getting sterilized in the process, and I want to bring some life back into it.

So here's another way of saying this: I had the F-bomb in the title, and it seems that the D-word is coming up often. I'll be damned if an abusive, mediocre white man is going to ruin my peace—ruin my peace not only in this moment, but also in a way—because a core concept that I have in Joyous Justice is that our present-moment reality is the best prediction of where we're going. So it's incredibly important to me—and for my clients—that I help people transform their experience and perception of the now. And so it's incredibly important. I'm retroactively sharing these reasons, but these reasons weren't part of some rationale where I was like, "Let me be peaceful in the face of Trump's thuckery and destruction and horrific homicidal oppression." No, that's not how it went. I'm retroactively explaining to you what has been moving through me—the ways that Spirit has been moving through me. And one of the core things is this: here's how I pictured, in my mind's eye, that I'm in my little apartment here in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and I imagine spiritual roots digging deep into the earth and deep into my ancestry, and I can feel his toxicity, and abuse, and targeting at a distance. And I am creating a force field of love, of clarity, of peace.

And one of the things that's so essential to this, that I often say, is that having a positive energetic orientation is essential in order to access the best ideas and problem-solving solutions that are necessary as various chaos and problems unfold. It's also worth naming—as I've often said—that I understand myself and contextualize this general orientation, and the ways that I am cultivating it, within an interconnected movement web where there are various people—some that are aligned, some that are disparate, that are all essential, or many that are essential—for us to collectively navigate this moment. So everything I'm sharing with you is through an understanding that this is less about saying, "I'm this way, and therefore you should be this way," which is like the basic default that happens in our society for various reasons—because of purity culture, because of either/or thinking that I am coming in heavy and strong with a both-and framework. As I named before, part of why this peace is blooming within me now is because I spent two months feeling miserable and, for the first few weeks, had so much fear and terror within me—I regularly felt nauseated. I was sick to my stomach. So if you are feeling any number of those things, this episode is not a critique for you. It is lifting up one option or possibility around what's possible—and it feels important for me to do because, for many people, what I'm saying doesn't feel possible. The distinguishing variable, in part, is intention and also the work that undergirds it.

There are people who are saying this sort of thing, but frequently it's more anchored in a denial about what's happening—or an avoidance of looking at what is painful and horrifying in this moment—versus what I am: more of an orientation of radical awareness of what the threats are, along with acceptance of what's been said, and engaging in a very proactive and consistent practice of mindfulness around what is actually happening in the present moment, and not allowing myself to catastrophize while also being aware of what the fallout might be. But if the fallout isn't fully here yet, me continuing to nourish myself and harness my power in this moment—to support myself and others to act, to fight back, to advocate in ways that are most effective in this moment—and, as has been said in different ways, but in a very personal way—to not give up my power (which, for me, at its root, though not exclusively, is not the full extent of it)—is to not let his bullshit colonize or infiltrate my mind.

As I shared with my friend Jo on the night of the election, we both realized we needed to be near water, and she recommended that we go to the beach with her daughter. Hi, Jo. And I didn't have a lot to say. Neither one of us really did—we were just reeling. It was just great to be in each other's company.

But one of the thoughts I remember thinking that gave me comfort in that moment—while I was clear in light of all of the reasons why we know this is not good, whether Trump was elected lawfully or not—is that one thing that brought me comfort this time around, because I was already clear from the prior election, is that I will heal from, as necessary, what's happening and use those openings to support the development of a more liberatory consciousness among people and fight for loving revolutionary change. So I already knew that that was going to happen no matter who got elected—because there's a tremendous amount of work that needs to happen regardless of which candidate got elected.

That foundation was already there, and that wasn't enough for me because this time around, in light of all of the variables that I keep referencing—Project 2025, Project Es--, various, all these things—Trump said during his electoral campaign, what's happening in Israel and in Gaza—I was viscerally aware in vivid detail, unlike the first time around, who was likely to be harmed by this, and also understanding that I probably couldn't even yet fathom the destruction that would happen.

The mindfulness bell just went off on my phone. I'm engaging in the passion I wanted to engage in, but I'm also noticing it's good to re-anchor in breath.

And the thing that I shared with Jo—that was the only thing for a while that could bring me comfort about the external pieces—I had comfort because, in many ways, my whole life and my ancestry prepared me to effectively navigate this moment, as devastating as it still is. The one thing that brought me comfort that first night on my birthday—not a happy birthday—was: there's enough of us who have gotten enough potent healing, that whatever they bring to us externally, we are never going back internally.

I have healed. I also believe my brother, in very different ways, has also healed fundamental elements of internalized oppression, and no amount of fuckery they throw my way—my healing practices are too strong. I've already healed enough, and my ongoing healing modalities that are counter-oppressive and incredibly accessible give me the capacity to teach more people and will continue to do so. They can never take that away from me. So they can do whatever they're doing. They can exert whatever they have. And I am, to quote the artist [Shungudzo]—and I'll include a link to her song in my Adversity Alchemy playlist, which the song is on, "I'm Already Free"—I'm continuing to work to become even more free, but nothing he does can change that inner state for me and various other people. There are many people around the world and around this country who—though not entirely, some more than others—have accessed and are cultivating internal liberation and decolonization.

And the last piece I'll speak to is that over the past 20 years, I've been cultivating my sixth sensory awareness and mystical capacity to perceive, work with, and transform energy. And I've been aware since my young adult life that in the face of systemic oppression, organizing and work within this plane—as it's understood and framed in a colonial context—is likely not enough; there is spiritual power, confidence, and humility that is essential to work with Spirit in ways that can give us an advantage in the face of extreme and/or dire disadvantage. To trust my intuition, to receive messages from Spirit, to be able to decipher various messages—whether they are of a healing nature or a directive nature—and also to build my capacity to not just receive, but, in various ways, to communicate with Spirit, to wield energy, and also to ask the Divine Beloved/Goddess/Creator—to petition the Ptower, to petition the Ultimate Higher Power, however you choose to refer to it, her, him, or them—to assist me and our movements in change, in advancing change and healing, and in advancing love.

And I've got that on lock now. I believe I am on a path of mastery, and over the coming years and decades, that capacity is going to evolve and strengthen through the enormous and really intense body of work that I did around my Afro-Indigenous coming-home work and my, for lack of a better word, coming-out process around my mysticism and sixth sensory capacity. I did enough of that work that I established a strong foundation, and I am profoundly appreciative that I have it now, because it is giving me guidance that helps—if I have my tools, and at some point if those things were stripped from me—I know how to use the world around me and my inner world to access wisdom beyond my current human knowing.

So these other reasons are some of the many, many roots that are nourishing my abiding sense of peacefulness and calm—that is, an earnest peacefulness in this moment. And at any point that state may change, I would love for it to move more into love, appreciation, and joy. Often that can be my default—I experienced that frequently, and I'm appreciative—but in light of all that is swirling in the broader world and in my personal life, I'm appreciative right now that peace is available to me, and it's thankfully a significant intervention, and hopefully a step toward me deepening my capacity for creative and loving contributions in this moment.

And I'm aware, more so than ever before, that it's not on my shoulders to save the world. From my perspective, it's on my shoulders to embody and live into the solution of joy and love and wellness, while also—within reason—pouring all that I can into, as powerfully as I can, contributing to and advancing collective liberation and decolonization, but more so collective liberation, because that's actually the destination we're moving toward—through healing, decolonization, and education. All of Trump's fuckery simply makes it more clear that I am doing precisely what I'm meant to be doing. And at any point, if additional information comes out where I need to pivot, I am prepared to pivot in ways that make sense—not my whole life—because I've done a lot of healing around that, to not be self-sacrificial anymore, but to contribute as much energy and love and strategy as I can into using whatever oppression shows up, whatever fuckery shows up, to further clarify what I and we would collectively love to see, and to pour as much as I can into helping those who need help and advancing that vision—without backing down, but doubling down on where we are going. Because, as we know—and it's worth clarifying—all of this stuff is happening because we're actually making progress.

And while various things are being undone, they can be rebuilt. And it won't be easy, but we are brilliant and we are mighty. And I don't know about you, but I am here for that righteous fight; I'm not going anywhere, and I don't think you are either. So, with that, in any way that makes sense, I wish you peace—profound peace, even if it's a profound peacefulness around you feeling whatever rage or grief, disempowerment you need to surface and feel to be true to yourself—so that you are more equipped and stable in this moment and the moments ahead. I am so with you. I love you. I hope this first episode back was helpful in any number of ways, or at least in one way, for you.

Thank you for the honor of listening to these reflections. I truly hope, in one way or another, they were of service to you, and there is so much more to come. I'm excited in the coming episodes to share my heart and best insights with you. Much love, more soon.

Thanks for tuning in. To learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC and how you can work with April, check out the info in the show notes or visit joyousjustice.com. If you enjoyed this episode, show some love! Subscribe or leave a comment wherever you're listening. Tell your people, share what you're learning. Stay humble--but not too humble!--and keep going, because the future is ours to co-create.