What Marianne Williamson Can Teach Every Democratic Candidate For President

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Any candidate who doesn’t understand how to lead with soul should get out of the race. You are wasting our time.

Donald Trump has our national soul in a stranglehold with his fascist rhetoric and immoral actions. The Democratic nominee for president needs to wrest it back.

It is mind-boggling that after three years of Trump, these candidates don’t understand how to communicate with the American people. Here is some advice: Get out of your heads. Stop talking about people and talk to them. Dig beneath our hope and fear and tap into our longing.

Speak to the soul.

Marianne Williamson gets it. That’s why she’s rising, and why she’ll keep rising.

Marianne Williamson, 67, is the author of 13 books, an activist who co-founded the Peace Alliance, and now a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. In the first quarter of 2019, she raised $1.5 million for mostly individual, small donors.

Pundits write her off as a “spiritual guru.” But like it or not, we’re in a global, life-or-death spiritual crisis. She’s right when she says plans and wonkiness won’t win the day. She’s right when she says Americans only hear “yadda, yadda, yadda,” when politicians parse their policies.

Candidates drop the word ‘soul’ but we don’t feel it. They say we’re in a fight for the soul of America, but we don’t feel it from them. Williamson calls on Americans to reclaim their voices as “spiritual citizens.” She says the time has come for truth-telling. She goes headfirst into the dark night of the national soul. Any candidate who can’t go there better listen and learn.

We are at a cataclysmic threshold. Throw out every policy paper. Don’t say ‘gerrymandering’ again. Stop acting like this is a normal election cycle. Instead, dear Democrats, feel into the dark underbelly of this moment. Whether you think they’re “psychic” or not, dark forces like hatred and scapegoating and cruelty abound. Williamson is right about that, too.

Before the rest of you open your mouths to speak, pause. Take three deep breaths. Then:

1) Imagine you’re tucking in a child at bedtime who asks you to leave the light on because they fear the dark. Would you tell them you spent $3 trillion on their closet and assure them you’ve implemented the best plan for monster prevention?

2) Picture yourself at the hospital bedside of someone you dearly love who feels excruciating pain. Would you walk calmly over to the nurse’s station? Would you describe rationally how your loved one needs morphine? Feel the urgency, the desperation, in your gut to get help.

3) Recall a time in your life when you followed a grand or crazy dream — not because it made sense but because the possibility was too delicious to ignore. Use your imagination to experience the memory.

Now, talk to us. Inspire us. Reclaim the generous, enlightened soul of America.

Posted today on Forbes.com

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