A few days after the election, I asked my friends on Facebook how they were feeling in one word. Many people's responses mirrored these:

Discouraged.

Distraught.

Exhausted.

While the majority of those who expressed such sentiments identify as members of marginalized communities, even I, a cisgender, white, college-educated male, have had a hard time fighting off feelings of defeat.

These kinds of emotions will probably be quite common over the next four years. Grief is certainly appropriate at this time, but we must also remember that we have much work to do in order to counteract the hatred that allowed Donald Trump to become president in the first place. After all, we cannot control our circumstances, but we can control how we respond.

We find ourselves in a place where it is of utmost importance to continue to build a culture of resistance to the overt bigotry that has reasserted itself throughout the coarse of Trump's campaign. More than ever before, we need to be taking a stand for each other.

Empathy and support are essential. We need to reassure each other that we are all loved, valuable and not alone. In fact, we probably have more allies than ever before. We need to be willing to provide safe spaces for those who need them and, most importantly of all, we need to be willing to listen.

And now is also the time to channel the negative feelings we are experiencing into a determination to change our current situation. In the past few days, I have witnessed many people's attitude shift from despair to resolve. This may take longer for some of us than others, but it is encouraging to see that a few of my friends had already made that shift when they commented that they were feeling:

Stronger.

Resilient.

Ready.

Make no mistake, is going to take everything we have. We cannot do this alone. We must recognize that there is truly only one way we will be able to cope with and survive the upcoming Trump presidency. We must be willing to go through it:

Together.