Like many people I’m still trying to make sense of the numbers and tabulations that I saw on CNN at 2:30 AM.

Despite such a polarizing, mean-spirited and divisive campaign and even with Wolf Blitzer’s countless “we have an update from Florida,” I had no idea what Nov. 9 had in store for our country.

There is an impulsive, reptilian part of me that wants to reach for a megaphone and chastise my fellow Americans who voted for Trump for lacking critical understanding, empathy or basic common sense.

That course of action would be not only simplistic and reductionist but also false. Acting impulsively is never a constructive path to follow.

A colleague sent a wonderful post about how it feels like we are grieving for a loved one. Swiss-American Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross taught that we all grieve differently and the grief cycle often involves denial, anger, and sadness. Sometimes these emotions collide creating in us an internal tsunami.

So if you can now might be an opportune time to patiently check in with people and see how they are doing.

One understanding of when the messianic redemption will occur according to the Jewish tradition posits that only when all of us are invested in and live with a deep commitment to justice and compassion for all can a utopian paradigm begin.

This election taught me that we have not yet built a country predicated on love and understanding. There is more work to be done—more restorative justice to plant, more economic inequality to overcome, and more humanity to uplift.

So let’s take time to process and grieve in our own way, at our own pace. And in time let us each find the strength to create even more love and compassion in our deeply divided communities, country and world. Our nation has overcome countless schisms, wars and crises for over two centuries. Despite all precincts reporting I still have faith in this country and in my fellow Americans.

I come from a family that survived Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and a brutal Brazilian dictatorship. So no, I will not be relocating to Canada, or seeking tranquility in foreign lands. Hell no, I’m here to stay. So let the grieving commence so that in time healing can flow. And when you are ready let’s create an unprecedented tidal wave of love and compassion the likes of which America and our Planet has never experienced.