Election results: coping the day (& week) after

Part of me doesn't have words; I'll offer what I can.

Today’s a day that many of us have been dreading. I’d provided some guidance for dealing with election anxiety and political stress in my blog, in The Seattle Times, and on KUOW. In the last several months, I’ve been less focused on blogging and more focused on activism and volunteer work. I hadn’t prepared anything for today, and it feels like something is needed.

You’re not alone. In your grief, numbness, shock, despair, hopelessness, fear, bewilderment, betrayal, rage, whatever it is you’re feeling right now. I cried while walking my pup this morning. I already ate some of the cookies I baked last night while trying to distract myself from the election returns. (It’s 7:07am as I wrote that sentence.)

It’s okay to feel, whatever you’re feeling. It’s okay to take the day off from work. It’s okay to rest. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to expect nothing of yourself. It’s okay to admit you don’t understand or recognize the country in which you live. It’s okay to show up as a fully vulnerable and authentic human.

How do you get through today? The rest of this week?

Take care of yourself.

Remember the simple things: to hydrate, to sleep, to eat nutritious food (with a bit of comfort food snuck in too), to exercise. Go outside. Breathe the fresh air.

Find your people.

Friends are checking in with each other. Family is texting each other their feelings. There are coffee shops and gathering places if you live physically alone. Tell people they matter to you, and you’ll support, stand up for, and love each other.

Comfort yourself.

Maybe that’s with tea. Maybe coffee or lattes. Maybe curl up on the couch with fiction or a four-legged fur baby. There are and will be times to get off the couch and engage with the world again, and that doesn’t need to be today or this week.

Distract yourself.

If you’re finding yourself thinking about worst-case scenarios or what might happen in this country come January, find something else on which to focus. Watch a mindless movie or TV show. (Social media may not be the best for you–or it may. You know yourself best.) Listen to music. Try to keep your mind from going to the darkness right now; it may, and remind yourself: we don’t know what will happen yet. Right at this moment, I hope you’re safe and not experiencing an immediate physical threat.

Or, be present if you can.

If you have a meditation or mindfulness practice, engage it. It’ll help you tune in with where you are and what you need. If you don’t have any such practice, find something that helps you be in the moment. For me, it’s watching my puppy try to pick up her stuffed shark and her zebra-striped stuffed ball simultaneously while carrying them around the house and wagging her tail. For you, it’s probably something else. It’s may be yoga, or something involving being in your body.

There’s a time to act, and there’s a time to be, to rest, to grieve. Let yourself experience the stillness and the emotions from which you may usually try to run. They teach us something, and they’re not going away. They need to be processed and felt.

I’m an activist at heart. I’ll be following up on what might help next. But for now, take several deep breaths.

If you’d like to work together on your post-election feelings and thoughts and stress, please reach out.