On Elections, Finitude & Psychograms External
Jan 15, 2025
No wellness wankery or toxic positivity good vibes from me, I promise.
This is a stressful, uncertain and very challenging time in the USA.
As a small offering, here are some ideas to help you navigate the coming days, from me and your fellow Luminaries:
- Your story follows your state
Your thoughts are state-dependent, and your nervous system requires certainty, context and choice.
Your primitive brain is concerned purely with your survival so it's important to concentrate on regulating and creating safety for yourself before you try to think intentionally about a situation as emotive as presidential elections.
It helps me to lovingly talk myself through an experience as if I'm a young child, which sounds a little like this: "I am feeling uncertain and afraid. It makes sense that I feel this way. There's no rush for me to feel better."
- Regulation
Use repetitive rhythm to regulate yourself including:
playing a drum / listening to a drumbeat
dancing
colouring
tennis (just hitting the ball)
swimming laps
stirring food
painting a wall
stroking your pet
deep breathing
humming
birdsong.
Use this grounding exercise to help bring you back into your body, including engaging your five senses with a big, deep breath in between each one:
What can I see?
What can I smell?
What can I feel?
What can I hear?
What can I taste?
- Complete your stress response
- Breathwork session
Use the unique code "EFC01" from Sophie for my clients to book a free breathwork session.
- Tricky Time Protocol
A tricky time is hard enough without you berating yourself on top of it. So this is all about easing up on yourself because we’re very quick to assign moral value to our behaviour. A tricky time protocol is about accepting where you are and loving yourself through it with self-compassion.
This includes anything that you would like to give yourself permission to do or not do, without feeling guilt or shame about it. The most important point is to reduce shame, self-judgement and self-criticism.
Decide ahead of time how you want to take care of yourself each day next week, including where and with whom you want to be at pivotal election points, who you want to talk to during and after the election, stock phrases to use with certain people, and how you are going to intentionally let off steam.
- Make a plan of action
Allow your willing and wonderful brain to help you, and write it out (allowing for equal time for the best and worst-case scenarios).
If Kamala Harris becomes president, I will ...
If Donald Trump becomes president, I will ...
- Historical and geographical perspective
Broaden your gaze - I love the timing of this historical event, don't you?!
