the Empathy List #130: On Election Anxiety
We will survive, even this.
Hey friend, Liz here.
On this American election week, like you, I’m feeling anxious. What will happen to me? To us? To our most vulnerable neighbors? What if she doesn’t win? When will we even hear the results? What acts of violence will disrupt our news cycle in response to the results, and whose bodies will be targeted?
…and, perhaps most pointedly for you and me, what will the evangelicals leaders we used to respect say—today, this week, on January 6th—that, yet again, will disappoint and dishearten those of us committed to the cause of Jesus? Do we have any more stamina for heartbreak?
Phew. Take a deep breath with me. Or better yet, pray with me using your breath:
Breathe in: “We will survive…”
Breathe out: “…even this.”
Even this.
This week, when you’ll be most tempted to leave your body and live online and/or disassociate, I want you to pay attention to yourself instead.
Play anthropologist to yourself this week. Notice your fear, your anger, your sadness, your joy. Watch your emotions rise and fall to the rhythm of air entering and exiting your body on a cold day: your breath is inside you and, then as you exhale, and you can see your breath leave your mouth and nose, floating up in spirals until, finally, your breath is swallowed by sky. Your emotions are sign posts of your interior life; treat them as such. And notice how quickly they change, how movement can shift their direction, how crying or speaking out loud your fears shifts their shapes.
What I mean is, it’s okay to be gentle to yourself like the mother you never had. Prescribe yourself time for slow walks to crunch leaves underfoot, steaming baths, warming soups. Go to bed early. Turn off your phone and allow yourself to sleep on Tuesday night, even if you do not yet know the political fate of our divided nation. (staying up will not change the election result—really).
You’re allowed to joke, to turn off the news, to laugh and eat good food and sweat and have good sex. You’re also allowed to weep and to zone out with too much tv and to nap every single day. It’s all allowed, the entire spectrum of human experience and feeling. You can be yourself this week. You can set boundaries this week. You can rage and weep this week.
And you can release the consequences of outcomes you could never control anyway.
You and I are not state senators. We are not presidential candidates. We are likely not even school board governors or PTA presidents. The fact is, the circle of our influence is small, local, and relational. And I know that feels scary in an election like this one where “democracy is on the line.” (Which line? whose version of democracy?) I get it.
I also get that some of you really are more vulnerable than I am, and you all are more likely to experience personally the violence and hatred that accompanies one or another election result, and that violence and those consequences matter deeply. I believe God hates this violence. And anyone who does not hate this violence does not know the God of the Bible. (I said what I said.)
But no body can bear the consequences of an entire nation’s political future without breaking. Politics is a communal venture, a lifelong protest, an unceasing demand for justice. That means politics is also a marathon, not a sprint. Which means that there are times when it’s okay to collapse into bed and take a break.
This week is one of those times. We wait and see the result of our hard work. We take a breath.
…And then we get back to work in the company of our friends and allies, with the wind of the Holy Spirit at our backs, spurring us onward.
Take care this week, my friends. We will survive, even this.
Warmly, Liz Charlotte Grant
What’s your plan to take care of yourself this week, despite the anxiety and uncertainty of this political moment?