Election Mindset Shifts: Overcoming Anxiety and Catastrophizing

The Necessity of Anxiety

• 🧠 Anxiety or panic is not necessary to take something seriously or to care about it.
• ⚠️ Conflating unregulated emotions with investment or care about a situation is a thought error.
• ⚡ People can be effective and strategic even when facing challenging circumstances, without being in a state of panic.

Relevance of Thought Work

• 💡 Thought work and self-coaching are relevant to significant societal issues, not just personal conflicts.
• ⚖️ Drawing from Viktor Frankl, the freedom to determine one's attitude is the last freedom left to people under any circumstances.
• 🚀 Self-coaching is imperative during challenging times to maintain the emotional regulation and mental fortitude needed to advocate for desired change.

Catastrophizing and Uncertainty

• 🔮 Our brains tend to catastrophize when faced with uncertainty, believing worst-case scenarios to feel in control.
• ⚠️ However, catastrophizing is not planning and does not help in figuring things out; we don't actually know what will happen.
• 🌱 Trusting your future self's resilience and ability to figure things out is more helpful than constant catastrophizing.

The Impact of Social Media and News

• 📱 Excessive social media and news consumption can lead to a virtual reality of catastrophe, disconnecting you from your physical body and present reality.
• 🧘‍♀️ It's crucial to get back into your body through activities like dancing or crying to release stress, rather than remaining in a state of hysteria.

Challenging the 'Everything is Different' Narrative

• 🔄 The thought error that everything is suddenly different after an election can lead to feelings of disempowerment and helplessness.
• ⏳ Recognizing that many societal issues are part of an ongoing series of events, rather than entirely new, allows for a more grounded perspective.
• 🤝 Understanding this context helps in finding and joining others who have been working on these problems, rather than feeling like you must start from scratch.

The 'Good vs. Bad' Dichotomy

• ⚖️ The thought error of believing "I am good and they are bad" oversimplifies complex human behavior and decision-making.
• 😔 Being human means being capable of making decisions that don't align with all values, being misled, or acting on incomplete information.
• 💡 Embracing our flawed humanity allows us to move beyond resistance and focus energy on mitigating harms and creating improvements.

The Core of Belief

• ✨ Belief only truly means something when we are willing to believe without the evidence being what we want.
• ⏳ It is easy to believe when the world aligns with our desires; the challenge and core of belief work lie in holding faith when things are not going your way.
• 🌟 Maintaining belief in the world you want to see and in showing up to create it, especially when evidence is scarce or setbacks occur, is essential for progress.