sadness Archives - Life Coaching by Christine Gipple

What do we do now? Caring for Yourself Post-Election 2024

My eighteen-year-old daughter who’s away at college called me at 1:30 am during the counting of election ballots asking me, “Mom, what do we do now?” when she saw how the election was leaning.

Below is a portion of my responses, plus additional thoughts in the hopes they might help you care for yourself today and going forward.

“I’m devastated, too…

What we do now is keep going. Keep moving forward. Feel what we feel so we can acknowledge it, move through it, process it, and remember what matters most to us. Yesterday I felt hope, passion, and inspiration for moving forward collectively with compassion, empathy, kindness and strength. Today, the person I voted for won’t be at the helm of our country, yet that doesn’t erase my own desires and hopes. It doesn’t change the fact that half of the country DID vote to protect our democracy and personal choices. We’re all still here.

Alongside my own grief, I somehow feel more passionate, more inspired, and more motivated. Because now my values are at stake at another level. Our freedoms are truly at stake because the person who’ll be in charge doesn’t value giving others personal choice, and instead wants to control and take away many of the choices for so many of us, especially women.

It’s easy for me to blame and get angry and think WTF is wrong with people, when I see the ludicrous inconsistencies in their logic. I go there. I’m baffled when I see people choosing hate, division, and exclusion.

Yet, that’s where we are. Half of our country has chosen a man I label as a dictator and a narcissist to lead our country, and the other half wants compassion, empathy, democracy and diplomacy. I put myself in the latter category where I want us to form strong allies and allegiances– within our country and beyond. I believe we are stronger together. And I believe our actions and choices impact everyone collectively. It’s like the butterfly effect.

And, this is life. We think it’s going one way, and the outcomes are often opposite of what we expect and predict.

So, we keep going. We keep making choices that bring us closer to the kind of world we want to live in. We focus on what matters to us and make sure every action we take contributes to that. It’s a big ask because it requires all of body/mind/spirit to be conscious and online.

And we track every election by being aware of every open seat, check out who’s running and research them. We vote to fill the seats for congress, house of representatives, senate, council, mayor, governor, and of course, president with people who are democracy advocates and protectors. Vs. people who only want to use their power and control to eradicate or shame anyone who disagrees with them.

I told her, we do what we did in this election – see who’s up in each seat, check them out, hear what they have to say, and cast our vote as it aligns with our values. And, if we’re inspired to do more, we do.

Regardless of who’s at the helm of our country, we get to use our voice and be loud. Look at Rosa Parks – she changed history forever with one choice. As of right now, we still have our 19^th amendment.”

So, how do you care for yourself post election? What I’m doing is this: Feeling what I feel, recognizing that my own sadness is longing for a world where peace, inclusion, kindness, tolerance and acceptance is valued. Then I’m asking myself how I can be more conscious about the choices I make in each moment that contributes to those things. I’m asking myself what actions I can take to allow me to feel the way I want to feel, and to promote that feeling with others creating connection, and all the things I just named.

I choose to connect to what matters, and chose from a place of self-awareness around my emotions, instead of blindly reacting and spewing hate.

Wrapping us all with care, hope and love that we will move forward together, in a way that connects and supports each other. Like the roots of the trees that connect underneath, we’re all connected. May we work to create the world that we ALL want to live in, and feel safe to do so as we are.

Pretending, Avoidance & Addiction – 5 Questions to Navigate Change

It’s 2005. I’m sitting in circle with 15 women and the discussion is being led my long term mentor, Cheryl Richardson, who asks the question, “What are you pretending?” Each woman answers in turn. When it comes to me, my answer surprises me. I respond with, “I’m pretending that my life is OK when it isn’t.” Thirteen years and a 12-year old daughter later, my answer is similar. This time though, there’s a slight but significant variation with my response. This time, I’m not hiding in my discontent. This time I’m not hoping things around me will change. This time, I’m changing me.

Getting Unstuck…

How many times do you stay stuck in situations you don’t love? You tolerate them; you pray; you wish for the people or the situation to change; you hope someone will see your perspective; or you hope the other person will “step-up” to communicate with you in a way that fills your need for connection and attention. Then, when none of this happens, you stay in the same spiral of disconnect within yourself, ruminating over details and data, living in the same circumstances, wearing a façade of acceptance. Pretending.

When we choose to stay, in anything that’s less than what we desire or require, we must ask ourselves what we’re getting by not making the changes we know we need to make. We must acknowledge that we’re getting something or we wouldn’t do it. Some need is being met, some benefit is coming from our action or we wouldn’t continue with the same pattern or behavior.

So what are you getting by not changing what you know you need to change?

Do you get to avoid discomfort? Do you avoid exposure of a truth that’s too embarrassing for you, or that you think is too upsetting for others to hear? Or maybe you get to tell yourself, it’s for “the kids?” Let me clue you in. The kids know what’s going on anyway. You’re not sparing them any pain by staying in a situation you’d rather not be in. They see the upset, the disconnection, the hugs that aren’t happening, the conversations being avoided, the looks not being exchanged. Even if they’re little, they sense it energetically.

Perhaps you get to stay on auto-pilot. You get to do what’s familiar. You get to stay in your routines and habits which feels safer and more secure than changing. You get to avoid feeling pain. You get to numb out. You get to say you “have to” do whatever it is, and you continue to not think, not feel, not process what’s really happening around you. Maybe you get to not have to do the work in your relationships. Or maybe you get to hide in your addictions.

Addictions

Addictions show up in all of us, not just in those drawn to alcohol or drugs. We are addicted to alcohol, books, clutter, computer games, drugs, education, exercise, food, learning, Netflix, people, porn, sex, shopping, strategies, work, or even the recovery process. Our addictions allow us to numb out and avoid the pain we don’t want to feel.

The strategy is avoidance. The payoff is we get temporary relief by avoiding the pain of change.

What’s the cost of avoiding making the changes you need to make?

Costs of our Avoidance

Maybe it’s disconnection to those you really care about, drama, emotional pain and turmoil, physical pain in your body like arthritis, auto-immune disorders, colds, migraines, cancer or any multitude of other manifestations. Whether it’s ruminating negative thoughts that dominate your choices and behaviors, one thing is certain. We can be sure that our bodies will detox pain however they can. They’ll take us out when we need to reset – I’ve learned this first hand more than once. In physical form, unprocessed pain might come out as disease. Emotionally, unprocessed pain is likely to come out sideways through our toxic behaviors and patterns having the potential to destroy relationships. The question becomes, what are you willing to do about it?

Pain…

Here’s the deal. We all feel pain. We all feel sadness and despair at some point in our lives. No one is spared from pain or change.. Change is the one constant we can depend on.

Change can feel hard and scary and messy.

Change brings up anger, discomfort, discord, fear, resentment, and vulnerability. Even if you like change, it’s still awkward, especially when we don’t know what’s on the other side.

While I love ritual and routine, I also love freedom and spontaneity, so at times I feel in conflict with my own needs. In the past I’ve seen myself pass by opportunities out of fear, and I’ve jumped impulsively into a heartfelt YES without knowing where it was taking me. I’ve experienced situations where anything was better than were I was, so I jumped into the unknown trusting I’d be held in the uncertainty.

Life can be feel hard and impossible sometimes. These past few months, I’ve learned when I show up as vulnerable and real, unseen doors open that allow more growth and more healing. I’m learning to trust myself and speak my truths, even if it means people might leave, or not like me, and even if my words might land in someone else in a way I didn’t intend. How my words land isn’t my responsibility, how I deliver them is. I can only control my presence in which I offer myself.

You might be surprised at how others show up FOR you when you show up AS YOU.

My invitation to you is this: Stop pretending your life is ok if it isn’t. Speak your truth. Say what you feel. Ask for what you need. Take off your mask.

Action Challenge:

This week, take 5 minutes to close your eyes and ask yourself these five (5) questions.

Where are you hiding?
What are you pretending?
What’s one change you’d like to have made 3 months from now?
What’s one doable, small, achievable and realistic thing you can do this week, to take a step toward that change?
Are you willing to make this commitment to yourself? If so, when?

Did you like this article and challenge? Let me know what shifted as a result of this challenge or even just from reading this article. I love hearing from you. Email me here, or leave a message in the comments below.

Sending you so much love…

Chris

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