194. Election Stress
Alex and I watched five minutes of the recent presidential debate and then turned it off.
I am afraid for the future of the United States. Maybe you are, too.
This country was built on many problematic things - slavery, white supremacy, the subjugation of women - and it continues to have very real issues and shortcomings, ways its failing its own citizens and the rest of the world too.
And yet, I still want to have hope for the US, for what it could one day become. Maybe you do, too.
But the presidential debates and the themes of election season and our overall political system can make it very hard to maintain any kind of optimism for the future.
That’s why I’m doing a podcast about election stress. I’m feeling it big time. Maybe you are, too.
And if you are, this podcast is an available resource for you, if you want support.
I realize you may not want any coaching on the election, and that’s ok. Skip this episode if you prefer.
But if you’re craving honesty, support, and yes, some coaching concepts to help you navigate this election year, this week’s episode is for you.
Coaching tools are not a silver bullet, but I believe you’ll find that they’re very useful for situations like this - times when things feel hard and scary and you’re just not sure what to do.
So tune in for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF and let’s talk about what you can do if this election has you feeling stressed the f*ck out.
Want customized support creating your wildly delicious life? Let’s hop on a free consultation call.
I’ll help you understand the blockers you’re facing and how to handle them moving forward. And I’ll share how a three-month 1:1 coaching package could supercharge your progress as well as your satisfaction.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
How to use coaching to navigate election stress.
A powerful question you can ask yourself when it all feels like wayyyy too much.
How I coached myself about creating this episode (and how that can be an example you can use to coach yourself about election stress).
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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If there are topics you want me to talk about on the podcast, feel free to write in and let me know by clicking here!
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we're talking about election stress.
The Satisfied AF podcast is the place to learn how to create a life and career that’s wildly delicious. Want a steamier sex life? We’ve got you. Want a more satisfying career? We’ll cover that too. And you can be sure we’ll spend lots of time talking about how to build connected, fun relationships that can handle life’s ups and downs.
No matter what goals you’re working on, this show will help you create a one-of-a-kind life that is just right for you. Join me, life and career coach Kori Linn, and each week I’ll give you lots of practical tips, tools, and proven strategies to help you create all the satisfaction your heart desires.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. Or maybe just Hello, it's Wednesday. Maybe you, me, are not feeling particularly happy this week. Maybe you're feeling a little bit stressed. Maybe you're feeling a lot stressed. I personally have been feeling some pretty intense big feelings about the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
I wanted to use the podcast to have a discussion about that, and to talk through how you can use coaching tools if you too are feeling stressed about the upcoming election here in the U.S., or any election anywhere in the world.
I know that, for myself, I'm feeling very frustrated with the whole way the election is going; with the two options we have. With just the way elections work in this country. Also, with the way politics work. I often feel the levers that I have at my disposal don't have a big enough impact. I vote, I sometimes donate, and even then I feel there's such a disconnect between what the people of the United States of America want and what our government is doing.
It's extremely frustrating to me personally, and I have a lot of frustration about that generally. But I feel the U.S. presidential election brings a lot of that into an extremely heightened state, especially because it has the potential to have so much impact for not just American citizens, but the whole world. It feels kind of rough.
And if you're having a rough experience too, I have some things to share with you that I think can help you have a better experience, and also use the agency and energy you do have to be the person you want to be, show up how you want to show up, create the impact you want to have in the ways that you can. Again, sometimes the impact we want to have, we can't figure out how to have it with the agency we do have.
But I still think coaching tools can be incredibly useful, and they can help us focus on what we are able to do. And so, that's what I want to talk with y'all about today. I do just want to say, again, this is more raw than a lot of my podcasts; it's less buttoned up. I'm very cognizant that I don't have all the answers and politics is not my area of expertise, and it is something that I personally struggle with.
So, this is probably going to just be a little bit of a different kind of podcast than some of the other ones, where there are topics I coach on all the time and I have more expertise in the subject matter as well. I also want to say, whatever you're feeling about the election, I'm not here to try to take those feelings away from you. If you're feeling outraged, I'm not saying don't feel outraged. If you're feeling stressed, I'm not saying don't feel stressed.
I think that there are a lot of ways people feel about this, and that's up to you. Also, the coaching tools can be something that you can use in addition to however you're feeling. Because sometimes there's something that I'm outraged about and I want to continue to feel outraged about it, but the outrage isn't helping me show up the way I want to show up.
And so, sometimes I am looking for something else I can tap into alongside the outrage. And that's kind of what this podcast episode is trying to make available for you, however you're feeling, okay? Again, we're not trying to gaslight, or say, “Everything's going to be hunky dory, and it's all going to be great.” We're not doing toxic positivity here. None of that.
We're just saying, is there something else that you could be having also, that could help you have a better experience? Okay, so there's however you're feeling now, right? And then, there's how you want to choose to think and feel about the election. I think for a lot of people that maybe seems an either/or, but what I'm going to say is I think it can be a both/and; that they can sit alongside each other.
Again, I feel so frustrated by the American political system. I just feel enraged by the way it works in its current arrangement. I also just generally feel so enraged by how the United States as a country came to be, and all of the problematic -isms that our country is built on, and many of which our country is still doing, right? Things white supremacy. Things state-sanctioned violence. Again, I'm so enraged.
I'm not going to try to tell myself not to be enraged. I'm not going to be , “That's not helpful.” But what I am going to say is, “Okay, but is the enraged part of you… is that creating what you want to do? Is it helping you show up how you want to show up?” And for me, when I just sit in feeling enraged, or when I just sit in feeling afraid, or if I just sit in feeling overwhelmed, that doesn't tend to create a lot of valuable action for me.
If I feel enraged, I'll probably just stomp around the house, or wear myself out. And then, I'm going to be laid out on the couch watching Murder TV and drinking a big glass of wine, right? Again, there's nothing wrong with being enraged. I think it's often how I want to feel about a lot of things. But it's not necessarily the feeling from which I am going to create the actions that I want to be doing, or from which I'm going to have an impact.
Because I observed when I feel that way, what I do, it's part of the picture, right? I think there is space for stomping around the house, laying on the couch, watching Murder TV and having a big glass of wine. I'm probably still going to do all of those things.
But sometimes I want to do other things in addition to that, and that's where the secondary perspective can come in, right? So, it's all of these things. I feel enraged, okay, but alongside that rage, is there something else I also want to cultivate that's going to help me problem solve, or show up in some way that I think might be meaningful?
And sometimes it's like, “I don't know if this will be meaningful. This is kind of a test-and-learn. But I'm going to do it.” I do feel very disillusioned politically in this country, and I'm still going to vote. Sometimes I still make donations. And there are other things I'm going to be doing, because I can do them and it's possible. For one thing, I do think voting obviously has some impact.
There is one candidate I want to win. And it's not because I think he's going to do a great job. It's because I think the other candidate is horrifying. I'm a queer person, and a woman, and interested in intersectional feminism, and interested in human rights. I think you probably know which one’s which.
So, again, I'm very disillusioned in the system, but I'm still going to vote, right? I'm still going to vote. And I'm still going to vote for the candidate who I believe is more aligned with my values, and with what I would like to see happen in our country.
I'm also deeply frustrated because I think that things that that candidate will do, even if elected, are not nearly enough. This is the both/and. This is holding the complexity for, “I am enraged, and I'm also going to figure out some things to do that I think could be useful.” Understanding that they might not have the impact I want them to have.
And then, I'm going to have to look around some more to see what, if anything, could have more impact. So, there's that piece, right? These are the two things that are operating at the same time, side by side; the rage, the fear, the anxiety, the frustration. And then thinking through, “Okay, but what's going to help me try to create the outcome I want? Or as close to the outcome I want as possible?”
A metaphor I read online once, that I thought was really useful, was that voting is kind of like taking public transit. A lot of times, there's zero public transit that's going exactly where you want to go. So, you pick the public transit that's going to get you closer to where you want to go. And then, you have to figure out, you have to bridge the gap some other way, right?
With an actual public transit, probably you're going to walk. But with something political, it might be like, “Okay, I vote, and then I also do mutual aid. And then, I also am finding activism that I can do, that's going to help push the country,” or my city or my state, or whatever, “in the direction I want to see.”
I think there's also some grieving, right? It's like, “Fuck, things are really not the way I want them to be.” And I think where we're enraged, there's also often grief. And we don't always get to it. But I know for me, in reckoning with the country that I was born and I live in, the United States, there's so much grief. There's so much grief about what this country has done, and what it continues to do, and the terrible ways it treats people, both its citizens and non-citizens, right?
Again, if I get too caught up in that, and only that, it's going to take me out. It's going to take me out of the game, and that's personally not what I want. It's not a super enjoyable experience for me. I don't think it's helpful to the outcomes I want to see happen.
And that is part of the key. Because when we get caught up in either the rage or the despair or the hopelessness and helplessness, then that takes us offline, usually. And so, another thing that I saw online, that I think is really useful, is the question, who benefits from this emotion? I think. I think, it was actually about body positivity. If you feel shame about your body, who benefits from that? Not you, right?
But probably a bunch of industries that are worth billions of dollars who do not give a shit about you. Right? So, I think this is also a really important question for politics in general, and for the election is, if you're feeling hopeless, and nothing you do is going to matter and make a difference, who benefits from that? Do you benefit from it? Probably not. It feels fucking terrible.
Do the outcomes you want to see for this country benefit from that? Probably not. Now, of course, there needs to be limits and boundaries to how much you give, because you don't want to burn yourself out by overdoing either. That's where we’ve got to get into that happy medium of ‘out of the pit of despair’, of ‘nothing matters, so why bother?’
But also staying out of the ‘it's on me and I have to fix everything, and it's got to be on my blood, sweat, and tears,’ which is going to… first of all, can never be true, change almost always involves multiple people, lots and lots and lots of multiple people. Also, that is just going to lead you directly into burnout.
Because one of the burnout factors is unsustainable workload. And if you think you personally have to change everything in this country, in our politics, that's a pretty big workload, even if we all are combining, working on it together. But I definitely think it's unsupportable for one person.
Second thing I want you to consider is the fear of criticism. Even when I was considering doing this podcast, I felt such an intense fear of criticism. Of, “What if I don't have this conversation skillfully enough, and then people cancel me? People say I'm unintelligent? People say I'm out of touch? People say it’s lulu that coaching tools can be useful for something as impactful as an election? In the U.S. presidential election, specifically. What if people don't think the information that I have to share is helpful enough?”
I had the fear of all of these kinds of criticism. And so, I had to decide what to do with that, right? Again, who benefits from my fear of criticism? Not you and not me, right? If I don't share what I have to share, that is information I'm not putting out to the world. So, there's less value in my content that I'm offering you. So, I don't benefit.
But also, you don't benefit. If you come to the podcast and want to hear my information and my ideas about how you can have a more satisfying and delicious life, or some days just a slightly less stressful life, then you're also not benefiting. If my content is going to help you make the political but also personal and professional impacts you and I have, and then I don't share it with you, I don't benefit. You don't benefit. But also, the outcomes that you want to see in the world don't benefit.
So, I think it's so important to see that the kind of learned helplessness that we can kind of get into sometimes, especially with something as big and unruly and unwieldy as U.S. politics and the way our elections work, and the way the government runs.
But also something as small as you sharing your ideas. It can feel so scary to do that. It can feel like it's not helpful enough. But you, and what you care about, doesn't benefit by getting caught in those traps of, “Maybe it's not enough. And maybe someone will say something mean about it.”
So, I want to offer that to you as a perspective. Maybe whatever you can do, however you want to show up, can be good and meaningful, even if it alone can't change everything. Again, probably no one alone is changing everything. I think that's such a rugged individualist, very classically American way to think, “I have to be the one who changes everything.”
But again, I don't think any of us are going to be the one who changes everything. If we all believe that what we have to add is valuable and we add it, maybe we could get to a really different place. Right?
There is this idea in psychology of learned helplessness. They tested I think with animals, maybe dogs. It's been a while since I've read the science on it. But basically, they put the dogs in a situation that the dogs are not able to get out of, and then they change the situation later to see if the dogs will try to get out of it. Basically, if you teach something that its efforts to get out of a bad situation won't work, it stops trying to get out of it.
I think this is so fascinating. And I think it's something that a lot of us face. Especially when we get disillusion and bogged down with the cynicism of, “It never fucking works. We can't change it. It never changes. This is just the way it is,” blah, blah, blah. We get into this learned helplessness. But one of the things I think most fascinating about learned helplessness is that people stop trying to get out from under the problem once they learn that the problem is insurmountable.
So, can we flip that, right? With animals, in studies; you can reteach an animal to help itself after it's learned not to. You can reteach yourself that your effort is valuable and can make an impact, even if in the past it hasn't always. But that's going to involve you doing some mental labor of being willing to believe that even if something wasn't helpful in the past, maybe it could be in the future.
And that maybe it takes a different way of helping yourself than you were ever able to try before. Maybe it takes something you've never thought of. But just because you couldn't change it before, just because people couldn't change it before, does not mean it can't be changed. And that leads me to another point.
Recently, I was reading actually a pretty great, although honestly, quite depressing book, by… I think we pronounce his name… Johann Hari. It's called Stolen Focus. It's about the idea that we can't focus as well as we used to. First of all, he's like, “Is that even true?” The answer turned out to be yes. And then, “Why? What are the factors?”
And so, a lot of it, again, if you're like, “Okay, this is terrible. Things are terrible. The world is eating our focus. Lots of stuff is designed to make your focus worse,” blah, blah, blah; it makes you feel really bad, right? Again, it's getting into the helpless/helpless thing. But one of the points that he made in the book, that I'm personally obsessed with and choosing to be obsessed with because it's helpful to me, is the idea that things that seem unchangeable can and do change.
The two examples that he talks about in the book are women's rights and gay rights. And so, he talks about his own grandparents… maybe it was his great-grandparents… anyways, a woman from his lineage, either his grandmother or great-grandmother, and the life experience she had versus the life experience of his niece on the same side of his family, and how the rights that women have now are beyond the wildest dreams of women just a few generations ago.
It seemed that was never going to change, and did change. And it didn't just change by happy accident, it changed because people were like, “Oh, fuck no.” They did a bunch of really hard things over and over until change happened. It’s the same thing with gay rights, or to expand it LGBTQIA+ rights nowadays.
Pride is often a parade and a party in a lot of cities. But the first Pride was a riot. People wanted things to change. And sometimes the ways that they choose to express that they want things to change… You might personally be like, “Ooh, that's not for me.” But I think what's important to see is that change can happen. And that there are a lot of ways to make an impact and to invite that change, insist on that change, create that change.
And there may be other people also working on that, doing it in ways that don't work for you. I think we can get stuck in kind of criticizing each other for that. Or we can just be like, “Here are the ways that I care to work on it in, and I'm going to do that.” Because also, I think sometimes we get bogged down in the weeds of ‘are they making change in the right way?’
Also, a lot of the people who made the change, that resulted in us having the privileges we have now, did do it in ways that we might think are untidy or inappropriate. It's possible if they hadn't done it in that way we wouldn't have the rights we have now. So, I'm not trying to get into the weeds of that conversation personally, I'm just trying to say maybe, if you're feeling helpless, if you're feeling hopeless, if you're like, “ugh, this is bad beyond fixing,” maybe it's not right. maybe you can have more of an impact than you think you can.
Also, I'm not trying to take your outrage away from you. I'm not trying to take the despair. Whatever you feel about the U.S. presidential election, chances are I feel it too.
I'm just saying, for me, it helps me handle stress when I can think through, “Okay, where am I going to honor my experience and love myself and care for myself in the difficult feelings? Where do I want to invite in a second perspective that's going to help me show up in the way I want to? Whatever that looks like. That's going to help me make impact, even if I'm scared, even if I'm not sure it's going to be helpful. Do I want to be able to say I tried?” Personally, I do. And so, I'm going to go for that.
That's what I'm going to pursue. And I want to invite you to consider that that's an option for you too. I'm not saying you have to. If it works for you to be in the outrage, be in the despair, be in stress, you're the authority on you. I'm never here to tell you what to do. I'm only here to share.
Here are some things you could do that I think can be really helpful, both to your day to day lived experience as a person, and also to you creating the outcomes you want to create. Whether that's changing the political landscape of the United States, or whether that's starting a workout habit. That's for you to decide. I'm just here to help you remove the obstacles between you and what you want to be doing.
Another thing I thought might be useful is sharing from my own self-coaching. Now, I'm not actually going to share my self-coaching about the election. I'm going to share my self-coaching about recording this podcast. Because one of the ways I'm hoping to impact the election is by sharing this information with you, and enabling you to bring in a second perspective, and show up in whatever ways you want to, and kind of fuel yourself powerfully so that you can have an impact.
That's something I want to do to help you feel better. But it's also my gift to everyone, so we can all be having a better experience of the election. Because I do think all of us feeling super fucking stressed out about it is not super helpful, right? But when Alex suggested that I record this podcast, I got an immediate, “Oh, that's so important.”
But also, there was part of me that didn't want to. And it's not because I don't want to share my ideas with you. It's because I was afraid. I was afraid that what I would have to say would be not good enough, in some way. I was afraid that I didn't know what to tell you about the election, because I don't have all the answers on how you can, in this podcast, feel amazing about it. Because I don't feel amazing about it.
And so, I was like, “Ooh, is what I have to share good enough?” When I thought ‘is what I have to share good enough,’ I felt afraid and I didn’t want to share it with you. The result of that, if I had let that play all the way out, would have been that I wouldn't have made this podcast.
I would have more deeply invested in, “What I have to say is not enough. It's not helpful. I don't know, I can't help people with this.” And then, who would have benefited from that? Not me, not you, and not the outcomes I want to see in the world.
So, what I did was I brought in that second perspective that I was telling you all about. The second perspective was, “I know some useful things that I can share.” Right? This is not the sexiest second perspective. It's not grand. It's not ‘I know everything.’ It's not, “I know how to solve all your problems,” because frankly, I don't know how to solve all your problems. I don't know what specific actions are going to help you have a better experience of the election, and help you have the impact you want to have.
But I do know some coaching tools. And so, when I got into this perspective of ‘I know some things to share,’ I started to feel more confident. I also got into this perspective of ‘I am willing to do this imperfectly if there could potentially be a positive impact.’ So, if some people out there do have criticism for this podcast, first of all, please send it to me. If it's useful criticism, I'd love to use it. If it's not useful criticism, okay, then I don't know what I'm going to do with it.
But I'm willing to be criticized in order to be able to share my ideas. And that doesn't happen naturally. I have to work on that. I have to cultivate that courage. Because left to my own devices, I'm like, “Yeah, I don't want to be criticized.” I think there's part of me that would just not share my ideas. But I don't want to be like that. So, I purposefully and intentionally choose courage instead.
I choose to believe that it matters more to me to share the ideas with you, even if some of you don't like them, or think they're not enough, or think they're too much, or think they're delusional, or think I'm too privileged, or I'm out of touch, or whatever. So, the point is, I wanted to share that example because I wanted you to see what I'm talking about in real time.
The reason I'm here recording this podcast right now is because I was able to bring in that second perspective, right? There is still part of me that's like, “Maybe it's not helpful enough.” I'm willing to hold space for that, but I'm not going to live my whole life inside of that, and let it shut me down, and keep me silent.
Instead, I'm going to choose courage. I'm going to choose confidence. And I'm going to choose to believe that there is value I can add, even if I can't add every specific kind of value. And to just circle back to what I was saying before, I probably shouldn't be able to. It's such a flaw in American thinking that we believe we have to have all the answers and know everything and be everything and do everything.
I don't have to know all the answers to be useful. I have some ideas that can be really helpful. You also have some ideas that can be really helpful. Honestly, I'm going to take this time to be like, if this podcast helped you and allowed you to think about what you might decide to do, or show up however you want it to over the election, please email me and tell me.
Give me some ideas, because I have a better handle on how to record this podcast and talk about moving through discomfort and moving through resistance to be available for action. But I'm not the expert on what's going to be most useful for actually moving the needle in this election cycle, and also in politics overall in America. So, I welcome feedback on that.
I also want to be an example for you, that you don't have to know everything in order for the things you do know to be helpful. You do not have to have all the answers in order for you to get out there and make an impact. And you don't benefit when you shut yourself down because you're afraid what you have isn't going to do enough. If you're afraid what you have isn't going to do enough, and you allow that to keep you from showing up, that's what's making it not enough; that you don't show up.
Because when you show up, either it is enough and that's cool, or it's not enough and you either learn how to make it enough, or you learn to partner with other people, so that together you can make it enough. When we don't put ourselves out there, when we don't share, there's no possibility of things working. But when you do, there are a lot of possibilities for it working, even if there are some bumps along the way.
Okay, that's what I have for you on the topic of election stress. If you do share, write in, tell me your ideas about things people can actually do. I'd be happy to share those in an email newsletter or on a future podcast episode. I think that can be so helpful for other people, especially since I'm not an expert in that.
And also, if anything else came up from this episode that you want to talk to me about or tell me, send me an email at Kori@korilinn.com. I would love to keep the conversation going with you. I hope this helps you manage your election stress, if that's what you're feeling. And I hope it helps you step into a secondary perspective that can help you have the impact you want to have, and have a more enjoyable experience of your life.
Because yes, it's an election year and that's very stressful. And this is also your life, and I want that to be able to feel really good for you. Or at least a little less stressful. Alright, have a lovely week, and I will talk to you next time.
Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. If you are ready to create a wildly delicious life and have way more fun than you ever thought possible, visit www.korilinn.com to see how I can help. See you next week.
The Satisfied AF podcast is the place to learn how to create a life and career that’s wildly delicious. Want a steamier sex life? We’ve got you. Want a more satisfying career? We’ll cover that too. And you can be sure we’ll spend lots of time talking about how to build connected, fun relationships that can handle life’s ups and downs.
No matter what goals you’re working on, this show will help you create a one-of-a-kind life that is just right for you. Join me, life and career coach Kori Linn, and each week I’ll give you lots of practical tips, tools, and proven strategies to help you create all the satisfaction your heart desires.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. Or maybe just Hello, it's Wednesday. Maybe you, me, are not feeling particularly happy this week. Maybe you're feeling a little bit stressed. Maybe you're feeling a lot stressed. I personally have been feeling some pretty intense big feelings about the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
I wanted to use the podcast to have a discussion about that, and to talk through how you can use coaching tools if you too are feeling stressed about the upcoming election here in the U.S., or any election anywhere in the world.
I know that, for myself, I'm feeling very frustrated with the whole way the election is going; with the two options we have. With just the way elections work in this country. Also, with the way politics work. I often feel the levers that I have at my disposal don't have a big enough impact. I vote, I sometimes donate, and even then I feel there's such a disconnect between what the people of the United States of America want and what our government is doing.
It's extremely frustrating to me personally, and I have a lot of frustration about that generally. But I feel the U.S. presidential election brings a lot of that into an extremely heightened state, especially because it has the potential to have so much impact for not just American citizens, but the whole world. It feels kind of rough.
And if you're having a rough experience too, I have some things to share with you that I think can help you have a better experience, and also use the agency and energy you do have to be the person you want to be, show up how you want to show up, create the impact you want to have in the ways that you can. Again, sometimes the impact we want to have, we can't figure out how to have it with the agency we do have.
But I still think coaching tools can be incredibly useful, and they can help us focus on what we are able to do. And so, that's what I want to talk with y'all about today. I do just want to say, again, this is more raw than a lot of my podcasts; it's less buttoned up. I'm very cognizant that I don't have all the answers and politics is not my area of expertise, and it is something that I personally struggle with.
So, this is probably going to just be a little bit of a different kind of podcast than some of the other ones, where there are topics I coach on all the time and I have more expertise in the subject matter as well. I also want to say, whatever you're feeling about the election, I'm not here to try to take those feelings away from you. If you're feeling outraged, I'm not saying don't feel outraged. If you're feeling stressed, I'm not saying don't feel stressed.
I think that there are a lot of ways people feel about this, and that's up to you. Also, the coaching tools can be something that you can use in addition to however you're feeling. Because sometimes there's something that I'm outraged about and I want to continue to feel outraged about it, but the outrage isn't helping me show up the way I want to show up.
And so, sometimes I am looking for something else I can tap into alongside the outrage. And that's kind of what this podcast episode is trying to make available for you, however you're feeling, okay? Again, we're not trying to gaslight, or say, “Everything's going to be hunky dory, and it's all going to be great.” We're not doing toxic positivity here. None of that.
We're just saying, is there something else that you could be having also, that could help you have a better experience? Okay, so there's however you're feeling now, right? And then, there's how you want to choose to think and feel about the election. I think for a lot of people that maybe seems an either/or, but what I'm going to say is I think it can be a both/and; that they can sit alongside each other.
Again, I feel so frustrated by the American political system. I just feel enraged by the way it works in its current arrangement. I also just generally feel so enraged by how the United States as a country came to be, and all of the problematic -isms that our country is built on, and many of which our country is still doing, right? Things white supremacy. Things state-sanctioned violence. Again, I'm so enraged.
I'm not going to try to tell myself not to be enraged. I'm not going to be , “That's not helpful.” But what I am going to say is, “Okay, but is the enraged part of you… is that creating what you want to do? Is it helping you show up how you want to show up?” And for me, when I just sit in feeling enraged, or when I just sit in feeling afraid, or if I just sit in feeling overwhelmed, that doesn't tend to create a lot of valuable action for me.
If I feel enraged, I'll probably just stomp around the house, or wear myself out. And then, I'm going to be laid out on the couch watching Murder TV and drinking a big glass of wine, right? Again, there's nothing wrong with being enraged. I think it's often how I want to feel about a lot of things. But it's not necessarily the feeling from which I am going to create the actions that I want to be doing, or from which I'm going to have an impact.
Because I observed when I feel that way, what I do, it's part of the picture, right? I think there is space for stomping around the house, laying on the couch, watching Murder TV and having a big glass of wine. I'm probably still going to do all of those things.
But sometimes I want to do other things in addition to that, and that's where the secondary perspective can come in, right? So, it's all of these things. I feel enraged, okay, but alongside that rage, is there something else I also want to cultivate that's going to help me problem solve, or show up in some way that I think might be meaningful?
And sometimes it's like, “I don't know if this will be meaningful. This is kind of a test-and-learn. But I'm going to do it.” I do feel very disillusioned politically in this country, and I'm still going to vote. Sometimes I still make donations. And there are other things I'm going to be doing, because I can do them and it's possible. For one thing, I do think voting obviously has some impact.
There is one candidate I want to win. And it's not because I think he's going to do a great job. It's because I think the other candidate is horrifying. I'm a queer person, and a woman, and interested in intersectional feminism, and interested in human rights. I think you probably know which one’s which.
So, again, I'm very disillusioned in the system, but I'm still going to vote, right? I'm still going to vote. And I'm still going to vote for the candidate who I believe is more aligned with my values, and with what I would like to see happen in our country.
I'm also deeply frustrated because I think that things that that candidate will do, even if elected, are not nearly enough. This is the both/and. This is holding the complexity for, “I am enraged, and I'm also going to figure out some things to do that I think could be useful.” Understanding that they might not have the impact I want them to have.
And then, I'm going to have to look around some more to see what, if anything, could have more impact. So, there's that piece, right? These are the two things that are operating at the same time, side by side; the rage, the fear, the anxiety, the frustration. And then thinking through, “Okay, but what's going to help me try to create the outcome I want? Or as close to the outcome I want as possible?”
A metaphor I read online once, that I thought was really useful, was that voting is kind of like taking public transit. A lot of times, there's zero public transit that's going exactly where you want to go. So, you pick the public transit that's going to get you closer to where you want to go. And then, you have to figure out, you have to bridge the gap some other way, right?
With an actual public transit, probably you're going to walk. But with something political, it might be like, “Okay, I vote, and then I also do mutual aid. And then, I also am finding activism that I can do, that's going to help push the country,” or my city or my state, or whatever, “in the direction I want to see.”
I think there's also some grieving, right? It's like, “Fuck, things are really not the way I want them to be.” And I think where we're enraged, there's also often grief. And we don't always get to it. But I know for me, in reckoning with the country that I was born and I live in, the United States, there's so much grief. There's so much grief about what this country has done, and what it continues to do, and the terrible ways it treats people, both its citizens and non-citizens, right?
Again, if I get too caught up in that, and only that, it's going to take me out. It's going to take me out of the game, and that's personally not what I want. It's not a super enjoyable experience for me. I don't think it's helpful to the outcomes I want to see happen.
And that is part of the key. Because when we get caught up in either the rage or the despair or the hopelessness and helplessness, then that takes us offline, usually. And so, another thing that I saw online, that I think is really useful, is the question, who benefits from this emotion? I think. I think, it was actually about body positivity. If you feel shame about your body, who benefits from that? Not you, right?
But probably a bunch of industries that are worth billions of dollars who do not give a shit about you. Right? So, I think this is also a really important question for politics in general, and for the election is, if you're feeling hopeless, and nothing you do is going to matter and make a difference, who benefits from that? Do you benefit from it? Probably not. It feels fucking terrible.
Do the outcomes you want to see for this country benefit from that? Probably not. Now, of course, there needs to be limits and boundaries to how much you give, because you don't want to burn yourself out by overdoing either. That's where we’ve got to get into that happy medium of ‘out of the pit of despair’, of ‘nothing matters, so why bother?’
But also staying out of the ‘it's on me and I have to fix everything, and it's got to be on my blood, sweat, and tears,’ which is going to… first of all, can never be true, change almost always involves multiple people, lots and lots and lots of multiple people. Also, that is just going to lead you directly into burnout.
Because one of the burnout factors is unsustainable workload. And if you think you personally have to change everything in this country, in our politics, that's a pretty big workload, even if we all are combining, working on it together. But I definitely think it's unsupportable for one person.
Second thing I want you to consider is the fear of criticism. Even when I was considering doing this podcast, I felt such an intense fear of criticism. Of, “What if I don't have this conversation skillfully enough, and then people cancel me? People say I'm unintelligent? People say I'm out of touch? People say it’s lulu that coaching tools can be useful for something as impactful as an election? In the U.S. presidential election, specifically. What if people don't think the information that I have to share is helpful enough?”
I had the fear of all of these kinds of criticism. And so, I had to decide what to do with that, right? Again, who benefits from my fear of criticism? Not you and not me, right? If I don't share what I have to share, that is information I'm not putting out to the world. So, there's less value in my content that I'm offering you. So, I don't benefit.
But also, you don't benefit. If you come to the podcast and want to hear my information and my ideas about how you can have a more satisfying and delicious life, or some days just a slightly less stressful life, then you're also not benefiting. If my content is going to help you make the political but also personal and professional impacts you and I have, and then I don't share it with you, I don't benefit. You don't benefit. But also, the outcomes that you want to see in the world don't benefit.
So, I think it's so important to see that the kind of learned helplessness that we can kind of get into sometimes, especially with something as big and unruly and unwieldy as U.S. politics and the way our elections work, and the way the government runs.
But also something as small as you sharing your ideas. It can feel so scary to do that. It can feel like it's not helpful enough. But you, and what you care about, doesn't benefit by getting caught in those traps of, “Maybe it's not enough. And maybe someone will say something mean about it.”
So, I want to offer that to you as a perspective. Maybe whatever you can do, however you want to show up, can be good and meaningful, even if it alone can't change everything. Again, probably no one alone is changing everything. I think that's such a rugged individualist, very classically American way to think, “I have to be the one who changes everything.”
But again, I don't think any of us are going to be the one who changes everything. If we all believe that what we have to add is valuable and we add it, maybe we could get to a really different place. Right?
There is this idea in psychology of learned helplessness. They tested I think with animals, maybe dogs. It's been a while since I've read the science on it. But basically, they put the dogs in a situation that the dogs are not able to get out of, and then they change the situation later to see if the dogs will try to get out of it. Basically, if you teach something that its efforts to get out of a bad situation won't work, it stops trying to get out of it.
I think this is so fascinating. And I think it's something that a lot of us face. Especially when we get disillusion and bogged down with the cynicism of, “It never fucking works. We can't change it. It never changes. This is just the way it is,” blah, blah, blah. We get into this learned helplessness. But one of the things I think most fascinating about learned helplessness is that people stop trying to get out from under the problem once they learn that the problem is insurmountable.
So, can we flip that, right? With animals, in studies; you can reteach an animal to help itself after it's learned not to. You can reteach yourself that your effort is valuable and can make an impact, even if in the past it hasn't always. But that's going to involve you doing some mental labor of being willing to believe that even if something wasn't helpful in the past, maybe it could be in the future.
And that maybe it takes a different way of helping yourself than you were ever able to try before. Maybe it takes something you've never thought of. But just because you couldn't change it before, just because people couldn't change it before, does not mean it can't be changed. And that leads me to another point.
Recently, I was reading actually a pretty great, although honestly, quite depressing book, by… I think we pronounce his name… Johann Hari. It's called Stolen Focus. It's about the idea that we can't focus as well as we used to. First of all, he's like, “Is that even true?” The answer turned out to be yes. And then, “Why? What are the factors?”
And so, a lot of it, again, if you're like, “Okay, this is terrible. Things are terrible. The world is eating our focus. Lots of stuff is designed to make your focus worse,” blah, blah, blah; it makes you feel really bad, right? Again, it's getting into the helpless/helpless thing. But one of the points that he made in the book, that I'm personally obsessed with and choosing to be obsessed with because it's helpful to me, is the idea that things that seem unchangeable can and do change.
The two examples that he talks about in the book are women's rights and gay rights. And so, he talks about his own grandparents… maybe it was his great-grandparents… anyways, a woman from his lineage, either his grandmother or great-grandmother, and the life experience she had versus the life experience of his niece on the same side of his family, and how the rights that women have now are beyond the wildest dreams of women just a few generations ago.
It seemed that was never going to change, and did change. And it didn't just change by happy accident, it changed because people were like, “Oh, fuck no.” They did a bunch of really hard things over and over until change happened. It’s the same thing with gay rights, or to expand it LGBTQIA+ rights nowadays.
Pride is often a parade and a party in a lot of cities. But the first Pride was a riot. People wanted things to change. And sometimes the ways that they choose to express that they want things to change… You might personally be like, “Ooh, that's not for me.” But I think what's important to see is that change can happen. And that there are a lot of ways to make an impact and to invite that change, insist on that change, create that change.
And there may be other people also working on that, doing it in ways that don't work for you. I think we can get stuck in kind of criticizing each other for that. Or we can just be like, “Here are the ways that I care to work on it in, and I'm going to do that.” Because also, I think sometimes we get bogged down in the weeds of ‘are they making change in the right way?’
Also, a lot of the people who made the change, that resulted in us having the privileges we have now, did do it in ways that we might think are untidy or inappropriate. It's possible if they hadn't done it in that way we wouldn't have the rights we have now. So, I'm not trying to get into the weeds of that conversation personally, I'm just trying to say maybe, if you're feeling helpless, if you're feeling hopeless, if you're like, “ugh, this is bad beyond fixing,” maybe it's not right. maybe you can have more of an impact than you think you can.
Also, I'm not trying to take your outrage away from you. I'm not trying to take the despair. Whatever you feel about the U.S. presidential election, chances are I feel it too.
I'm just saying, for me, it helps me handle stress when I can think through, “Okay, where am I going to honor my experience and love myself and care for myself in the difficult feelings? Where do I want to invite in a second perspective that's going to help me show up in the way I want to? Whatever that looks like. That's going to help me make impact, even if I'm scared, even if I'm not sure it's going to be helpful. Do I want to be able to say I tried?” Personally, I do. And so, I'm going to go for that.
That's what I'm going to pursue. And I want to invite you to consider that that's an option for you too. I'm not saying you have to. If it works for you to be in the outrage, be in the despair, be in stress, you're the authority on you. I'm never here to tell you what to do. I'm only here to share.
Here are some things you could do that I think can be really helpful, both to your day to day lived experience as a person, and also to you creating the outcomes you want to create. Whether that's changing the political landscape of the United States, or whether that's starting a workout habit. That's for you to decide. I'm just here to help you remove the obstacles between you and what you want to be doing.
Another thing I thought might be useful is sharing from my own self-coaching. Now, I'm not actually going to share my self-coaching about the election. I'm going to share my self-coaching about recording this podcast. Because one of the ways I'm hoping to impact the election is by sharing this information with you, and enabling you to bring in a second perspective, and show up in whatever ways you want to, and kind of fuel yourself powerfully so that you can have an impact.
That's something I want to do to help you feel better. But it's also my gift to everyone, so we can all be having a better experience of the election. Because I do think all of us feeling super fucking stressed out about it is not super helpful, right? But when Alex suggested that I record this podcast, I got an immediate, “Oh, that's so important.”
But also, there was part of me that didn't want to. And it's not because I don't want to share my ideas with you. It's because I was afraid. I was afraid that what I would have to say would be not good enough, in some way. I was afraid that I didn't know what to tell you about the election, because I don't have all the answers on how you can, in this podcast, feel amazing about it. Because I don't feel amazing about it.
And so, I was like, “Ooh, is what I have to share good enough?” When I thought ‘is what I have to share good enough,’ I felt afraid and I didn’t want to share it with you. The result of that, if I had let that play all the way out, would have been that I wouldn't have made this podcast.
I would have more deeply invested in, “What I have to say is not enough. It's not helpful. I don't know, I can't help people with this.” And then, who would have benefited from that? Not me, not you, and not the outcomes I want to see in the world.
So, what I did was I brought in that second perspective that I was telling you all about. The second perspective was, “I know some useful things that I can share.” Right? This is not the sexiest second perspective. It's not grand. It's not ‘I know everything.’ It's not, “I know how to solve all your problems,” because frankly, I don't know how to solve all your problems. I don't know what specific actions are going to help you have a better experience of the election, and help you have the impact you want to have.
But I do know some coaching tools. And so, when I got into this perspective of ‘I know some things to share,’ I started to feel more confident. I also got into this perspective of ‘I am willing to do this imperfectly if there could potentially be a positive impact.’ So, if some people out there do have criticism for this podcast, first of all, please send it to me. If it's useful criticism, I'd love to use it. If it's not useful criticism, okay, then I don't know what I'm going to do with it.
But I'm willing to be criticized in order to be able to share my ideas. And that doesn't happen naturally. I have to work on that. I have to cultivate that courage. Because left to my own devices, I'm like, “Yeah, I don't want to be criticized.” I think there's part of me that would just not share my ideas. But I don't want to be like that. So, I purposefully and intentionally choose courage instead.
I choose to believe that it matters more to me to share the ideas with you, even if some of you don't like them, or think they're not enough, or think they're too much, or think they're delusional, or think I'm too privileged, or I'm out of touch, or whatever. So, the point is, I wanted to share that example because I wanted you to see what I'm talking about in real time.
The reason I'm here recording this podcast right now is because I was able to bring in that second perspective, right? There is still part of me that's like, “Maybe it's not helpful enough.” I'm willing to hold space for that, but I'm not going to live my whole life inside of that, and let it shut me down, and keep me silent.
Instead, I'm going to choose courage. I'm going to choose confidence. And I'm going to choose to believe that there is value I can add, even if I can't add every specific kind of value. And to just circle back to what I was saying before, I probably shouldn't be able to. It's such a flaw in American thinking that we believe we have to have all the answers and know everything and be everything and do everything.
I don't have to know all the answers to be useful. I have some ideas that can be really helpful. You also have some ideas that can be really helpful. Honestly, I'm going to take this time to be like, if this podcast helped you and allowed you to think about what you might decide to do, or show up however you want it to over the election, please email me and tell me.
Give me some ideas, because I have a better handle on how to record this podcast and talk about moving through discomfort and moving through resistance to be available for action. But I'm not the expert on what's going to be most useful for actually moving the needle in this election cycle, and also in politics overall in America. So, I welcome feedback on that.
I also want to be an example for you, that you don't have to know everything in order for the things you do know to be helpful. You do not have to have all the answers in order for you to get out there and make an impact. And you don't benefit when you shut yourself down because you're afraid what you have isn't going to do enough. If you're afraid what you have isn't going to do enough, and you allow that to keep you from showing up, that's what's making it not enough; that you don't show up.
Because when you show up, either it is enough and that's cool, or it's not enough and you either learn how to make it enough, or you learn to partner with other people, so that together you can make it enough. When we don't put ourselves out there, when we don't share, there's no possibility of things working. But when you do, there are a lot of possibilities for it working, even if there are some bumps along the way.
Okay, that's what I have for you on the topic of election stress. If you do share, write in, tell me your ideas about things people can actually do. I'd be happy to share those in an email newsletter or on a future podcast episode. I think that can be so helpful for other people, especially since I'm not an expert in that.
And also, if anything else came up from this episode that you want to talk to me about or tell me, send me an email at Kori@korilinn.com. I would love to keep the conversation going with you. I hope this helps you manage your election stress, if that's what you're feeling. And I hope it helps you step into a secondary perspective that can help you have the impact you want to have, and have a more enjoyable experience of your life.
Because yes, it's an election year and that's very stressful. And this is also your life, and I want that to be able to feel really good for you. Or at least a little less stressful. Alright, have a lovely week, and I will talk to you next time.
Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. If you are ready to create a wildly delicious life and have way more fun than you ever thought possible, visit www.korilinn.com to see how I can help. See you next week.
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