If the last few weeks have felt like a nightmare every single time you turn on the tv or look at your phone, you aren’t alone.
I’m hearing from clients across the lifespan (13 – 65+) that they have noticed a stark increase in anxiousness related to the political climate while at school, work, home, etc. If you can, and many of you should, consider taking short pauses as a way to gift yourself with a reduction in the constant stream of informational input and give your mind a chance to rest, and recharge. Many of us grew up ingesting the news in much small doses with time to pause, think, and reflect in between…
Remember when you could fold up the news, take out the comics, and leave the bulk of it on your coffee table until you were ready to read more? Remember when you could count on your favorite news station to provide bipartisan remarks on current events and not sweeping statements of warning, alarm and impending doom with a side of existential chaos? There is so much good in having more access to real time updates in our world (I love my cellphone…do not get me wrong here!), but like so many things we encounter without built in limits (like a last page – I would LOVE there to be a last page of the news now) the good comes hand in hand with the bad…and my God is that bad REALLY traumatizing lately…it’s overwhelming…it’s absurd…and our perfectly curated algorithms were designed to keep us shocked, emotionally manipulated and scrolling. And scrolling. And scrolling.
Please – take a break. Commit to taking at least one pause this week. Touch some grass, have coffee with a friend, walk on the beach without your phone – leave it in your car!, hug someone you care about for longer than 2 seconds, hell make it 10 seconds, jump in your pool, take a mid day nap, do ANYTHING that pauses the flood of information. We can all continue to care, vote, advocate, and support our causes after the pause. These horrors will persist. But so will the good. We have to take care of ourselves so we can make it to those good days.
Crying IS coping, it’s ok to let yourself cry.
5 Ways to Cope with Political Overwhelm
Limit Exposure/Set Boundaries on the News (Use screen time limits, hide posts, edit friends/feed, do whatever you can to slow to your rate of informational consumption. Take a pause! – try to go an intentional hour with no phone.)
Radical Acceptance (Accept that you are alive during a time of unrest and this pain will always be a part of your story. Accept that there is a lot that feels out of your control right now – but that you still have control over the person you choose to be during this time and there is power in that. Accept that sometimes you have to set limits on yourself and those limits will feel foreign and awful at first.)
Take Action in Meaningful Ways (Donate, Vote, Volunteer – find an action step that allows you a tangible way to live your values in this time of unrest. If all else fails, journal. Put it all on the page. Journaling helps improve mood, and can be a way to find meaning in the midst of uncertainty.)
Talk to a Professional (Find a therapist, find a life coach, talk to your higher power, find anyone that helps you to create space to process your emotions and find relief.)
Scream Cry (Seriously…go somewhere you can let out a guttural, primal, cathartic scream and even better – cry if you can. It’s that bad right now. It’s truly that bad. Crying can release endorphins. Careful with those vocal cords though – don’t hurt yourself! Crying IS coping, it’s ok to let yourself cry.)
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