Post-election processing: Grief, emotions, and where I'm at today.

You're invited: Join me as I attempt to claw my way out of the pit of doom! 🙃

(Audio version of this post–narrated by yours truly–is a perk for paid subscribers. Scroll to the end of this post to upgrade and support my work on Substack for less than the cost of a latte! ♥️ Also, I highly recommend opening this in your browser or the Substack app for the best reading experience!)

The symbolism of this sweet, sagging homemade yard sign was too much. (Alternate caption: “A portrait of me, November 15th, 2024.”)

Hi friends.

Wow. How are you doing?

How has it been over a week and a half since the world got turned upside down?

I published last week’s post filled with so much anxiety, yet, also a lot of optimism. I have felt so many intense emotions since then that it’s hard to find the words to describe them.

I have been working on this post ever since. It’s been hard for me to find the words to describe how I’m feeling, but for the sake of solidarity, I will try.

If you’ve been unable to climb out of your pit of despair, I see you, and I hope you’ll find reading my own word vomit to be helpful.

(I’m making no assumptions that you will, honestly, but would I be me if I didn’t invite you to process these things with me in real time in the hopes that it will help someone out there?!)

Grief

This is grief. There is no other word for it. As I woke up last Wednesday (at 5am, after a few hours of fitful, anxiety-ridden sleep) and looked at my phone, I felt that familiar emotion wash over me and seep into my veins.

I tried to name what that feeling was. Numb. Dazed. Despair.

Grief. It was grief.

“It feels like it felt when my Dad died.” Is what came to my head.

(Bob Keys–a man larger than life–whom I loved SO IMMENSELY and I miss so much it hurts–totally would’ve voted for Trump which provides me with a shred of dark humor.)

I think to many people, comparing the grief of losing a parent to the grief of losing this election might sound like the most absolute most batshit, ridiculously dramatic thing you’ve ever heard. And also kind of awful?

But I also know I’m not alone, because I talked to others in my DMs who had lost loved ones and felt the same way. Grief was the exact phrase that many of you used, too.

And really–what else are we supposed to feel like? Of course we’re mourning. Much like losing a loved one, we are mourning a future that has been taken away from us.

And here’s what’s the hardest to grapple with: As a self-proclaimed optimist (maybe one of the most optimistic people that I know, by nature) I have never before in my LIFE encountered a situation like this.

Have I dealt with my fair share of grief and turmoil? I have. Has life knocked me totally on my ass out of left field and forced me to throw my expectations out the window, pick up the pieces of myself, put them back together, and keep moving? You bet.

In those instances, I’ve always, even in the darkest times, truly believed that things would still be okay.

But honestly? I came up short this time. My faith in humanity has been absolutely rocked. I have never felt more unsure of the future, and I have never felt more *UNSAFE* living in the country that is supposed to be “the greatest country in the world.”

I have spent the past week reeling with doom and racking my brain asking myself, “Why did this happen? What is the lesson that the universe is trying to teach us here?”

After a cathartic phone conversation with my cousin Lorie Ann (who is a therapist and coach a really cool person who I’m excited to have on here in a bigger capacity soon!) and taking an EXCESSIVELY long time to write this post over the past week (and a half?) I feel like I’ve been able to process and more importantly, make sense of how to move forward. (Point #3, specifically, was really impactful for me!)

1. FEEL YOUR FEELINGS!

Lorie helped me realize that one of the best gifts I’ve given myself all week is not rushing myself in my processing, and letting myself just FEEL what I was feeling in the moment.

Allowing myself the time, space, and grace to feel livid, despair, dread and to just SIT with it.

Whatever you’re feeling, it’s valid, it deserves to be accepted, and in order to move forward, it’s necessary to FEEL THOSE THINGS.

Those “don’t feel discouraged! We just need to get back to work!” posts on Instagram? Those felt REALLY jarring to me. I’m glad I decided that they weren’t for me at this moment.

Do not feel rushed in processing how you’re feeling by those around you telling you to “get over it” and “move on already” if it still feels too soon.

(On that note, if anything you read in this post feels too soon–THAT IS OKAY TOO! Shut the browser and come back when you’re ready. Or don’t come back at all if you don’t want, I won’t be offended. 😂 Everyone processes things at their own pace. It’s TOTALLY okay if you are still stuck in the “burn it all down” phase.)

When my dad passed, I received a DM from a wonderful reader reminding me “there’s no right way to grieve” and I think that applies here too.

But also–don’t replace FEELING with something else.

Don’t keep yourself so busy you can’t process.

Don’t shove those feelings down deep because you don’t want to deal with them right now.

Don’t numb yourself with distractions or substances that allow you to escape the feeling.

And also don’t keep yourself so stuck by ruminating and obsessing spending hours scrolling or going down an internet rabbit hole trying to figure out all the things that went wrong that cost us the election. (Also, that’s not your job. Unless you work for the Democratic Party and then it is your job, but it’s also not a job you need to start on TODAY.)

Are these all perfectly understandable ways to react? Of course. You’re human. Lorie wants me to add, “if you do catch yourself disassociating or distracting yourself, that’s ok too. No need to be hard on yourself for that. As soon as you become aware of it, or aware that you’re using an unhealthy distraction, gently nudge yourself back to doing something that is healthier, like the ideas referenced below.” ♥️)

2. We need to get the fucking oxygen masks back on!!

Feel your feelings, and also get laser focused on YOURSELF.

Our nervous systems have been tested like they haven’t been tested since 2020. Truly. For some of us, it might even feel worse. More of us are moms now. We have so much more at stake.

The best thing we can do right now is focus on doing the things to reduce anxiety and regulate our nervous systems!

Truly, you guys, we have to get ourselves back to baseline because we are useless to this cause, our families, and our careers otherwise.

If you’re feeling like me, you have absolutely nothing left to pour out of your cup. You aren’t just pouring from an empty cup, you are pouring from a BOTTOMLESS cup.

This is not good for me, and it is also not good for anyone. We need to get ourselves back before we focus on any work to do that’s ahead of us.

Truthfully I often roll my eyes when I read the phrase “regulate your nervous system” (I’M ROLLING MY EYES TYPING THIS) but it’s really true.

Right now, we are collectively experiencing heightened, prolonged states of fight or flight and that can’t change unless we do something about it.

You can’t change something if you don’t change something.

It’s easy to scoff and say “going for a walk or taking a shower isn’t going to help something of this magnitude” but it will, I promise. Speaking from experience, it will.

Think of how much time you spend doomscrolling on your phone every day. (It’s literally HOURS). Don’t tell me you don’t have time to focus on yourself. Delete your Instagram and TikTok if you need to, and you’ll free up HOURS of time.

To spare you some googling, here are some tried and true ways to regulate yourself, if you need a refresher.

• Getting outside (even better if it’s a long walk or run in nature.) Spend as much time in nature as possible. Can you eat lunch outside instead of at your desk? Can you take a walking meeting during the day? Trees and sunlight do wonders for your mental health. I never feel as good as I do after I’ve spent some time in the woods.

• Movement–daily–whatever kind sounds good to you.

• Heat (a hot shower, sauna, steam room).

• Cold (a cold shower, cold plunge, getting outside in the cold air).

• Breathing exercises/meditation/etc.

• Co-regulation: Spend time with the loved ones who make you feel better by being next to them. The ones who refill your cup.

• Cultivating gratitude: (I love this gratitude journal. Neal and I both have one and it got us through the dark moments of 2020.)

• Creating something: Art, knitting, sewing (I just bought a sewing machine to start sewing again after a 20+ year hiatus!), playing an instrument, singing–however you feel pulled to be creative is another form of meditation!

And equally important to the things that you DO, are the things you DON’T do. AKA Removing any stimuli that might throw us back into a nervous system spiral. Like…

• Yes, delete your social media. Or at least put a time limit on it. Unfollow or mute any accounts that are triggering. (YES this will likely be the political accounts that are incredibly valuable to you and have been a lifeline the past couple of years. It’s okay, you can go back and follow them later.) There’s nothing on there you need to see right now. You can face what you missed once you’ve gotten yourself into a better place mentally. You’ll know when you’re ready.

• Stop watching the news. Remove the NYT and other push notifications from your phone.

• Limit interaction with anyone who is really triggering for you or put up boundaries with loved ones if necessary–whether that’s a friend who can’t stop their doom talk or maybe a loved one who voted differently than you. The boundary is the same regardless. (“I love you and I hear you but I’m not having a good mental health day and I’m not in a place emotionally to discuss politics right now. I’ll let you know when I’m ready. Thank you for understanding.)

• Adopting a “not responding right now” policy to any political comments from friends, family, or anyone at this time. (In person or online.)

  • For example, I stopped checking/responding to comments on a certain reel about voting blue. Many of these comments are from readers (respectfully, which I wholeheartedly appreciate) trying to explain why they voted for Trump. Some of these are very hard to read. I decided for the time being I have a no-response policy as I’m not in the right state to respond at this time, and responding to comments like these only winds me right back up. Will I get to them eventually? Probably. But not right now. Remember you do not HAVE to engage right now. Honestly, it’s likely better for EVERYONE’S mental health if we just stop and take a breath.

2. Keeping myself in this state of righteous indignation is only harming myself, and is also detrimental to the work we need to do

In moving through my stages of emotions and grief, it’s been really easy for me to get caught here and live in a perpetual state of anger and feeling like the world is against us and trying to understand *why are people not getting this!?!?!*

Like we were robbed. Like it’s not fair. That anyone not with us is against us.

To think humanity is brainwashed, and completely doomed–otherwise how would the country elect a felon, sexual predator, overtly racist, etc etc human to the highest level of power? YES YES I STILL ASK MYSELF THIS QUESTION. (Don’t get me started on the new spirals that are ensuing over cabinet choices!!) But also–that’s a really dark, dangerous place to live. It is just not sustainable to perpetually exist here.

So what has helped me turn this attitude around, so to speak? (Aside from first focusing on the points above. They must be done in order!)

You know how they say “watch your thoughts” in meditation? Seriously. Try watching your thoughts. Note how often you catch yourself thinking these things. Reminding myself that my thoughts and reality are not, in fact, the same thing, has been really instrumental here in stepping back and seeing the bigger picture.

Reality: A lot of good people voted for Trump for various reasons that are legitimate to them even if they do not feel legitimate to us. Because we are walking around in different realities. This is America, those concerns should be treated with equal weight. If they weren’t, it would be very alarming, because that would mean we no longer have a democracy.

It helped me to read AOC’s and Ashley Spivey’s reader responses as to why their readers voted for Trump, if you haven’t checked those out yet. (Truthfully I wasn’t ready to seek this kind of understanding until a day or two ago and I’m still oscillating between wanting to understand/acknowledging the need for unity and simultaneously wanting to burn shit to the ground.)

I know, however, that I cannot keep myself in this constant state of rage. It’s not only detrimental to me mentally, buy it’s only going to further drive division. And it’s only going to make it harder to make the kind of change we want to make four years from now.

Here is what we know: You do not get people to understand your perspective and join your fight by attacking them. People do not change their minds by being cancelled, shunned, and told they’re wrong–the opposite happens. They dig in their heels. They re-commit. I HATE THIS FACT. But it’s still a fact.

Another fact that might be hard to grapple with: we have more in common with many 2024 (NOT ALL) Trump voters than we think. (We may not agree on the right way to get there, but we share many of the same goals.) HOLD ON HOLD ON BEFORE YOU GO OFF ON ME.

Proof of this is that many “progressive” issues (abortion being the forefront, or the huge win for public education in Kentucky, being another example) largely won on RED state ballots where RED candidates otherwise won by a landslide. (Ballotpedia is a great resource to sum up all 2024 ballot measures and their results, if you’re curious.)

I truly do not believe that most (key word is most not all) 2024 Trump voters are rabidly MAGA, or dangerous, overtly racist, sexist, white supremacist, despicable human beings. (I know they aren’t because some of them are people I love. Some of them are kind people in my DMs who have been following me for years and are trying to respectfully offer their perspectives. Just because I can’t wrap my mind around their choice doesn’t mean they are bad people.)

But I do believe that attitude is part of what lost us the election. I think most of these people just feel desperate for change because life has been really, really hard for a lot of people for many years now.

I don’t have all the answers. (Or honestly any answers 😩?) but I also feel that we cannot continue to exist solely in our own echo chamber and walk around screaming “Fuck the GOP and anyone who supports them is the problem.”

(I’m not judging you. I say this because this is me! And I’m actively working on changing this narrative inside of my head because truthfully, I think it’s the only way we’re going to accomplish anything moving forward.)

I’m not saying to give Donald Trump or anything he stands for a pass. I’m not saying the MAGA movement doesn’t keep me up at night because of all it stands for. I’m not saying I don’t fear for marginalized communities and women and our children and public education and public health. I’m not saying you should tolerate your uncle’s racist remarks on Thanksgiving. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be ready to roll your sleeves and jump back in come 2025.

But I am (gently) suggesting, let’s also look in the mirror and assess where we can improve. I think many of us have fallen into the trap of thinking that our reality isn’t also filtered through a biased lens.

That the things we care about are black and white and if you don’t share the same views on XYZ, you’re clearly a terrible person with skewed morals. We conveniently like to look past the fact that everything is nuanced. That there are no simple solutions.

Trump’s entire strategy is to divide us and turn us against one another. And we have taken the bait. We are EXACTLY where he wants us to be. It takes two sides for this fucked up strategy to work, and I think one of the most powerful things we can do is decide we aren’t playing that game anymore.

Putting anger and division into the world isn’t expansive energy. It’s contracting energy. But we can’t do the work we need to do with contracting energy and operating from a place of fear, anger, blame, and so on. Only positive energy creates positive change.

3. We aren’t motivated to grow when we are comfortable.

I asked Lorie, (through tears), “what is the lesson here? I truly cannot find a shred of positivity with this election outcome,” and she said something along the lines of, “well, things would’ve felt a lot more comfortable for a lot of people had the outcome gone the other way, but we aren’t motivated to grow when we are comfortable. Meaningful growth comes from discomfort.”

And that's what clicked.

That’s the lesson.

That’s what got me out of bed the next morning, and the morning after that.

This just isn’t our time to be comfortable.

If there’s one thing this election has made crystal clear, it’s that the country is overdue for some VERY drastic change. WAY more than I ever realized living in my deep blue echo chamber. Truly, I had no idea. I honestly feel so stupid.

Do I think electing Donald Trump was the right way to evoke this necessary change? *I certainly do not* Am I saying the number of people who are going to be harmed by this administration are going to just be “a price that has to be paid for the necessary change.” *Absolutely not*

But, nonetheless, the unfortunate reality is that we are here. The majority of Americans have spoken and they feel very disconnected to, betrayed, or left behind by the Democratic Party.

So what are we going to do with that information? Are we going to continue kicking and screaming and depleting all our energy by sharing angry instagram stories and taking our “activism” to the comments section?

Are we going to continue sharing news clips on Instagram stories yelling, “YOU DID THIS. I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY.” (Ughhhh guilty. Does it feel good? Yes. Did it accomplish anything other than building more anger in my echo chamber and further driving people with different viewpoints further to the right? 🫠 Side note: I fully recognize how cathartic it is to let yourself vent and be a little petty within your inner deep blue social circles, I’m not saying I’m giving that up. 💀 Who am I, Mother Theresa?)

Maybe a more effective overarching strategy would be to take a beat to collect ourselves, protect our mental health and energy reserves, and when we’re ready, channel that energy into figuring out the best way up from here. (Disclaimer: I truly don’t know what that is yet, but I know we’ll figure it out together.) So we can reconvene and build something that actually leads to the meaningful growth that we so desperately need?

I think pretty close to 100% of Americans would agree the current political system leaves a LOT to be desired. But clearly there is a lot more work to do than we even thought there was. And that’s why we’ve found ourselves here.

Let me be clear (😂 Sorry, sorry, I had to. Too soon?): I will not judge anyone who continues to scream into the void–I don’t blame you. It’s what I want to do too.

But I also know it’s depleting me, quickly. And I will not let that man continue stealing all my energy and my joy. I know not everyone is going to have that luxury, unfortunately, so it’s my job to protect MY energy so I can use it to help others who don’t.

And I know this: collectively, democrats are going to have to work really hard to accomplish a lot in the next four years.

AND.

I also have faith in women.

I have faith in GOOD PEOPLE.

I have faith in US (you and me!) on the ground, in our individual homes and communities. That we are going to find a way to work together in ways we didn’t envision because we (naively?) did not have this on our bingo card, but we’re going to figure it out.

On doomerism, and the rest of 2024:

One of my friends shared this graphic that I thought was helpful. I’m just gunna say it: I don’t think this spiraling and engaging in doomerism that we’re all doing within our echo chambers right now is beneficial to anyone. It’s only further deteriorating our mental health.

If I did not post things on Instagram for my full time job, I would 100% be deleting it off my phone for the remainder of the year. What need is there, really, for any one of us to be scrolling on social media right now?

There isn’t much (if anything? Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) that can be done at this point in time from now until Inauguration Day. (And if that changes, I PROMISE YOU the democrats know where to find you. 😂) The only thing you would be missing are anxiety inducing, click-bait headlines.

There is zero upside to engaging in the endless “what if” hypothetical scenarios of what could happen in the next four years. Is it scary? Is the threat real? Of course. Is anything guaranteed to happen? No. Do we feel good about the current cabinet choices for a variety of reasons I don’t need to get into here? No. Have they yet to be confirmed by the senate? No.

(Please don’t mistake my saying this and think it’s easy for me to decide to flip the “spiral” switch off. It isn’t. It’s really hard. I’m just sayin, living in a constant state of anxiety is a lot harder.)

(Side note, this substack post by political author Ben Sheehan, helped bring me back down to earth. He basically lays out what Trump can and cannot do within the limits of the constitution, the filibuster, etc.)

While I personally cannot delete Instagram from my phone, I will be limiting my scrolling significantly. (And honestly? Hopefully spending a lot more time here on Substack! Please come hang out?)

You know how we all wanted a 90’s kid summer? Let’s make it a 90’s kid holiday season.

Let’s put down the phones and stop engaging in the doomerism. Let’s lean into our community. Into slowing down and being present. Use all this extra time to do the things that bring us joy. Volunteer. Create something. Make that complicated, intensive recipe you’ve been wanting to make but never had the energy or time before.

Lean into family and friends and holiday traditions and a slow holiday season, waving to your neighbors, dropping cookies at their door, and smiling at people on the sidewalk.

And if you are in our “Aunties for Harris/Walz” Substack chat thread–you already know the power of this particular community. What started as a fun little idea to provide some solidarity turned into something a lot bigger and has been a big source of comfort over the past week.

Please come join if you haven’t yet. Let us know your thoughts, how you’re feeling, where you’re at, and anything sparking joy for you right now! ♥️

I wholeheartedly understand if reading this post makes you want to throw your computer at the wall. It would’ve made me feel the same way a few days ago. It’s okay if you aren’t there yet. (If so, please refer to points 1 and 2 above 😂 There is a reason they are in a particular order.)

I also realize all of this is easier said than done. None of us are perfect and we are never going to be, but it’s my personal goal to move forward from a less divisive place because honestly I’m not sure what other choice there is? (I know there are going to be a lot of instances where I need to be reminded of that. Please hold me to it.)

If you disagree, that’s okay too.

Wherever you are emotionally/physically, I’m sending you a giant hug. I’m grateful for you, and I’m really really glad you’re here. You make a difference.

Now close your phone/laptop and go do something to take care of yourself.

Love,

Your typically eternally optimistic friend who is doing her best (most days) to claw her way out of the pit of doom and inviting you to join her when you’re ready, Jess

P.S. I’m listening to Kate Kennedy’s interview with Sharon McMahon and it’s making me feel better, if you haven’t listened yet. Yes to everything in Kate’s upfront and Sharon always makes me feel better about the state of the country.