Midterm Elections Messing with Your Emotions? Check Out this Quick Recovery Guide through Emotional Agility!

Well, we’ve been inundated with political ads, urged and encouraged to vote, and been faced with discussing our deepest fears, desires, insecurities, and hopes with total strangers because of this creature known as the Midterm Election.

And although it happens to and around us, it’s hard to say that we feel like we really go through it together. Our participation matters even though the outcome isn’t truly in our control. We show up publicly about very personal things. We put our faith and support in other people, even while feeling like we might not trust ourselves. It’s a lot!

Whether you were thrilled with all of your candidate options or just couldn’t bear to look at your ballot, we’ve all been through something over the last few weeks and months. And when the polls close, things aren’t over. (*Please Note: I wrote this before any election returns came in…whatever the results, whatever your feelings about the outcome, this will help all of us!)

Even if you’re flooded with positive options on your ballot and surrounded by people who share your values and support your candidates and issues, the emotion of election season can hit us in surprising ways.

And that’s why I’m talking to you about this AFTER Election Day. After the actions you take and the decisions you make are over. Because now we get to deal with what is ACTUALLY in our control other than how we show up and act. What happens before the action and what stays after it: how we deal with our own emotions and how those emotions in turn affect our thoughts, our actions, our relationships, and our work.

Let me start by throwing myself under the bus here. I did NOT set out to create a timely post about current events. I work hard to avoid discussing anything related to politics because my goal is to reach and help and share and learn from people across the spectrum, to connect at a different level. I’m not above politics…I am just called elsewhere.

And I still would have avoided it…if I got nearly enough sleep Monday night. I’d done good work, enjoyed my Zumba, relaxed with friends, had a nice dinner, and then everything kind of spiraled down…because I was staring at my blank absentee ballot. (Yep, my first ballot got lost in the mail, and this replacement arrived just in time for me to fill out and hand in at my local election office. Just a little extra #ElectionDrama.)

Those little bubbles and the names and amendments…I experienced crushing decision fatigue. Things I had been pushing back in my mind to “deal with later” came oozing out…things that really had nothing to do with the election. And it was NOT pretty.

That set up a restless night that my breathing exercises, relaxing rituals, and even the sweet, sweet voice of Billie Holiday couldn’t soothe. Of course, when I got up at 5:45 on Tuesday morning, my ballot had not magically completed itself or disappeared altogether. It was still there. Blank. Mocking me.

And I almost didn’t fill it out. For basically the first time in my life, I couldn’t muster up the energy to even care. (And this from a girl who majored in Public Policy and chose her college based on it’s likelihood of helping her secure a White House Internship!)

But it hit me hard because I had been pushing my election choices – and several others – away. I’d been focusing my wild thoughts and brave actions in other areas. And I had been neglecting some pretty important internal practices.

We can get away with that sometimes. Until we can’t. Until one little thing comes along and topples our house of cards and we wonder how two pieces of white paper with empty bubbles could steal our sleep and confidence.

I’ll admit I’ve always been a little skeptical when people talk about how the best-selling book they’ve just written or famous talk they’ve given with millions of hits online came to them because of the difficulties and failures in their life around that topic. How the act of creating their content and working with those concepts seemed to bring MORE struggle and conflict to them in very personal ways. That just seemed a little packaged and convenient to me.

And I repent of that whole-heartedly right now.

Because this entire year, every meaningful, powerful thing that I’ve been able to create or train or coach through has been born out of my own needs and shortcomings. Out of desperation for better.

And OF COURSE I’ve been spending a lot of time researching and working with the concepts of negotiation and emotional agility. Both go more hand-in-hand than I ever would have dreamed.

But what happens when the person you need to negotiate with is yourself? How you showed up, how you didn’t prepare, how you can’t handle one more talk with your spouse or parent or colleague? How you could have, should have, would have felt/acted if/when….

When it’s just you and your darkest fears, or deepest disappointments, or confusion, or chaos, or shame staring at the ceiling at midnight?

That’s where emotional agility can help us all…starting with moi!

Psychologist Susan David has made this the cornerstone of her work. I highly recommend her book “Emotional Agility” where she goes in-depth on the four steps she has researched and outlined for us to be able to practice emotional agility. Here’s a little overview of the four steps with some quick tips on how we can start being more emotionally agile right now:

1. Showing Up.

This is all about being open to your own emotions, without attachment or judgment. In negotiation, this is like the space that we set for others, one of unconditional positive regard. Here, we are open to ourselves as we are, right in the moment. It’s a great time to literally take a breath (or three) in through your nose and out through your mouth to relax and get curious.

2. Stepping Out.

This is the step that is crucial for identifying what we are feeling so that we can stop OVER-IDENTIFYING with our intense emotion of the moment. As Dr. David says, “You are a person with intentions, values, things that are important, and your emotions are just emotions.”

In negotiation and emotion coaching, this is where we calmly step back, observe without judgment, and add a LABEL to the motivating, underlying emotion. In negotiation, you would do this with another person by sharing a phrase like one of the following to describe their emotion:

 

It/That seems ___________

It/That sounds __________

It/That feels ____________

It/That looks ____________

 

When you are labeling these emotions for yourself, you can calmly and curiously say something to yourself like:

“I’m noticing that I am feeling drained/worried/disappointed, etc.”

3. Walking Your Why.

This is a beautiful step that actually helped jolt me back to acting on what I know is important to me.

I literally wrote out on a legal pad “What choice available to me today is the best expression of my loftiest, truest values?” And I kept that right in front of me the entire time as I looked over my ballot and did my research online.

 

In negotiation, this is a key part of preparation: knowing what your best case scenario is. What it is you truly want and what that will give you. I don’t know about you, but when I’m discouraged or overwhelmed or disappointed, I can be tempted to stop acting from my truest, loftiest values. And I pay the price. But the good news is that tapping back into the power of your WHY can so quickly re-orient you to who you truly are and how you want to show up.

4. Moving On.

This is all about what we at Wild + Brave refer to as the tiniest brave thing you can do to move you in the direction you want to go. And letting those tiny steps become the habits that propel you forward.

What can you do? How can you make that action step just a little bit smaller so you WILL do it? For me, that was writing out my meaningful statement, sitting down with it in front of me, and calmly going option by option until I was done with my ballot.

So…once you’ve allowed yourself to experience what’s going on without judgment, you’ve observed and labeled what you’re feeling, and you’ve reconnected with what’s truly meaningful to you, ask yourself:

“What’s the smallest step I can take to move me in the direction I want to go?”

For me, that was writing out my “Why” intention and calmly researching and deciding item by item until I was done with my ballot.

Here’s the bottom line, today and every day: emotional agility, like most things in life, is an imperfect practice. But the more honestly and generously you lean into it, the better your experience of your day, your choices, and your relationships will be. The only way to fail at this is not to try!

Be an explorer of your own emotions. Get curious about what’s up with you…without judging yourself. Allow yourself to face what you are feeling so that you can get back in the driver’s seat and start moving bit by bit in the direction of what truly matters to you.