A Political Meditation: 

Coping with Strong Emotions Triggered by Tumultuous Politics, Without Being Swept Away

 

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United We Stand; Divided We Fall; Abraham Lincoln

 

Here we are in another tumultuous election year. If you follow politics, and even if you don’t, the geopolitical constructs today elicit strong emotions in all people across the spectrum. 

 

I almost never write about or discuss politics, I am in my old age more concerned with the teachings of empathy and compassion, but my aim today in this valued and worthy discussion, is to provide a tool so we don’t have a repeat of the last few years, or worse, continue on the path we are currently on. 

 

I have friends who have abandoned all in the fight for their cause. I once was proud to be an activist, and marched with my pointer finger shaking in faces, I chained myself to trees, and I exhaled smoke in Tommy Thompson’s face. But what I realize now is that it was naïve and quite adolescent despite my young adult age. It was without wisdom, reactionary, ridiculous, embarrassing and often harmful. It was without stillness. It was aggressive and completely lacking in empathy. It was an “I’m right, and you are wrong! And I’m not budging,” mentality. 

 

This is not the way. 

And thankfully today, I consider myself a reformed and recovered political enthusiast. Still human, and unhinged at times, but more often then not, just concerned about the well-being of others that stand dutifully in the ring.

 

I have friends on both sides of the political spectrum and what I see is distressing. It is not constructive, and it is causing harm. It is dividing neighbors, friends, and families. 

 

The drastic paradigm shifts are just making us sea sick. 

 

How will we ever unite? When will we begin to see that more divisiveness, more yelling, more anger is NOT the answer. Anger is never the answer. It might be the spark, the ignition, but it is never the solution. It is not meant to be a permanent archetype or trait characteristic. It is frenzied, and although it might feel clear-headed and in control, it is the wolf in sheep’s clothing. The science of holding anger in the body is astounding depicting repeatedly how it negatively effects our health, our happiness and our well-being. We cannot see clearly when we are stuck in activated and engaged anger, it is basic neuroscience.

 

The research it draws on is what they call “limbic hijacking.” This is when our emotions get the best of us. They take over and we are in a continuous state of over-reaction. 

Although some of the time our anger is warranted, most of the time it is disproportional to the actual event happening. Like having a poolside conversation with a neighborhood friend, discussing the education system, it becomes politically edgy and before you know it, complete shut down, severance of the relationship and with one full guillotine motion, we are done, finished, never to speak again, or at least until the other apologizes first or sees things my way. Right?!

 

I recently learned about a study that looked at the brains of both liberals and conservatives. While each was listening to the other, in both sides, the red brain and the blue brain, their emotional brains lit up like an old-fashioned telephone switchboard. What this means is that when the amygdala and the limbic system are all highly stimulated, there is a drop in IQ and there is a decrease in our capacity to reason and problem solve. Both lids are flipped, meaning the staircase connecting the limbic system to the prefrontal cortex, where wisdom and reasoning are headquartered has been disconnected. Like a staircase in Hogwarts castle it has changed route, only nothing magical is happening here, it is essentially leaving you stranded and perhaps overcome with fear or anger or some other paralyzing strong emotion. Both individuals are now stuck in an activated threat response. 

 

Can you see how ineffective this might be? You are defending yourself from me, and I am defending myself from you. No amount of anger, or shouting is going to disengage this threat response; in fact quite the contrary, it is overheating the engine. 

 

In other words, when liberals and conservatives interact, it is often the case that neither one is being rational, there is no real conversation, it is just two monologic diatribes muttering AT each other, which is actually part of what has gotten us into this incredible polarization and divisiveness. We cannot “feel” into the other with empathic concern, when we are in our own threat response of defensiveness. In fact, we cannot even “feel” into our own selves. We are in that moment quite literally disconnected from our own bodies. Try this: the next time you are fully enraged in the heat of a moment, see if you can simultaneously wiggle your toes and feel your feet. It’s not likely. And, if you do feel into your toes, then congratulations, you have just interrupted the rage, paused, and have the ability to now put your lid back on.

 

The antidote to soothe this over activated threat response is safety by the way. 

 

Safety can be ensured when we have clarity of mind, stability within ourselves and stillness. When we can acquire all three of these qualities, we can see the situation through a more realistic lens. Meaning, this is merely a conversation with another person. Not an actual threat. You are most likely not having this conversation on the savannah all the while being chased by a wild pack of hyenas. They are human, just like you. And just like you, they too have strong, political values.

 

Pause, remember your training, take a breath, track your emotions, put your lid back on, and calm your own nervous system. This will not come automatically, but it is teachable and trainable and completely do-able. Instilling a compassionate meditation practice builds safety and security first in our own selves, and then like ripples in a pond effect positively to those around us. This is the beginning step of altruistic empathy and responsibly helping to keep our United States, united. 

 

A true and clear understanding of walking in someone else’s shoes, is necessary and perhaps mandatory. A heart opening and often times a heart breaking realization of someone else’s life and how they gained their strong, opinionated sense of political values. If we go back far enough into our own self-inquiry, we can see that our path is quite predictable. Our arguing, our righteousness, our political stanchness, has been blue-printed in, either through our parents, or our life experiences, or a complete defiant reaction to either of those. There was perhaps, no other way. You turned out the way you did. And that is okay. But can we also see that this is likely the same for the other person? How very human. 

 

With an open curiosity and a stillness from within, trust can rebuild and safety can cultivate.

 

If you believe in change via persuasion then the rudimentary and fundamental concept is this: Persuasion requires understanding, and understanding requires clarity, and clarity requires wisdom, and wisdom requires stillness. 

 

To create change we have to help the “other side” understand us, and we need to understand them. And eventually we work toward a bigger goal of dissolving the “us” and “them” categories. 

 

Even though we claim to be “peacefully marching,” or “peacefully protesting,” we are not still. We are full of rage, anger, hatred, contempt, righteousness, fear, and basically a maelstrom of emotions that are not still or calm. It’s a fury out there and in here (inside self). Think eye of a hurricane. How can we obtain that level of stillness even in the political storms?

 

In this free guided meditation I hope to illuminate ways for us to navigate the upcoming election year and to find stillness even amidst the storm, no matter where on the spectrum you fall. Its intention is to find perspective, not lose our heads and maintain our dignity in the strong current of emotions politics today is notoriously known to evoke. 

 

This meditation is here in the hopes that it helps you take care of yourself during those heated times when you feel triggered by politics. 

 

What to expect:

 

In this meditation, we are engaging in a called upon specific trigger that evokes strong emotions. It is asking us to engage with something that might be difficult. 

 

Why would we want to purposely induce such suffering by allowing a strong emotion? 

 

What you will learn is that it is the exact allowing of the emotion that allows us to not be triggered by it, we can constructively learn to work with it, understand it, see what it is doing within our body, learn to unhook from the intensity of it and in doing so, it helps us act more sanely. 

 

This meditation is meant to be used as a training ground. If we practice in the “gym” then we are stronger in our actual lives. This meditation is a practice in learning to slow down the process of being triggered. It is useful to practice in this type of emotion engagement and body awareness meditation, so that we can build our emotional intelligence and increase our literacy of where we feel reactions. When we take self-inquiry in this way we learn where we hold certain emotions, we see how they influence us, and we can see what message they bring and if we need to react, respond, or just validate them through self-soothing and really see that nothing is required in this moment. 

 

We essentially learn to pause. And then have a choice to respond.

 

Of course, when the rubber meets the road, we are triggered, and boom, we are not going to have time to slow down and do a meditation. But in that critical moment, we can pause, and put our lid back on, and put these skills into play. Right there, in the midst of the trigger. This awareness will change everything. 

 

The point of this meditation practice is to give us the information, learn the technique, so that when we are politically jarred and all of this stuff starts coming up, our emotional reactions are triggered, we can choose to act more intelligently and sanely. 

 

This is not a meditation aimed at delivering the promised land of peace. You are going to get triggered politically and otherwise in your daily lives. As you live your life, watch the media, engage in conversations, we are really looking at this meditative technique as a way to hold onto ourselves, hold on to our center, be the eye of the hurricane. Not freak out, flip our lid and lose more friends, neighbors, and family. We can instead be clear in our center and from that place respond more effectively. 

 

This is the point here. It is not about suppressing how we feel, or turning into some sort of Pollyanna, easy-going, doormat chump. It is the opposite of that. 

 

It is about compassionately caring so much about the situation that you are going to let your best human quality emerge. 

 

It is about learning how to see, validate and connect to our triggered emotions, feeling them fully and letting them expansively play out within a much larger field. We can cultivate a truer vision that is more in line with our reality. One that wants us to stay connected to people, even to those that irritate us, and democratically have a differing opinion, but especially to those we love, it is to stay united, to stay true to our values of kindness and of our intelligence and our sanity so we can then respond in a way that is actually more effective, and more impactful. 

 

Enjoy this meditation. 

This is a nonpartisan practice, open to all.