As election season approaches, it often brings significant stress for many individuals. The heightened emotions and contradicting views surrounding political campaigns can spark distressing debates and conflicts, straining relationships with friends, family, and coworkers. The overwhelming barrage of news content creates a sense of urgency and anxiety, complicating distinguishing fact from fiction. At the same time, the pressure to make informed choices in a complex political landscape can leave voters feeling uncertain and apprehensive.
Prioritizing Self-Care:
- Take care of yourself to be able to give back to the collective.
- Participate in coping skills that fuel back your energy
- Participate in things that contribute to the community, such as writing to Congress, researching issues with a critical lens, going to town hall meetings, calling your representative, advocating for issues and concerns that align with your values, protesting for your rights, and volunteering.
Boundary Setting:
- This season can stress one out, the pressure to choose the right candidate or the feeling of doom from the next four years can create that emotional burnout.
- Be aware of how much political content you can handle, and limit how much media you are consuming.
- If you are starting to feel activated by the content you are seeing it might be time to step back and level set how much you are able to consume and what would be beneficial for you in those moments.
Be Aware of Your Own Body:
- Elections can be activating for anyone.
- Pay attention to your own discomfort and sit in that discomfort.
- Ask yourself: Where is that discomfort coming from? Where in your body do you feel that discomfort? Why do you feel this discomfort?
- The awareness of that information is extremely powerful. This will provide more awareness when you start to feel activated in this space. This information will give you the knowledge that you are feeling burned out, activated, and need to cope with the given situation.
Coping Skills :
- Coping with a certain situation is dependent on the individual, doing what works for you in those moments are essential.
- Coping skills such as breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, and mindfulness meditation can calm the body and mind.
- Walking, Yoga, Tai Chi, and physical movement can be good for focus, less tension, a sense of achievement, and decreased anger and frustration.
Seeking Support Systems:
- Connect with like-minded people friends, family, found family, or colleagues that build/ fuel you back up.
- Join the community! Join or create a community that you feel creates or is involved in progressive change.
- Don’t forget to advocate for yourself when you are feeling like you need support. It is okay to lean on other people.
Reframe :
- It’s okay if you focus on what you were able to accomplish .
- Remind yourself of your values and principles .
- Acknowledge you have more power and control than you know.
“When we work with love we renew the spirit; that renewal is an act of self-love, it nurtures our growth. It’s not what you do but how you do it.” – Bell Hooks
About Jazmin Freeman:
Jazmin Freeman is a Resident in Counseling who obtained her graduate and undergraduate degrees from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Jazmin is passionate about diversity and inclusion. Through her experiences growing up in a rural area, attending school, and working in a crisis setting: it was affirmed to her that those who have been marginalized are often those in most need of care and she hopes to help bridge this gap through her work. Jazmin hopes to center other BIPOCs in her work and provide them affirming care from a clinician who implements cultural competence into every fiber of her work.
Jazmin’s therapeutic style is, trauma-informed, person-centered, and solution-focused with a basis in relational cultural theory while adapting to help clients meet their unique needs and goals.