Sitting with our emotions on Election Day 🤯
And how practicing equanimity 🙏 can help us through uncertainty and dissatisfaction
For all my Just One Breath. subscribers, I will be holding a meditation sit, starting on Tuesday at 6 p.m. every night for a week. Come as you are. Here is the link to register. Join if you need extra support and a refuge these coming days.
I recently asked my father if he and my mom ever considered immigrating to another country instead of Vietnam.
“France? What about Australia?”
“No,” he said firmly in his Dad voice. “There was no question. We knew that the best life we could possibly have would be here in the United States. We still believe that.”
The answer didn’t surprise me but his sureness of his statement did. As we move into next week, I could not be more unsure of how I feel about the current state of our country.
A few weeks ago, Jess and I had a deep conversation about whether we wanted to put a yard sign on our lawn and we both hesitated. For me, it was less that I wanted to rally around Kamala, but more that I don’t want to live in a world, a country where someone like Trump is allowed to say and do the things he does with no accountability. In other words, I am less pro-Kamala and more please-God-no-more-MAGA.
It’s hard to capture that in a yard sign though. (Too much fine print!)
As a progressive Queer woman of color there is no doubt in my mind who I will vote for on Tuesday, but my enthusiasm in doing so is what’s up for grabs. Trust me, it pains me to even say that out loud because nothing would excite me more than having a Black and South Asian woman president. (One who can be so charming nonetheless.) But Kamala has (wisely) not run on identity politics and her stances on certain issues give me pause.
But of course, Kamala doesn’t need my vote or the votes of others who typically make up the Democratic base. Her stances are specifically for those who are still undecided, who will decide the election in those purple states that will always determine our nation’s future as long as we continue to uphold the electoral college. I know my vote doesn’t matter. Which makes me feel powerless and stuck. I know she doesn’t need to persuade me, but then where does that leave us radical progressives who are sitting in trepidation about what her presidency will look like? One in which is supported by the Dick Cheneys and Goldman Sachs of the world? Where fracking and increased funding for policing are OK? Where “securing our borders” are prioritized over addressing the root causes of why these people are fleeing their native countries to begin with? And most importantly, how can I support a possible administration that is saying just enough, but seemingly continuing the United States’ complicity in the war crimes in Gaza? When in the name of defense, more than 44,000 Palestinians have died in the last year — most of whom are children?
I know that as long as we live in a two-party electoral system, I will be dissatisfied. Michelle Obama nodded to this at her speech at the DNC, anticipating folks like me will not show up to the polls if not every issue and moral box isn’t checked off.
I am not surprised by this. As a former political communications strategist, I know there is a “get on board or fuck off” mentality in politics. It is the most hardcore of team sports. And I have seen firsthand that the difference between being powerful and powerless is determined by how many people you can get to show up. (Shoutout to all my friends, including my wife, who are burning the midnight oil going into this week.)
So what do I do with allllllll these feelings? I, like so many others, are simply sitting and waiting until we get to the other side of Tuesday. (And have written about the roller coaster that has been this election season before.) Many of us are agonizing over the decision, feeling neither satisfied, nor supported, nor at home in either possible future.
Practicing equanimity in times of crisis
As always, when I am torn, feeling lost and scared, or needing inspiration (which all are present and true right now when it comes to the election), I turn to the practice and the dharma for guidance.
One of the key teachings I have leaned on in the past few years, as I have navigated my own family crises and had to move through so many times of uncertainty, is exploring and practicing equanimity. Equanimity is one of the Four Brahmaviharas, or Divine Abodes, which is a concept in Buddhism that talks about how practicing four attributes, virtues, emotions will help you minimize your suffering. It is the idea that these four states of being — lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity — are limitless, that there is no end.
But for today, I’ll just focus on equanimity.
Equanimity, a virtue developed by Buddhist meditation and mindfulness practice, refers to a profound quality of strength and evenness of mind undisturbed by emotional upheavals.
What I love about equanimity is that it’s the embodiment of what people think of when they think of meditators, this tapping into a source of groundedness, being able to be cool as a cucumber in those moments where it feels like the world is on fire. To me, equanimity is what I strive for in my everyday, it is what I reach for in moments of crises and knowing that this way of being exists and can help me, has more times than not radically shifted and changed my life.
So in many translations, equanimity is often translated as “letting go” or “non-attachment” but Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh, my teacher of teachers, liked to expand this idea, one in which my beloved dharma teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo writes about beautifully in her piece on how equanimity powers love:
My teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, adds another dimension to equanimity by teaching that upekkha is the practice of inclusiveness. It’s the ability to include many perspectives, to stand firm, and at the same time not take sides.
As I go into Tuesday, I will be sitting with this idea, sitting with all my emotions and holding space for the nuance, all of it. Perhaps this is why I am constantly feeling dissatisfied with our two-party state, there is not much room for gray, much less purple. And I am constantly asking myself if I want to buy into a system that is ultimately broken at its core?
But to the many folks who feel like the most radical action they can take on Tuesday is not to vote, I will lovingly offer this perspective: That by opting out, you are also making a binary decision by giving up. That your tapping out is ultimately an admittance that your voice doesn’t matter.
Even if that is the reality in a two-party electoral system, for me, on principle, I cannot and do not believe in a world where my actions and voice do not matter. We all do. And we know that these systems are designed to continually take away our power and make us feel powerless.
And that’s where equanimity is a resource, a constant practice for me – because it reminds me that all of this can be true, and that my feelings are valid.
Just like yours, just like every other American.
I personally cannot live with the what-if-ness of not casting my vote when the ideal of democracy, no matter how far you may feel we are from it, is on the line. I cannot in good conscience not try to uphold the faith that gave my parents the reason to want to build a better life for me and my sister.
So I will have to continue to practice, and leave room for the messiness that is our country right now. And I will continue to have the faith that my heart has the capacity to hold and see the full landscape of which we are living in.
The full landscape is that we live in a world where parenting books entitled “Gay…or grooming” are openly being sold on bookshelves, women no longer have full say over their bodies and that oppressive restrictions on how we live, who we love are being enforced on us in the name of God. The full landscape is that we could have a president who irresponsibly led so many people to their death during COVID through misinformation, has been convicted of multiple sexual assaults, continues to make xenophobic and racist remarks and has emboldened people in this country to either want to kill me or convert me into something I am not as a first-gen Queer Asian woman,.
So perhaps my patriotism doesn’t look or feel exactly like my father’s, but at the end of the day, what I want is a world where I am not constantly living in fear, where I can explore these aspects of our system without being witch hunted. What I want is the same as what they wanted when they first left Vietnam: Freedom.
And as broken as our system is, I know there is only one clear option. And I know that no matter who I am voting for, I will never be 100% satisfied. That goes for any presidential election, not just this one. If Buddhism has taught me anything, it is knowing that life is suffering and the most compassionate thing you can do for yourself is to accept that and still choose to live a life filled with joy.
So for me, writing this today is my little act of resistance in a world where everyone else is screaming.
For me, writing this today, is me tapping into the freedom that my refugee parents yearned for as they left the war torn shores of Vietnam.
In my own way, I am exploring that and redefining freedom on my own terms, with allllll the emotions. Thanks to equanimity, I know your exploration and definition of freedom will, of course by nature of human design, be different from mine.
And I want to continue to live in a country where all of that can exist, without persecution, violence or consequence.
I want us to all be able to be. That’s ultimately what I’m voting for.
How to practice equanimity on Election Day
Take a moment to stop and sit with your emotions. Depending on how activated and charged you are feeling, give yourself enough time to really regulate your nervous system. This could be a sitting meditation, journaling, a bath. Whatever you need to do to create some spaciousness around your feelings.
Write or meditate on what kind of country you want to live in. Try not to fixate on specific issues or positions and policies but more what conditions do you need to help you move through the world in the most loving and authentic way.
Now allow those feelings of stuckness, anger and powerlessness to have space. Allow yourself to sit with the feelings of dissatisfaction that have arisen and simply allow your body to hold and metabolize them. Continue to stay grounded, perhaps lying on the floor or putting a weighted blanket on you so your nervous system has a bit more support as you process.
Let your inhales help you metabolize, your exhales help you let those feelings go.
Stay here as long as you need as long as it is productive and helpful to tap into that feeling of non-attachment.
When you have more space and distance from those emotions, ask yourself what actions can you — and only you — can take to remedy your dissatisfaction? One in which is rooted in your values. This is where I encourage you to read up on the remaining Brahmaviharas and let your actions be fueled by compassion, lovingkindness and joy.
Write them down. Concretize them. Make them real. And then don’t be afraid to take action.
I’d love to hear how you’re feeling, doing in the days leading up to the election. How are you taking care of yourself?
For all my subscribers, I will be holding a meditation sit just for our community, starting on Tuesday at 6 p.m. every night for a week. Come as you are.
Here is the link to register. Join if you need extra support and a refuge these coming days.