Scroll down to below the next pic for a few super-helpful resources. Headings are there to guide swift skimming!

Almost everybody I work with or know in any context is deeply dismayed by the latest elections in the US. People are using words like devastated, shattered, and terrified, and are talking about grieving. There’s no problem with any absolutely & automatically valid reaction you’re having. More than anything, I invite you to look for soothing. See if you can stay away from ongoing focus on all that’s WRONG.

AND I also want to invite you back to what is true, what abides, what is real, what we can actually count on, what matters, what will get us through, where we might put our focus to feel fully equipped to carry on with our intentions for our own lives and the greater good and the Earth itself. Scroll down for a number of resources to explore if & when you feel drawn.

First, a story from someone else
My friend & colleague Susan Meyer is a mindfulness meditation teacher and nature photographer. She already has a habit well in place, most every morning, to visit the river she lives next to in upstate New York. Via the practical magic of her kayak, she often gets right in it. Her relationship with this river represents a deep soul connection. Susan didn’t watch election results come in on the evening that was happening, and before she looked in the morning, she went out to meet the river—and to meet herself at the river—first of all.

What happened was that she got a visceral sense of a sort of timeless view of what matters. Even going only as far back as the beginning of the story of the United States, she felt into how this river had seen the Revolutionary War and all that has taken place in the human realms from then to now. The river had flowed through it all; continued to provide water and take part in the water cycle; held and fed any number of beasts and fishes and birds, plants and trees; provided solace & peace & nourishment to any number of humans. This river was full of hope & love & an ongoing vote cast for life to continue in the healthiest possible way for all concerned.

And from that awareness, Susan felt the time was right to check the election results. In that very moment, a two-word text that told all she needed to know popped in from her daughter: “Soooo….. Canada? 😭”

What I’ve been doing & holding to
Most of y’all know that I do EXTRA processes for soothing & clarity when something feels off, and I’ve been processing away to spend as much time as possible in alignment. (Note that you can click on the tag PROCESS on my blog to see specific tools there. There’s also a helpful tools tab on my website.) Prioritizing alignment and cultivating a sense of well-being includes more time in nature and more care with basic things like nutrition and sleep and qigong, in my case—substitute whatever you do that you know keeps your body feeling better and your breathing coming in more fully.

I’m holding fast to all that I care about. All the intentions I had for myself and this country and various populations I care deeply about—these are unchanged and still with me. I’m committed. I’ve been thinking about how many people hold like beliefs and care just as deeply as I do, and we are united. I know the laws of the Universe are unchanged by election results, and I’m still tapping into all that keeps me creating & living into visions of what matters to me and allows me to support others on their journeys.

I’m so clear that I cannot support people if I go into depression or deep freeze, things I did routinely in the past anytime the political landscape felt threatening and like it was just going in the wrong direction (seemingly counter to evolution and not aligned with the good of all concerned!). In fact, I believe the evolution is always underway, and it’s evident to me, looking back over time, that the process never looks linear. And still, we’ve evolved, and we will continue to do just that.

Further resources, including from others, can be found below the next photo. Headings allow for quick skimming to see if anything calls to you.

RESOURCES

A SONG
Here is a song that makes me teary & goosebumpy, written & performed by singer-songwriter Kathleen Hannan of NC. She started writing this right before the election, finishing the recording just before the results started coming in. She wrote me that she wanted to create a song to tap into “what would still be here no matter which way the election went.”

EFT
I have created an EFT (emotional freedom technique, or tapping) playlist on my YouTube channel for political pain and anxiety. Some were drawn from pre-existing EFT sessions (e.g., EFT/tapping on big disappointments) and I keep adding new EFT sessions specific to this list as I support people bringing me the topic of how the political situation affects (and especially pains) them.

A MEDITATION
On the night of the American elections, I sent out a link to this mailing list to offer a 3-centers meditation. I had recorded it at noontime with no clue of how things would turn out. Here it is again, as you may still find it helpful in meeting your dread and soothing yourself in body, heart, and head. Find this election-soothing 3-centers meditation on YouTube.

POWERFUL TEACHINGS FROM ABRAHAM-HICKS
If you ALREADY know & love the work of Abraham-Hicks and want & feel able to invest 50 bucks in a spiritual perspective on the political scene, I strongly recommend purchasing the Abraham Now broadcast that took place a few days after the elections, on November 9. I found all that was said deeply healing, supportive, and full of wisdom, clarity, and encouragement to stay connected to what is always real, whatever may be going on politically for better or worse. If you aren’t already pretty connected to these teachings and to Abraham-speak, you may not vibe with how they talk about this or even get what they’re saying (because of their particular lingo and perhaps because a foundational understanding of what & how they teach would be needed). That said, if you feel drawn, go go go!

DROP-IN GROUP COACHING
Last Monday night, during drop-in group coaching, we did some beautiful work together to soothe election fears & woes. Please join anytime, including tonight. The topics we cover are set by what people bring forth. You’re always welcome to talk or participate in silence, you can insert a question in the chat, and you can be off-cam, if you prefer, even if you choose to offer a coaching topic. This information, along with very occasional cancellations, can always be found on the homepage of my website.

Love & blessings, Jaya

This is a relatively brief one, so take it in. As always, you can sift through following the bold print if you want a quicker read. Get the gift of this important thing to notice & reframe, with easy tactics for making this all feel better and for your beautiful life to go better for you!

This persistent NOT ENOUGH thing. You too?
I still catch myself, while doing things, moving about my world, transitioning from one task or event to the next, holding a vague sense of finding myself wrong, not doing enough, not having gotten to something yet, not performing or achieving at the right level, not not not …

Sometimes I feel a vague or acute disappointment or dissatisfaction, especially at the day’s end, that I might put any or all of these words to:

• I didn’t get enough done today
• I still haven’t done X or Y
• I’m not doing enough in general
• I’m not accomplishing enough
• How will I fulfill my potential at this rate?

If you amplify all of this (and some egoic part of you actually thinks its job is to amplify this), this swiftly swells into a baseline (wrongly held as factual) of I’M NOT ENOUGH. (Hey, whether you’re actively saying that to yourself OR NOT, that’s the message.) It may even follow a dissonant crescendo all the way to I’M NOT A GOOD PERSON BECAUSE I’M NOT DOING ENOUGH.

Um. WTF?
It’s so unfair, and it’s just wrong. It’s based on a false premise that your worth is and must be established by what and how much you do. It implies that this constant negative assessment (which by some wacky defiance of emotional mathematics keeps adding up to NOT ENOUGH) somehow does something of value.

To be clear: It does not. Go ahead and look for whether that soothes you, bolsters you, motivates you, energizes you, inspires you …

It’s also horrendous self-parenting. Imagine the parent following the kid around while tensely describing what they’re not getting to and how they’re not doing enough and how disappointing they are in what they are and aren’t doing. BAD parenting.

Imagine putting a child to bed at the end of the day with a furrowed brow and a list of all they haven’t gotten to and what they didn’t do well enough and what they’d better be on top of tomorrow …

This is not the picture of parenting that goes with a thriving child, is it?

Here’s what I do with this:
I interrupt it every time. I interrupt it as quickly as I notice it (at the first whiff of it) so it doesn’t build momentum. I do not accept walking around with that sensation, never mind any self-talk that might go with it.

When I catch it and interrupt it, I give myself (usually out loud to fully hear them) new messages that feel good and encouraging. Messages that

• establish: I love my life, my dance with consciousness, myself
• remind me life is not a to-do list
• call me back to grace, to unearned worthiness just because I’m here
• promote holding myself with love and approval and a sense of well-being

Because that positive, generous vision of myself, held in view, reinforced, and constantly cultivated, is actually what points me to flow with life in the best way. That’s what calls me to feeling good and embodying goodness and creating good and beautiful things.

Sometimes living in the flow does look like accomplishment and efficiency, and sometimes it does not. The flow is the flow. One version of it is not better than the others. We all know it feels better when we’re in it. We all know what resistance to the flow feels like. If we try to make the efficient version of flow the right version, we will, again and again, judge ourselves harshly and be disappointed in ourselves.

​Time for reparenting, or conscious self-parenting
If you didn’t get perfect parenting, welcome to the club. Whatever you did or didn’t get, it’s up to you now. Will you parent yourself unkindly, always gazing at yourself through that NOT ENOUGH lens? Or by bringing in calm, soothing, encouragement, positive messaging? Will you tenaciously hold yourself in good esteem?

Why should accomplishment and efficiency be the ruler by which you measure your worth, your whole life, or even any given day? That doesn’t even make sense. That sounds like modern human foolishness, not universal or divine intelligence.

I invite you NOT to ALLOW ongoing self-defeating inner dialogue and negative assessment. I invite you to quick interruption of what is unfair and inaccurate and keeps you feeling bad. Then aim for what feels better, and tell yourself the things you need to hear to soothe and encourage yourself, to promote loving your life as your wondrous dance with consciousness.

Toward that end, here’s a 15-minute 3-centers meditation (addressing body, heart, head) that contains positive messaging in and for each center. And if you like the 3C approach, you can join in live every day from 11:45 to noon six days a week. My lovely colleague Rebecca Mehnert leads on M-W-F, and I’m on T-Th-Sat. Join link is on the homepage of my website (scroll all the way down).

Love & blessings, Jaya

Note that I have a blog post that teaches Abraham Hick's MARBLE GAME and uses the ubiquitous idea of not emough time as the topic to illustrate how the process goes.

​I want to invite you out of that furrowed-brow, overthinking thing and point you to what could feel & work better. You’ll need a willingness to trust yourself more, and also to trust life.

What if you began by committing to EASE around any decision you need to make? Ease in body, heart, and head—your three centers of intelligence. Each lets you know whether you’re on- or off-track for good decision making, and so … whether to LEAVE IT ALONE right now or jump in & run with it—or even dreamily push the pieces around.

Let’s walk together through all three centers.

Body: LOOK AWAY FROM THE TOPIC when you’re …

• tense
• moving with jerky, annoyed gestures,
• feeling heavy & ponderous
• noticing anything scrunched up in your face
• having that deflated feeling, the wind knocked out of you
• experiencing any of those physical sensations you have when you don’t like yourself or people or life

In those moments, don’t think about it at all, never mind try to move the decision forward. Seriously. Literally walk away if you need to, and go make your body feel better. Start with a drink of clean water.

It’s a great time to come back to the topic when you’re …

• relaxed
• feeling good & at ease inside your own body
• moving consciously & fluidly
• breathing well
• noticing lovely information your 5 senses (or however many you’ve got) are bringing in
• experiencing spacious, open, lightness of being

Now go! Go ahead & come close to this thing you’re considering. See what wants to be dreamed up, learned, discovered, invented, and maybe fully decided!

Heart: DON’T EVEN GO NEAR THE TOPIC, never mind try to make the decision, when you’re …

• frustrated
• worried, anxious
• feeling bad about yourself
• sad about your past
• grabbed by fear about what you think you’ve decided badly before
• scared or preemptively sorry about your future
• hurting about what’s painful in life

In your bad feeling states, shift your physical & mental gaze toward what makes you feel better. In fact, just go take care of your heart. Don’t analyze or think about your feelings. Breathe them, soften them, soothe them, carry them around kindly. Take your feelings with you as you go back to the body and do something that will move your limbs & energies and get the blood & breath flowing again.

When do you go back into the stuff of your decision? When you feel

• at peace
• happy, joyful
• satisfied, content
• hopeful, expansive, optimistic
• warm toward self, others, life
• downright pleased with yourself
• worthy, lovable, gazed upon by love
• fully in love

All or any of this means you’re ready to dream into your vision again or dive back into the specifics & details of what needs to be known so that the decision can come to you without strain & forcing, never mind agonizing.

Head: Screech decision making to a halt when you’re

• ruminating
• repeating yourself, with the negative thoughts echoing menacingly
• reviewing all the reasons you probably have to scale something down, settle, give up, etc.
• going into some version of what you don’t deserve or don’t get to have
• comparing yourself to what others have or get to do
• reviewing the past to find evidence about what’s wrong with you
• fixating on whatever’s going on in your life that isn’t to your liking (current conditions that tell you lies about your prospects for the future, but you fool yourself into thinking you’re being level-headed & realistic by giving those your increasingly unclear attention)

I mean it. INTERRUPT ALL THOUGHT when that’s the vibe in your headspace. The sooner, the better—before it builds momentum. Get out of your head, please. Back to the body, back to the heart. Take note, in fact, that your body & heart are feeling bad as they sync with those thoughts. Now, go after what makes them feel better. Abandon thinking altogether until you can reach for thoughts that go with a relaxed body and soothed heart.

You’ll know you’re ready to bring focus back to the topic when

• the mind is clear of old ideas or beliefs
• you can look up at the sky and feel that large, beautiful expanse inside yourself
• you’re having thoughts about what’s possible, what works, what supports you
• the limiting & mean things you say to yourself are distant & harmless or nowhere in the vicinity
• you feel pretty good about where you’ve been & where you are
• you aim to go where you actually want to be (will & intention harnessed!)
• you can bring it to now and just find the next step that feels right—with no idea of having to figure or map the whole thing out
• you’re out of right-wrong and know that there is no perfect, right way to do it, just the next gorgeous experiment to run

Now, let your imagination run, do the research, make the phone calls & visits, have the conversations, and make little or large choices that move you toward that readiness to decide—or plunk you right in a decision that you notice kind of made itself. (Byron Katie taught me that decisions make themselves, and I keep finding that when I’m tending my state through my 3 centers, they do just that.)

Hey, when you’re in a good place in body-heart-head, I invite you to notice the magic. Are you …

• bumping into people who light you up
• noticing new things that inspire you as they drop into your field or lap
• coming upon the new, unexpected related idea
• feeling the flow of uncanny right timing???

Notice the magic. It will get you where you’re going. (And, um, it’s not magic at all. It’s the way things work when you’re clear & open. You know.)

Love & blessings, Jaya

​Warning. This is an invitation to self-love. I promise not to get weird about it. I’ll make it actionable and invite you to keep it up. Now & now & now.

Sometimes someone I’m working with tells me they don’t know how to get through some specific moment and actually apply the things we talk about.

I then typically give them a few simple reminders. I invite them to simplify things. Just remembering a few simple things, you can learn to walk yourself through KINDLY. As in, ACTUALLY, be your own best ally and make yourself feel better instead of worse.

That’s a great start right there. To simply value feeling good so much that you’re committed to catching yourself feeling bad, interrupting it, and quickly pivoting to walk yourself toward feeling better. That’s already HUGE.

I love to remind folks to BRING IT TO NOW. The now part is crucial.

Don’t try to figure out how to fix everything or fix something in some done-with-it-once-and-for-all forever sort of way. That dip into everything and forevermore is overwhelming and feels bad. (It also puts you in the Universe’s business, which you’re not qualified to manage.)

Don’t do a quick, warped scan backward over the past. You might mistakenly grab the lens that makes it look like you’ve never gotten it right and it’s not getting any better. (And, yup, you’ll be in the Universe’s business again.)

Just RIGHT NOW. What would feel kinder, truer, better now? Do that.

And keep doing that. Now and now and now and now. Do not ALLOW yourself to sink down into the worst of what you’re able to believe about yourself. If you stop walking yourself kindly toward what feels better, that probably means you’re using a bunch of NOW moments to accept being mean to yourself. And just to accept feeling bad (which is not that nice).

I’d like you to HABITUATE to walking yourself through as if you were aware of your younger selves that need and deserve to be gently guided along. That, my friend, is self-love in action.

At some point in my growth journey, when I was having some obvious successes and actually feeling better a lot of the time, and I was ALSO feeling bad or impatient about what I wanted to manage better or have success with faster, I started thinking in terms of NOW much more.

Right now, am how am I walking myself through? Right now, how am I talking to myself about what's happening? Right now, am I making myself feel worse or better?

3 directions to focus how you walk yourself through
Here’s a great clue about what to do for yourself, your entire self, in any NOW moment you realize things aren’t feeling good. Know and remind yourself that you’re a 3-centered being. That is, you have

1. A body
2. A heart
3. A head

They all three need tending kindly. And they all three have wisdom and guidance for you (that comes in NOW, in the actual moment you need it). And if you’re stuck in one center, either tend it, or GET OUT. Reach for one or both of the others.

Body tending
Ask yourself, Right now, am I even in my body? Am I taking in that my body is tense, contracted, agitated, overrun with adrenaline [whatever it may be]? Am I moving nervously or frenetically, or am I going frozen or stagnant and need to rev things up? Your body wants you to tend that, soothe it, calm your nervous system. There’s also simple stuff like HYDRATE. EAT GOOD FOOD.

Back to body basics: ground; connect to the felt sense of the breath (and stay with that a while, even as you go about your business); connect to the five senses (or however many you’ve got).

Do something that feels good physically: Move, dance, exercise, stretch, do yoga or qigong, walk. Take a bath, take a nap, take yourself to a natural setting where your senses will be filled with life-giving, soul-soothing stuff.

Take an action: The realm of the body is also the realm of action. Is there one thing I could do right now that would feel good to do? That would make me feel good about tending any corner of my world? That would move something forward and potentially start some momentum toward what I actually want to be, do, have? Find your point of least resistance and do one thing.

Heart tending
Right now, as I notice I feel bad emotionally (frustrated, angry, sad, discouraged, scared, disappointed), am I making room for it and soothing it, or am I judging it or evaluating how I’m doing or telling myself what I should be feeling itself? Heart tending isn’t about thoughts, so stop analyzing or evaluating or explaining your emotions. Maybe stop talking (to yourself or others) about them. FEEL THEM.

If you must bring the head in, then notice whether you keep going from one thought to the next to keep matching and probably revving up what feels bad. And could you instead tell yourself kind things that are likely to make you feel better?

The heart wants you to ground yourself (see body tending above), feel the feeling in the body, breathe it (make room for it with the breath), allow it. Just let it be, let it have its life, and give it 2 things:

1. Awareness
2. Breath

How simple is that? That’s it folks. Your heart space, when in pain or discomfort of any kind, wants those two things. Review them: awareness & breath, awareness & breath, awareness & breath.

Head tending
Right now, am I believing and carrying on with thoughts that feel bad or interrupting them? As you notice that thoughts are making you feel bad, consider some version of this: maybe they don’t match what your Inner Being knows to be true; or they don’t match the way Source gazes upon you; or they represent an assessment that isn’t useful and isn’t coming from the part of you that’s seeking to believe in yourself and step consciously toward your full potential, or the best you’ve got right now, or the truth of who you are.

You can simply reach for better-feeling thoughts. Just tell yourself or write down one thing after another that makes you feel better instead of worse. Go general at first (I don’t have to figure this out right now, I’m okay and my needs are met, I’ve gotten through worse before and other human beings have too). And go from there.

You can do a focus wheel. (I just did one this morning when I noticed I felt bad about something and wanted to clear that up before I moved anything else forward!)

You can do some inquiry (including a short-cut version of processing unhelpful thoughts).

You can check out whose business you’re in and then look for what your actual business is here (where you have agency and what’s yours to manage). (Hint, it’s always your business to soothe yourself and to shift your state if you don’t like the state you’re in—or, to keep it simple, if you don’t like how you feel.)

Bring it to now, and walk yourself (all the parts of you, body, heart, and head) toward what feels better right now.

My intention for myself and my ongoing practice are to keep going deeper with this, keep getting more subtle. I invite you to it. You are worth your own kind, gentle, patient walking-yourself-through. You are worth feeling good much more of the time. You are worth interrupting quickly what doesn’t feel good and responding kindly to what feels bad. Take care of yourself, body, heart, and head. Walk yourself through, lovingly. Then you can truly feel good much more of the time.

Love & blessings, Jaya