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 post-election pain & general political suffering, dread, and fear & loathing! These were drawn from pre-existing EFT sessions and I’ll add to the list as more arises.

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

​Consider first what unconditional love could look like directed toward the self.

Below, I offer a list that contains two components followed down the line. We begin with a) a possible thing that makes you feel good about yourself and automatically creates a sense of self-love, followed each time by b) the flip side of that, which you generally don’t want and feel bad about—the stuff that stirs up self-disapproval and that sense of being wrong, unworthy, not good enough.

Which can lead to all manner of what is not self-love, from walking around feeling subtly off and not quite up to par (without even verbalizing it, but it still feels bad, and it’s unfair to yourself) all the way to pure self-loathing and vicious self-talk (which feels rotten).

What if you FULLY, equally, loved yourself in both the wanted & the unwanted aspects of your behavior? Of how you feel? Of how others see you? That’s unconditional self-love. Make it about others, and you’ve got unconditional love as directed to others.

Want to love unconditionally? Notice the conditions that get the inner or outer critic in motion. INTERRUPT THE CRITIC. Drop into love for what’s here right now, the good, the bad, the ugly. Consider whether you might at least try saying (writing!) that you love yourself on each end of any spectrum, and all the way across.

I love myself when I feel great & strong in my body.
I love myself when something hurts or feels tender, off, painful, fragile.

I love myself when I’m strong & stable.
I love myself when I’m wobbly.

I love myself when I’m kind to [my mom] & soothe irritation that arises without expressing it.
I love myself when I notice I’m being critical, unkind, mentioning what doesn’t need to be mentioned. I love myself when I’m inappropriately instructing & suggesting.

I love myself when I feel the love & joy flowing effortlessly.
I love myself when I’m not in the vicinity.

I love myself when I show up to do processes (like inquiry, focus wheels, EFT), getting out ahead of old negative thought patterns before they can build momentum or wreak havoc.
I love myself when I reach for those processes after I’ve reacted or thrown myself off in some way or even after I’ve gone wayyyy down the rabbit hole and must walk myself through the whole climb back to ground zero.

I love myself when I’m happy & appreciating others & all of life.
I love myself when I’m sad & full of discontent.

I love myself when people hold up beautiful mirrors telling me I’m great, brilliant, talented, loving.
I love myself when someone looks at me funny or declares everything they think is wrong with me.

I love myself when I pause and choose a kind, calm, clear response.
I love myself when I’m reactive or triggered and don’t even know I’m puking on someone till the mess has already dropped.

I love myself when I [do qigong] and grow the practice.
I love myself when I skip it.

I love myself when I’m [do qigong] in presence, consciously growing my relationship to presence.
I love myself when I phone it in, just do it to get it done, call it good enough.

I love myself when I just simply and easily say what’s true for me.
I love myself when words get stuck in my throat or I tiptoe around the issue.


Hey, to be clear, the idea isn’t to condone or excuse what feels off to you. It’s to love what’s actually there, reject no part of yourself. In fact, when you’re loving yourself in any current condition, you’ll be much more able to swiftly course-correct. You’ll feel what’s off and head toward alignment fast. Getting out judgments and filling the space with love makes thing clear and more spacious. There’s room to shift.

Maybe you can see that better with others, and it’s just as true for yourself.

I invite you to make your own list. You could approach it from either direction: instead of what I did above, you could start with a statement of loving the least-preferred part (especially if it’s present here & now) and go from there to the stuff that easily feels good). You could also sit down on a day you notice you’re carrying around a critical play-by-play narration of yourself or another or your day, job, whatever, and write out both parts.

Get yourself squarely situated in the acceptance that you’re not your idealized self, and you don’t need to be. Love yourself (or another) in writing, and you’ll be able to love yourself (or another) in talk, in actions, in the day-to-day now-now-now of it.

It’s always helpful to write your thoughts down on paper so you can see what they’re up to and write out what you prefer to think to support really taking it in. Writing helps with focusing. Focus yourself into unconditional love.

Love & blessings, Jaya

​Sometimes someone tells me they were having a hard time with something, and nothing they did worked. Or they speak more generally about stuff they try and … it doesn’t work. And if you were ever the one to say that to me or if you’ve witnessed me talking to someone in a group who said that, you know this is when I hit the pause button.

So I’m going to tell on myself here and then lay out what we really mean when we say it’s not working and then offer something bolstering and supportive and kind. Here goes.

I bumped into something rough in the past week in the form of someone I love and respect speaking to me in a way that I don’t typically receive from anyone these days. And it THREW ME OFF. The ego-mind would not shut up about it. (I love not to identify with the mind. The thoughts were thinking me, as Byron Katie says.) The whole thing took much longer for me to move along than usual.

I want to tell you about this and invite you not to give up on yourself, and to keep reaching for the right tool in the moment, and to keep tossing out any thoughts that you should be beyond this, and just do your work and soothe yourself and take care of yourself until you’re back in alignment.

Because you will come back to alignment.

Nothing in the Universe cares a bit how long it takes or how many processes. Your job is to not give up on yourself. Keep interrupting the preposterous (defensive, counter-attacking, victimized, offended, self-righteous, other-correcting) thoughts. Reach for the right tool in the moment and keep reaching. And do not say It’s not working.

Here’s what I did right, which I tell you in the spirit of inviting you to stop putting the focus on what you’re doing wrong or even worrying about whether you might be doing it wrong or exhausting yourself with the belief you need to figure it all out.

• I turned the arrows of attention around (oh, I’m thinking about them again; let’s come back to me, back to what needs soothing in me).
• I did focus wheels.
• I used EFT tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique) to say the negative thoughts and drum in some kinder, truer, soothing, healing, bolstering thoughts.
• I brought it to NOW; I called myself back to presence with the task at hand.
• I reminded myself of all kinds of wise things.
• I caught myself judging myself and interrupted that fast. Went back to soothing and witnessing.
• I caught myself taking their words personally again and declared again that I understand it’s not personal and I still see myself trying to make it about me (and what’s wrong with me, and therefore what needs to be defended and objected to and resisted …).
• I did not allow myself to think and figure at night, so I spent any awake time just breathing into the tight, painful spot just under my diaphragm.
• I called forth the younger versions of me who had felt just this way (with no review of their stories) and just held them and breathed with them and told them I accepted them fully and thanked them for getting me to where I am now. (There were 7 of us in bed together one night.)
• I talked about it very little and did so only with a couple of wise, clear supporters who weren’t even thinking about joining me in any of the wackiness (but who also held space lovingly and didn’t rush me in my process).
• I caught myself in my Enneagram programming (in my case, a revolving door from sad, misunderstood Four to after-all-I’ve-done-for-you Two, to railing, self-righteous One) and just reported the number I was in out loud just to remember that I’m not in truth and not fully present when the program is running me.
• I countered thoughts in real time or just told myself something simple like, That’s not actually true. Or, That’s not all true. Or even, That could be true, but it’s neither here nor there.
• I got out of head altogether again and again, back to body and breath.
• I did qigong and breathwork. Including meditative, mind-clearing qigong.
• I processed the heart on its own terms without head-center intrusions (just crying or breathing emotion without analysis or figuring anything out).
• I thought about things I loved and appreciated, caught sunrises and sunsets, savored flavors, focused on work and remembered I loved it, took care of the nuts and bolts of life, watched stuff for entertainment to look away.
• I could go on. I did all the things.

​I did NOT believe that these things weren’t working. I definitely noticed that this wasn’t moving along as fast as usual. I reminded myself that this meant an old wound had been reactivated and that this was a chance to heal it. And I believed it, even though that didn’t stop the mind or make me feel better. (The kind mind really can bring the heart along, even if the heart isn’t there yet right now. So I plugged away, calling in the kind mind.)

If you believe It’s not working, that usually means things like this:

• I don’t feel better, this still hurts, I’m not at peace
• The mind is still going strong and keeps reasserting the same thoughts
• I haven’t (fully or sufficiently) stopped believing those thoughts
• My idealized self doesn’t think I’m handling this well
• I’ve lost contact with my best self; I’m out of alignment
• I’m judging the process
• I’m worried I’m getting it wrong
• I’m feeling stuck and thinking I’ll get stuck here
• I want this to be going faster, which puts me in resistance and slows me down further

So this is what I want to tell you.

You’re fine. You’re doing fine. You’re enough. You’re doing enough. The revelation wants to come. This is only happening for your healing and evolution. It’s really okay.

It’s okay if this takes awhile. The timeline isn’t your business. What is your business?

• Reach for the next tool
• Meet yourself in this moment
• Counter this one thought or spoken declaration right now
• interrupting, interrupting, interrupting (DO NOT FOLLOW THE THOUGHT THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW ISN’T TRUE OR THAT TAKES YOU FURTHER DOWN ANY KIND OF RABBIT HOLE)
• Make a choice right now (and just for now) to aim toward what could feel better or create even a little scooch toward something kinder and truer
• Do not give up on yourself (self-abandonment no more)

You’re either going with your negative (stressful, painful) thoughts or you’re interrupting them and reaching for something else (see my first bullet list above). You’re either going further down the rabbit hole or you’re heading out. Got something big, bad, deep, and ugly going on? No problem. You’re equipped. Keep scooching. Don’t give up on yourself. DO NOT SAY IT’S NOT WORKING. Or hear yourself and say something else. Like:

• Whatever it takes, I’m here for it
• I’m willing
• I’m guided
• I’m equipped
• Everything’s always working out for me
• This too shall pass
• I can walk myself through gently

Love & blessings, Jaya

​I invite you to give this a moment of attention even if you don’t feel much resentment. Let’s get super subtle here and be free free free. If nothing else, check out the bullets below the pic and find one thing to keep in the fore to enhance your well-being (which includes aligned, not exhausting, service).

Resentment has such a bad rap. It has its unfortunate place over with anger, where people relegate unwanted emotions—over in the bad zone. Who wants to be resentful?

Yeah, please don’t sit around resenting. But resentment might show up briefly anytime, kind of like the delivery person, and when it does, there’s something to receive with a thank you.

Beyond the scope of this writing are all the reasons you don’t want to shove resentment down into the cells of your being to accrue & fester there. That happens with denial and vilification, so instead, let’s just make resentment the nice delivery person, who’s in a hurry anyway to get on with the next delivery. Just open the door to briefly, get the goods, and get on with your day.

Resentment as delivery person may put a wrinkle in something you’re doing right now, but you WANT the thing being delivered. That thing’s going to make your life easier or more pleasant somehow.
​

Here are some typical message-deliveries resentment brings. And bee-tee-dubs, you might just consider whether one of these might be for you to keep cleaning up even if you’re not tuning in to any resentment:

• you’ve been saying yes without first checking in with yourself
• you’ve been saying yes when you mean no
• you’ve been saying yes when no is the right answer
• you’ve been confused about what it means to be nice or polite or a good person [or fill in a role, like spouse, parent, progeny, worker]
• you keep hanging out with people or in situations that deplete you
• you aren’t making self-care important enough; you’re not taking full responsibility for your own well-being
• you’ve forgotten the importance of fun & pleasure & ease as part of your total well-being (and thus offering your best service)
• you’ve been letting things like guilt or obligation, or someone’s manipulation tactics or fears, or your old habits or tendencies [or fill in something more relevant] determine what you do or don’t do
• you haven’t been telling the truth out of some misguided notion that something else, like someone’s hurt feelings or anger, is more important (and it may be worth identifying your something else)
• you need to keep working on (naming, setting, holding) those boundaries situationally, every time one is called for, now & now & now
• you think you should give [do, finish, show up for] more than what’s actually yours to give [etc.]
• you’re out of balance with giving and receiving, or giving to others and giving to self (and here’s my latest EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique session on that topic)

I love to think in terms of the first whiff. If you get just the tiniest whiff of resentment, pause with it a moment. It’s got something for you. Don’t ignore it. Ask it nicely what it’s got for you. Ask what it’s pointing you to that’s going to support you to be

• more self-honoring
• kinder & clearer to self & others
• more balanced
• lighter, less encumbered
• equipped to further set yourself free free free

Love & blessings, Jaya

​You can set up your life (or this hour, this day, this week, this era) so that it’s more and more and more frustrating.

Or you can set it up so that it’s more and more and more easy and flowy and fine.

Basically, what follows is a simple story to illustrate.

I just had a typical bout of grand frustration while doing taxes. (Not tax time you say? Um, some of us file for an extension when you’re getting yours done on time, so our due date is coming right up.) (Are you starting to get my relationship with taxes?)

So it all started with some thorny stuff. I got frustrated fast, because I came in with the idea that I really wasn’t into this. (Ah, the power of opting in 100 percent.) I was also soothing the frustration as I went, not just letting it rip. I was doing fine. But I wasn’t all joy and sunshine. Let’s say that soft, expansive belly breaths maybe weren’t predominant. Or maybe not in the vicinity.

And then, things got thornier. And I got more frustrated trying to get help from customer service or even trying to get to a human being. Even the chat was intercepted by a mean-girl kind of robot. And I permitted myself a bit of railing to my mother, whose house I’m living in for the purpose of being helpful and uplifting, so … mission not accomplished.

And then a bunch of data got purged from Quickbooks. It all seemed very random, like someone flushed a toilet in a parallel Universe and my data went down the invisible pipes.

I have standards and quite refuse to literally slam my forehead repeatedly into the wall, so I did not do that. I did get up and move away from the task.

If you’re getting anxious, let me tell you this would all end well. I would later be involved in an interesting hours-long process getting data transferred back in. I would learn some stuff. When I solved the puzzle (and I would solve the puzzle), it would be an almost funny and cute matter of two little bunny-eared quotation marks that had hopped away to a distant field, probably very sweetly, maybe in that same parallel universe where that mysterious toilet was, when they were very much needed for the purposes of proper coding within a bunch of crammed-together words and numbers in a tiny font that cryptically contained both my data and a secret code. This code, properly presented, would then allow Quickbooks to open the door to let in the data that I wanted there. I would manage to understand the pattern and see where it was disrupted and …  I would fix it. No bunnies would be hurt in the righting of this data. I wouldn’t even be rough on the computer keys or even my own system. I would breathe lovely, soft belly breaths, while sitting and working in positions that would require no chiropractic adjustments down the line. All would work out.

Fucking Eureka. And bonus, it’s really kind of fun and wondrous to crack a code, right?

Honestly, most of the time I affirm that everything’s always working out for me. I lost track of it for a minute there.

Okay but let me backtrack. How did I get there? Note that I was already witnessing myself FROM THE BEGINNING because my policy and preference is not to live with frustration. I don’t judge it when it comes. However, I witness it coming in and feel the effects and then I usher it out.

(This takes practice, folks, and just noticing when the judgments come in and dropping them again. Keep dropping your self-judgments. They serve nothing except to keep you in modes that better match frustration than flow. They’re not fun, they’re not kind, they don’t make you a better person. They literally serve nothing you’re after.)

Speaking again from my policy and preference (to be clear, not what I was doing with this round of tax work), I do whatever it takes to release any grip on an outcome, a timing, a way the process must go. As quickly as I notice such interference, I let it go and align with reality. I soothe myself with presence in body and breath. I look away from the thorny task and get my alignment back, then I come back again—even if that means no more than a 5-minute break to look up at the sky and breathe and watch the breeze move some leaves around or drink some water or do some stretches or wash a few dishes or whatever.

Back to presence, back to body and breath, back to alignment THEN back to work.

So I wasn’t exactly doing this with tax work. I was watching the frustration (self-witnessing is good and helpful) and I was not entirely believing the messages the mind was forming about what was supposed to go differently or feel better (seeing thoughts as thoughts, not reality, and not believing them is good and helpful), but I also did not properly and fully INTERRUPT it.

So more frustration accrued.

By the time I sat down to spend some comfortable hours cracking the code, a true interruption had taken place. I had stopped. Surrendered. Let go of alllll the things I wanted that I wasn’t getting in this scenario.

I happened to be slated that day to do some EFT/tapping with a group of people on zoom and when we had some minutes left at the end, I brought in this topic. It yielded this 10-min EFT session you might try when you have some frustration about techno-trouble, or about current customer-service realities, or about anything that you believe should be less fraught with trickiness, thus making you more frustrated in the face of reality.

I felt so much better after the tapping.

And then I didn’t go back to frustration. I went back to work already breathing well, and I just settled in, staying conscious of the breath, for whatever was ahead. Which turned out to be some hours. And I got into the puzzle of it in that way that puzzles are actually fun, even when you’re kind of frowning at them going, Well, NOW what?

Because Now what? is in fact a very good question and typically invites the next one thing to try. Especially if you’re in your body, and your breath is flowing.

Also, I played soothing music on YouTube while I worked. Whenever I happened to stop in and see who was swimming by in the ocean footage that went with the music, I kind of wanted to cry, but not the way cruel techno-trouble games in the multiverse make you cry. Just the way dolphins swishing through blue love with little half-smiles on their relaxed and earnest faces makes you cry. Don’t even get me started with the giant turtles. (Though the soothing-music video does start with a giant turtle.)

I didn’t even finish in that sitting. I went to bed early when I felt the first whiff of frustration coming back in. I got up and started fresh and full of hope. I found those two missing quotation marks very quickly, gently grabbed two new ones by the ears, plunked them in, and carried on with a flowy version of finishing my taxes.

Seriously, folks. There’s no problem if we get super frustrated by life’s potentially frustrating things. And we don’t need to fault ourselves for that. Most others wouldn’t fault us.

But we also don’t need to rev up the frustration, and feel justified in it, and rail (and keep railing, and rail to a bunch of people) (and keep railing inside our own minds), and keep creating more of that. Because that will and must keep creating more of that.

As soon as you can interrupt it, INTERRUPT IT. And do whatever you know to do to get your alignment back. And then, if you’ve revved up a bunch of frustration, you may need to take a while in the unraveling, so drop in for whatever it takes. Breathe. Listen to soothing music. Let some part of you weep quietly with achy joy because, in the meantime, there are sea creatures somewhere being too wondrous for words and truly embodying the flow.

We can live in peace and flow. Or we can live in frustration. And that’s true with hard things and things that go wrong and things that are just wrong on this planet and in our current setups at our current level of evolution. And it’s also true when things are relatively wrinkle-free and flowing along.

The more we flow peacefully, present, opting in, the more things flow in general. The more we create frustration and amplify that, the more things bump along uncomfortably or screech to a halt.

So don’t expect yourself to flow nonstop. Do interrupt yourself when you’re out of the flow. And gently soothe yourself back into alignment. Create more and more and more alignment and more and more flow.

Love & blessings, Jaya