The US election. Wow.
Four days on and I am just finding my feet again.
According to the Kubler-Moss model of grief there are several stages you move through when processing grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I feel like I have been through them all after waking up Wednesday morning to find that our neighbours to the south had elected a reality show celebrity to the highest office in the land.
I was gutted.
Part of me is still gutted!
It was Hillary time, she put in years of work, she had experience on the world stage, she had devoted her adult life to public service and this is what she got?
After his hot mic moments, his inflammatory talk about Mexicans and Muslims and his multiple bankruptcies, 53% of white women voted for Trump and cleared his path to the presidency?!
Inconceivable.
(*If you want to see how shocked I was check out the FaceBook Live video I made in my PJ’s during the early hours of Wednesday morning- but you will have to scroll down my page to find it as I posted A LOT after the election).
But it IS real and on Friday, January 20th, 2017 Donald J. Trump will become the most powerful man in the free world.
What Comes Next?
What the heck do we do now?
Well we start small for one. We start with ourselves.
In the wake of the election one of my mentors Dr. Martha Beck put out some wise and calming videos and a telecall. (*I have put the full directions to get to Martha’s post election video and the one hour follow up call below. If you are feeling frustrated, depressed or angry I highly recommend you watch / listen to them).
Basically I focussed on raising my positive frequency.
Here’s what I did;
My British father in law was coming to stay with us two days after the election and we were down to the wire to get his room ready before his arrival. The spare room had been untouched since we moved in five years before and it really looked shabby. There was scribbling on the walls and tack holes everywhere. Giving it a fresh coat of paint helped me to get some of my angst out (*new color was celery green- pic below if you are interested).
I took a break from the painting to snuggle with Rebus (our cairn terrier) then I took him for a walk, admiring the fall leaves and the clouds in the sky.
Once the painting was done I popped into Starbucks and treated myself to a skinny peppermint mocha, the first of the season and from there did a little shopping. It is hard to be totally bummed out when you are surrounded by beautiful items and glittering Christmas displays. I bought a red throw blanket and a coral lamp from Pier 1, then went home and sorted out the new items in the guest room which now looked clean and inviting.
I felt better.
Trying to regain my equilibrium with a skinny peppermint mocha
On November 11th we attended the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Fort Langley, the birthplace of BC. There in the old cemetery with its wrought iron fencing and towering chestnut trees we listened to the bag piper play ‘Last Post’ and watched as the four planes roared over head at 11:00AM. After the crowds had dispersed Will and his Grandad laid their poppies on the cenotaph.
I felt gratitude towards those who had paid the ultimate sacrifice. I felt proud to be Canadian. I felt better.
At the Fort Langley cemetery
Fighting Against Reality
‘When you fight against reality you will always lose‘. I tell my clients.
The reality here is that Trump is the President Elect and it is doubtful that can be changed at this point. But it is still possible to accept what is while at the same time working for change.
My take on this outcome-gut punch as it was, is that we needed this.
We needed Brexit, we needed to see the far right groups surging across Europe, we needed those terrorist attacks in France, and we needed to see those families with small children fleeing the strife in Syria only to drown in the Mediterranean, we needed Putin’s dictating ways and the invasion of the Ukraine, we needed that crazy president in the Philippines who is killing all the drug dealers, and we needed Trump to win this election in order to WAKE US UP!
We need (and by ‘we’ I include myself in that as well) to get out of our bubbles and start paying more attention to what is happening around us. The old world order is breaking down and we are now a global village which means what affects one group of people affects us all. Trumps’ win has shown a good chunk of the world what we DON’T want. As I write this the EU has just convened an emergency meeting to discuss how to deal with Trump and his foreign policy mandate.
So we know what we don’t want but the question is; ‘What do we do about it?’
The First Thing We Need To Do…
Before we can do anything we need to get to feeling good first so we don’t act out of anger or fear.
You need to get to feeling good any way you can because we need you, we need each other and we all need to be shining our lights in this world, and to do this we need to be operating on all cylinders, we need to be elevated, peaceful and in the flow.
In Martha’s video she directs us to ask ourselves; ‘In a nation (or world- my words) so divided, who is doing the loving?’
Who IS doing the loving?
We can do the loving.
We can love our neighbour. We can love the Syrian refugees that have recently arrived on our shores and we can love the First Nations people who are experiencing so much pain on their reserves. There is A LOT of work to be done in our country and around the world and this election result is a golden opportunity.
I haven’t figured out what I am going to do yet- volunteer, donate money, get more political?…. but starting with social media posts I am speaking out, I am writing about it, I am talking to my kids about why I was so sad after last Tuesday’s election. That’s a start, but it needs to continue and I have some ideas percolating!
So if you are feeling disheartened and sad, look after yourself, listen to Martha’s work, turn off the news, put down your devices and pet you dog, rake the leaves, love your neighbour. Do whatever you can to raise your vibration and get to feeling good again and then get out there and shine your light and together we can create a world we DO want!
xo
Eliz
*To find Martha’s post election FaceBook live video go to my Facebook page and scroll down till you see the video (Martha’s wearing purple) or go directly to her FB page and do the same. If you want to listen to the one hour post election call go to Martha Beck’s FB page and scroll down past the video until you are past the second picture of the eclipse (you are looking for the Nov. 10 th call ‘After The Election. Now What?‘). In the comments section below you will see the link to the tele -seminar call. If you only have time for one I recommend listening to the call.
*Also a reminder that of Nov. 15th at midnight my 3 month coaching package Overwhelmed to Optimal will be increasing in price. If you want private coaching with me at the lower rate shoot me an email at elizjturner@gmail.com or contact me through my website.
Completed guest room, just needs new flooring…