106: Self, Family, and Organizational Care During Election Week [Bonus Episode]

Speaker 1: Hey everybody. Laura here. This month's bonus episode is an episode I released four years ago. It got an overwhelming amount of downloads and I've seen a lot of people referencing its content in various emails and newsletters and things circulating around right now because I think in a ton of ways the offerings from the episode are timeless reminders. So in this episode, you'll hear tips and suggestions for how you care for yourself, for how you care for your team or your organization, and for how you care for your family unit, however you define that across the next several weeks, as those of us who currently live in the land called the United States Brace for a big election. I also want to remind us that elections while important, are ultimately small things in the vast timeline of collective and cultural movements led by the people. I say that not to downplay the results of the election, but rather to remind you to hold perspective that the most important social changes and progress we have experienced have come from organizers and movements, not presidents or politics.

Speaker 1: So your job is not just to vote, but far more to be ready on the other side because regardless of who wins, there will be profound negative consequences for many, many, many people, regardless of which major candidate gets elected. So remind yourself about where change really comes from. It comes from inside out, and it's got to be sparked and fed and community and movement by courageous people who act on behalf of the freedom and agency of all human beings. Please take good care of yourselves in the next few weeks, and I'll see you in November. How to make Love. Now, is that from recipe or from scratch?

Speaker 1: This is how to make love. Wow. Oh gosh. Oh my God. A little to the left and faster. A show that tests the edges of what love is, worthiness, empathy, beauty, sex, positive, the borders, it can cross how we do integrity in all of our relationships, and its hidden costs and shadows in a world where we other people, where we build walls with this tear down walls, fuck finding it or falling into it. Our future depends on making it. Hi friends, this is Laura. I coach folks committed to justice and I help them develop their skills and capacity for courage. And in my work with clients, we figure out how to make the things we value, like love, like justice, and we learn to do that from the inside out. This podcast is a little splice of that inner work conversations, discussions, perspectives to help you hone your personal recipes for making courage, love, and justice. So welcome to episode 55.

Speaker 1: Today we're talking election self-care for ourselves, for our organizations and for those around us in our life. While we don't know how this election is going to turn out, we do know that it's going to be contentious. We do know that our country is going to be even more acutely divided when the results are in. We also likely know that the results won't be immediately clear either because they just won't be or because they will be and they still may be contested. We also know that basically everything is on the line in this election, and so I don't think it's a real big stretch to say it's going to be really, really important for us to have self-care set up during the week of the election and perhaps after for ourselves, for our families and loved ones and for our organizations. So let's dig in.

Speaker 1: I'm going to be offering different tips, strategies, and mostly reflection questions for you to use over the coming days and weeks and the hopes that they will help you plan intentional care amidst the election. Let's talk about organizations first. So if you lead a team or you're on a team or you lead an organization, the next few minutes here is especially for you though it's applicable for all of us. The first thing to think about is communication, and I'd really recommend you begin writing it now rather than waiting. What will you say to your teams if Trump loses the election? How will you respond with nuance knowing that there's still pain, there's still trauma. Knowing that there will likely be fervent backlash across the country and knowing that while most of us will be truly elated that Trump is gone, many of us will actually be quite heavy hearted that Biden has left.

Speaker 1: How will you hold both people who are celebrating and others who are fundamentally exhausted from the repeated invalidation of their lives and identities, not just in this country, but perhaps in your organization as well. Even if Trump loses the election, care will still need to be planned and communicated. On the flip side, what will you say to your teams? If Trump wins, how will you hold space for total hopelessness or anger or devastation? How will you support folks' mental health? How will you leverage lessons learned from your organizational responses to COD to support your people who are in pain and suffering? How will you apply lessons learned from your organizational responses to injustices like the murder of George Floyd, to support people of color in particular and perhaps especially what will you say in the absence of knowing results? How will you hold your people in ambiguity and anxiety?

Speaker 1: What organizational resources can be provided? Can you anticipator offer time off? Can you remind people about mental health benefits if available? Can you reach out to all team leaders in your organization and suggest pausing on work streams for a week? Pre covid? It was really hard to get organizations to think like this, to think innovatively and resourcefully and radically, but we've had a little more practice in the past six months proving that the impossible is actually possible in our organization. So what feels impossible but really, really important and beneficial? How can you start to plan to make that happen? Now, bottom line folks are going to be anxious regardless of the results about what happens next in our country, and at best, they're going to be totally utterly exhausted from the past four years and everything that has happened within create support now, share the plans now. There's no need to wait. Our collective response matters. So does our collective care.

Speaker 1: Okay, these next few minutes are for folks living in a household with family members or chosen family. The first clip for organizations can also be helpful for you all as family units, and I'll also give you a few suggestions for questions to discuss as a family that I think will help all of you care for one another. How can you use these last few days to talk openly with each family member or partner about what they'll need during the election week? How can you help your children anticipate or understand now the potentially very large emotions you or other adults might be having in the home? How can you proactively ask them how they might feel or what they might need, whether there's a win or a loss? Can you do some advanced meal planning? Can you make a few things to put in the freezer and have ready now so that it's not something you need to deal with on election week?

Speaker 1: Can you plan some family dates? Now? Can you think through what you need in times of grief or what your kids or partners or parents have needed in times of grief to learn more about what might be needed if Trump wins? What about in the absence of clarity or when our anxiety is really spiky and high and we feel like we're just waiting for the delivery of news? What does each family member need then, and how will you or your partner or your partners explain to young people in the family what's happened in this election or what's happening in the world as a result of it? I suspect we can anticipate protests no matter what. So how will we process all of that as a family or as a chosen family? How will we take care of our neighbors and show love and support and solidarity?

Speaker 1: There's so many things to think through, and we can also let it be quite simple. It starts with communication. It starts with asking questions and letting folks talk. We don't need to fix or solve for anybody and we can't. What we can have is open-hearted dialogue about what we're each going to need and want, and then plan and talk as a family or a chosen family about how we'll support one another in getting those needs met. Alright, and now we turn to self. Your self-care is essential. In my training is an end of life and death doula. We spent many, many modules on self-care and a quote from that work has permanently stuck with me, which says, after me, anyone can come first. What will you need in the week or weeks following the election? Solitude, communal celebration, communal mourning. And how can you plan for that?

Speaker 1: Now, if one of your needs is communal, given that we all must celebrate or grieve in ways that keep one another safe, no detail is too small, what food is going to be nourishing? Can you cancel calls or move them? Who do you want to be around or near and can you get those zoom dates on your calendar right now? Do you want to get a covid test a couple of days before the election so that you can be physically with the people you most love and need around you? Do you want to pause your social media accounts or is social media a respite and a refuge for you? When will you get fresh air? Who will you lean on? Will you limit your news intake? Can you schedule some therapy? I, for one, have scheduled extra therapy sessions that week and I've canceled all meetings on the third and the fourth so that I can be out in nature and away from screens for meaningful chunks of my day.

Speaker 1: What can you anticipate for your unique mental health and wellbeing? I encourage you to make the plans and do what you can do now to begin to calendar and communicate those needs out. I also know I'm not going to have any extra reserves of energy that week, so I've got notes in my action plan to do things like laundry and cooking on the second instead of waiting until the third or the fourth or the fifth because I just don't know how I'm going to be. Remember to consider what you're going to need spiritually, physically, emotionally, and pragmatically as you plan to hold yourself and potentially hold others during that week. I implore you to check in with at least one other human who can hold you and ask them if they can be available to support you in your emotions. Whatever the week will bring. Self-care is just as important if Trump loses as it will be if he wins. Self-care isn't just for tragedy, so make sure you are thinking about what you'll need and who you'll need and what and who you'll want in your life and your emotions in your day-to-day, regardless of the results.

Speaker 1: Okay, my friends political parties aside, our liberation is bound together. Our care is collective and also our care has to include ourselves. I'll see you back here in mid-November where no matter what, we will continue to care for each other and double down on our daily practices of love and justice. If there is a way that how to make love can support you in the coming weeks and days, please reach out. I'll see you all again here soon on the other side of this thing. And until then, make a fuck ton of love and care my friends. And remember after you, anyone can come first. Bye for now.