How to Be Happy When Your Candidate Loses
In the U.S. where I live, we have a major election coming up in a few days. I’ve been voting for 40 years and I’ve not yet seen an election so fraught with fear, divisiveness, and outright panic (on both sides). There’s even talk of civil unrest, no matter who wins our Presidential election.
People are understandably concerned in the U.S., and I’ve heard that folks around the world are watching to see what happens. Because we are part of a global community, what happens in a country as large and powerful as the U.S. can conceivably affect the entire world.
Elections are important and a Presidential election feels especially important. But my frequent readers won’t be surprised to learn that the outcome of the election does not define your happiness as much as you probably believe it does.
Is it possible to be happy if “your” candidate loses? That might seem difficult if the person you thought was going to make the U.S. (and maybe the world) a better place doesn’t get the opportunity to try. Worse, what if you think that the person who did win is likely to destroy the U.S. (and, possibly, the world) as we know it?
If you want to feel better, you need a plan. Allowing your emotions to run wild will only make things worse. If you don’t have a plan of your own, that’s OK. That’s what this post is about. I’m going to offer you a six-step plan for getting your emotions back to a happier place after hearing the “bad” election news.
1. Take a Breath
The first thing you need to do is stop and take a breath. Maybe many breaths.
Our initial reaction to unwanted news can contain an overwhelming mix of difficult emotions. These emotions might be intensified if you have a strong preference for the election outcome and/or if you’ve been following the election news regularly. The first step is to stop and notice what’s happening in your mind and body when these emotions become intense.
As soon as you begin to notice these “negative” emotions, see if you can calm your mind and your body by breathing a few deep breaths. If it helps, you might want to choose a phrase to repeat until you calm down. (Examples might be “I am safe”, “My Higher Power is in control”, "or “It’s going to be OK”.)
Taking deep breaths (and repeating a comforting phrase if you wish) is a way to lower your immediate fight-or-flight response to the news. You know when you are having this response because you can feel it in your body. You may notice that your brain kind of shuts down, your ability to think clearly is diminished, and you may feel like you need to run or do something otherwise physical.
These physical reactions in your body serve a purpose when you are facing an immediately dangerous situation, but they tend to be counterproductive when you’re facing news that is not immediately dangerous to your physical well-being. Even though you may feel like you’re going to die upon hearing the news, you are not immediately in any danger and the best course of action is to try to calm that fight-or-flight response rather than allow it to take over.
2. Prevent the Fight-or-Flight Response
The next step after you have calmed down is try to prevent that intense physical reaction from happening again. This might be tough because everyone around you will be discussing the outcome of the election. However, there are ways to minimize engaging with them.
It’s OK to tell your friends “I don’t want to talk about this right now.” You do not need to explain further. Just say that you’d like to talk about something else. If your friends insist on talking about it, you can politely excuse yourself until you feel calm in your body again.
Avoid the news and social media for a time. Turn off your TV, log out of your social media, and don’t get online unless you have to for work or to get an urgent and important task done. Consider giving yourself a vacation from your computer and phone for a day or two. It will truly be the kindest thing you can do for yourself in the aftermath of your “loss.”
3. It’s Not the End of the World
While the election news may feel like the end of the world to you, it most definitely is not. There are many reasons why the news isn’t as awful as you believe, but you have to look at it from a differing perspective to see why. Can you take a step back to see the bigger picture?
I’ll offer a few of my own thoughts, but this list is by no means exhaustive.
The media’s job is to get you to engage with them. They are literally trying to rile up your emotions because a triggered customer is a frequent customer. They will stop at nothing — including lies that could harm you — to increase your engagement on their platforms. Realizing this, you can remind yourself that at least some of what you are getting upset about isn’t even true!
Have you ever been disappointed in the past by an election outcome? Did things get difficult when the “bad” person got into office? Assuming that things didn’t go well (in your opinion), did you survive the ensuing years? In other words, are you resilient enough to face whatever lies ahead if things do get difficult? Most of us are, whether we realize it or not.
Whatever you’re worried might happen — even if it seems almost certain to happen — it still might not happen. You cannot see into the future, even if you’ve had a fairly good track record of predicting outcomes in the past. We can all probably describe something that happened in the past five years that took us completely by surprise. Some of those surprises turned out to be unwanted, but some of them turned out to be quite desirable.
Even if the worst happens, things can change in a very short time. Again, think back to the past five years. How quickly did things change? Regardless of how you feel about those changes, it’s helpful to remind yourself that “positive” change is just as likely to occur as “negative” change. If you are fixated on what’s “wrong” at the moment, focus on the positive change that could occur, rather than focusing on the way things are right now.
While logically thinking about why the election news is not the end of the world may not have a huge impact on calming you in the short term, if you are diligent about injecting these ideas into the dialogue that is ongoing in your head, at least some of these ideas will take root. Once you “believe” that it’s not the end of the world, it actually won’t be.
4. Double Down on Your Gratitude Practice
The third step in my advice for dealing with unwanted election news is to find something to be grateful for. Oh, I know that some of you are tired of hearing this and you may even think it’s impossible when you are so wracked with anxiety. But, this is very important. The more upset you are, the more you need to find something to be grateful for.
In this case, you could choose anything that is meaningful to you, but for those of you who, like me, have had a gratitude practice in place for awhile now, you might want to choose a gratitude that relates directly to the “bad” news as you perceive it.
As I write this, I don’t know who will win the election. If the person I voted for loses, I have decided that whatever awful thing I predict will happen, I will remind myself that it hasn’t happened yet. If (for example) I’m terrified of having my rights stripped away, of our democracy failing, or of being physically attacked by a random stranger, I can still find gratitude by saying “But this hasn’t happened yet!” I still have my rights, my freedom, and my safety and I can be grateful for any or all of these three in this moment.
If focusing on the issues at hand feels overwhelming to you, it might be best to focus on finding things outside of the election news to be grateful for. But where to start? Get back to the basics.
If you don’t already have a gratitude practice, begin one now. You can read some of my previous work to find a practice that works best for you at this time. If you do have a gratitude practice already, be consistent with it. Don’t miss a day! You might even want to explore new (to you) practices such as Three Blessings, writing a Gratitude Letter, or even writing a Gratitude Poem to bring variety to your practice and/or to take your Gratitude Practice to the next level.
5. Get in a Joyful Flow
What are your favorite hobbies? What activities put you in a state where time seems to pass in a flash? What do you find yourself doing when you suddenly ‘wake up’ to find that a lot of time has passed and you were unaware of it?
The positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term “flow” to describe those periods when we are doing something that is so enjoyable that we lose track of time. While you have likely experienced flow, you may not have realized that you can actually seek it out.
The difficulty with flow is that you can’t “cause” it to happen. Rather, you have to find an activity that routinely puts you in a flow state and then engage in that activity. Flow may or may not come, but it is more likely to come if you have already calmed your mind, are avoiding news and social media, and have focused on finding gratitude in this moment.
What activities have put you in flow in the past? If you can’t remember, this list of possibilities might help:
Play your favorite music or make music of your own.
Sew, make crafts, or do woodworking.
Draw, paint, or engage in some other visual art.
Play with your kids or grandkids.
Have tea or coffee with a dear friend.
Watch a funny movie or TV show.
Tend a garden or care for houseplants.
Snuggle with your pet(s).
Cook or bake.
Play a game or put together a puzzle.
Play a sport or go running.
Go for a walk or do yoga.
Get out in nature.
Read a book.
The list of possibilities is endless, but the key lies in finding what works for you. Just because something has worked in the past doesn’t mean that it will today. Notice what makes you feel positive and happily engaged and adjust if a particular activity isn’t maintaining your interest at this time.
One caution about flow: You may be tempted to engage on social media in this step because most of us can get into a state that feels like flow there. The problem is that social media isn’t a fully positive experience and so, while it can feel like flow, the reality for most of us is that we like the experience because of the addictive nature of social media, not because it actually puts us in flow.
6. Keep Up With Your Emotional Wellness Practices
The first four steps of this process will get you through the short term angst after hearing the “bad” news, but there is one more step that you need to maintain the gains you have made: Keep up with your emotional wellness practices.
Primrose Ponderings readers are a diverse group and so are your wellness practices. You might practice meditation or yoga. You might go to church and/or read the Bible. You might spend time in nature or listen to calming music. You might snuggle with your spouse or your furry kids. As I just mentioned, having a gratitude practice that you can lean into is very helpful for all of us.
I highly recommend prayer and/or meditation if you are already comfortable with these practices, because they are excellent ways to calm a frantic, anxious mind.
Whatever your current emotional wellness practice, now might a good time to assess what is currently working for you and what is not. As we change, our wellness practices also change. Don’t be afraid to change it up if you’re no longer getting the benefits that you used to. If you have had a solid emotional wellness practice for some time, you might happily find that you are ready to try some new practices because you have mastered the old ones and need a new challenge.
Putting It All Together
I know this post was a lot of information to take in, especially if you’re still reeling from the election news. Just remember that you don’t have to take it in all at once. Bookmark this post and come back to it often. Try doing just one step at a time, if that helps.
For those who would like a roadmap, I’ll summarize this post, which can also be your To Do List:
Take a breath (or several).
Prevent the fight-or-flight reaction from recurring.
Why isn’t this actually the end of the world?
What can I be grateful about in this moment?
Engage in a fun activity that gets you in flow.
Keep up with your emotional wellness practices.
Receiving suboptimal news about an election is no different from receiving any other kind of undesirable news. You might have anxiety, fear, and perhaps even grief. But taking in unwanted news doesn’t mean that you have to be miserable.
Use the happiness skills that you have already honed to find more happiness (or, at least, less sadness) upon hearing this “bad” news. If you’re new to Primrose Ponderings and/or to the science of happiness, you might want to read some of my earlier posts to help you get up to speed on the concepts that will allow you to find happiness and well-being in every moment.
Above all, hang in there… Things are not nearly as dire as you might imagine.
