Right now, I’m suffering from a condition that seems highly prevalent in the U.S.: Election Derangement Syndrome (EDS). The symptoms? An obsessive focus on political news, polls, and predictions to the exclusion of almost everything else. Granted, the media aren’t giving us many other options. It seems they also suffer from EDS, or (more likely) are profiting from it. This is a high point in their season after all, and, like Vail in January, they are capitalizing on it.

I knew it was out of control for me when I found myself saying things like this: 

• “I’ll be so glad when this is over.” For variety, I alternated that with “It will be such a relief when this is over.” Then, realizing gladness or relief may not actually be outcomes, I moved to the more general, “At least it will be over.”
• “Once this is over, I can…(focus more on my business, take better care of myself, get outside in nature more, be less stressed, less distracted).” For a perfectionist procrastinator like me, this is the perfect excuse to focus my life exclusively on what I cannot control vs anything that I might be able to change, like eating more greens (how can I possibly make more smoothies now?)
• “If it goes [that] way, I don’t know what will become of us.” Now this one actually cuts more to the truth. Regardless of the election outcome, I don’t know what will become of us. None of us do. We may see considerable or little change, and in ways we can and can’t imagine.

So the syndrome, at least for me, progresses in this way: intensely focusing on something out of my control; believing that constant vigilance somehow gives me control; deciding it’s OK (even necessary) to put life on hold until “this” is over; and that the world as we know it may not exist depending on who wins. End stage now, my mindfulness has completely devolved to mindlessness.

Survival at stake, I’m returning back to basics, back to Step One, back to the breath. Centering myself again, I can see how I’ve attached my own feelings and beliefs to the characters and events in this present election day drama in narratives that may or may not be true. That life is bigger than this one play, as Shakespearean as it is.

And as my filter broadened, something astounding sailed in, news of a Revolutionary New Theory that might reconcile two major branches of physics – quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of relativity. This breakthrough suggests that, just as seemingly opposing principles might coexist, we may too. In fact, the theory is a way of seeing the co-existence that’s already there.

So, if there’s one election hope I’ll hold on to, it’s that we see how our realms not just can, but already do, co-exist.

Here’s to your holding some bigger space around whatever may have its grip on you right now.