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Transcript:
Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Esoteric Wellness Blog. I am your host, Coach Kyle.
So, this morning, what's on my mind, election day was yesterday, kind of sifting through the outcomes of of that. Brought to mind something that I thought would be great to talk about here, kind of building upon something else we've talked about here already of polarization. And this concept is really kind of something that comes out of polarization oftentimes, and that's just putting high stakes on a situation, high stakes on certain aspects where maybe it's not. Not needed, not warranted.
So in the political environment right now, you know, there's about half the country feeling like this is the worst outcome possible. The end of democracy is here. However you want to frame that. But leading up to yesterday, both sides are framing this whole thing in very similar ways that if the other side wins, this is the end of everything. This is the end. That the world as we know it will crumble, cease to exist and fall apart.
Now, is that really true? Do we really need to be putting stakes of this magnitude on a single election? I know many of you listening are probably saying, yeah, of course. But think back again to our discussion on polarization. If that is the way you're feeling about what I'm saying, is that due to the reality of the situation? Or are you stuck in that gravity well of polarization unable to see it any other way?
Now, This idea of high stakes is something I see a lot in people I work with, in many different ways, in many different forms. It often looks like you know catastrophizing, where any less than ideal outcome is a catastrophe, is the worst thing to ever happen. It can look like a lot of self-imposed pressure to be perfect. If I don't get it all right every time, I'm a horrible human being. It can look like putting a lot of a high stakes or pressure for something else in their life to be perfect. Maybe other people in their life need to be perfect. Maybe every situation needs to be perfect. You get the idea.
It's this this pressure that we create for ourselves. And what this does is. When the stakes are this high, at least how we're creating that situation or framing that situation in our minds, our brain sees that as a huge potential source of danger, a big threat looming overhead. And when we do this in ways around situations with things in our lives that never go away,Like if that's a self-imposed pressure of high stakes on being perfect all the time, we can't get away from that. We can't fix that. It never is something that we have any capability of influencing or getting away from or correcting. So our brain's always seeing this big looming danger nearby and it's going to protect us from danger because that's what our brains do. And that can take the form of pain, of chronic symptoms, of anxiety, of depression, or all of the above. It does not lead us to ideal states of mental and physical health. And again, much of the time, there are rare situations where stakes areWhere stakes actually need to be that high and where those actual situation situations exist, it's typically short-lived, right?
So this election back to the election, you know, leading up to this in the last 2-3 years, I've heard from people on both sides framing it in this way that this is such a high stakes election, that everything rests on this outcome. Is that true? Is that an accurate depiction of reality right now? I would argue that it's not. Sure, there are things at stake with every election, but the world is not going to end. Here it is the day following Election Day, and we're all still here. We're all still doing what we do. Nothing has really changed except maybe the way we feel currently. And don't get me wrong, there might be very real changes arise from this election, but we could say that about any election. We have a long history of buffoons sitting at in the Oval Office. Why would this next one or any future one be any different? And we get through it, we carry on, we move forward.
And two, I want to make the clear point, and I've already made this before, but it's so, so important for people to understand is that if you're in the place right now where you're feeling like the end is near, we've lost everything. If you were feeling before election day on the other side, feeling like that was the potential outcome, You have been manipulated. You have been fooled.
Let that sink in. You have been manipulated by the media, by political campaigns that are designed to create fear, to hold on to your attention, because nothing Gets our brains attention like fear, potential danger. and you've been led to believe that the stakes are that high, when in fact they are not.
There was an interesting news story I saw, it was several weeks ago, but it was really interesting to me. They took two couples, one of them very conservative, one of them very liberal, and they brought them together into a single room. And together they watched various news stations. I think it was Fox News and MSNBC could be wrong on that, but two very clearly biased news sources and they've all watched these different ones together. And what really became apparent to both sides was wow. The news is full of bullshit and lies, and it's just a matter of which ones you subscribe to, which ones you believe are accurate. But they both came to the conclusion that the reality of the situation was somewhere in the middle. And this is that middle path we talked about with polarity. And both of these couples were kind of infuriated, very angry that. The media was manipulating them in this way, and aside from their political differences, I mean, these were people that would have gotten gotten along. They they enjoyed each other's company.
So this is this goes way beyond just feeling anxious about an election. This is dividing us as a country. As human beings, it's dividing families. All because we're being manipulated and believing that the situation is catastrophic. The stakes are high, higher than they have ever been. How many times have you heard that?
But is all this a game? Is all this a ploy? to get you engaged. Because I'll tell you, looking at the poll numbers from this election, record numbers everywhere. More people went out and voted than ever before. And this is exactly why, because everybody thought everything depended on this election. Because we've all been manipulated and believing that is true. We've all been manipulated into hating our fellow human, who we all want the same stuff. We all want to be happy. We all want freedom. We all want economic prosperity. We all want safety and security. We just disagree on how to achieve those things, but we all want the same thing. But when you're blinded,by a perspective of polarization, of high stakes. You can't see your enemy for who they really are, a fellow human, who wants the same things you do.
And if we really want change in this country, in this world, you know we need leaders that unite us, not divide us. And not unite us in fear and anger, but unite us in love, acceptance. And it's going to be the responsibility of you, I, and everyone else outside of the political system to make that happen. We have to say enough is enough. I'm tired of being manipulated in this way.
And shout out to my Star Trek fans out there. You know the whole story. Captain Kirk and the the Kobayashi Maru, where he was, you know, taking part of a a test and his officers training and the test was rigged so that you always lost because they wanted to see how you reacted under pressure, under failure. They wanted to see how you would take that as a leader. And he recognized the system was rigged. The game was rigged. So he didn't play by the rules. He stepped outside of the game. And many of his superiors were super angry about that. But some of the wiser ones were like, uh, this guy's a leader. He He saw the system was broken and he said, no, I'm not going to play by those rules.
So that's kind of what we all need to do here. We need to say enough is enough. Turn off the news, turn off the media, talk to each other. Stop seeing your fellow man as an enemy and realize we're all in this together. We're all in the same boat. We all want the same things. And that's the real power that we have against this kind of manipulation is knowledge that is happening and the empowerment that we don't have to be affected by it. We can choose to look the other way. We can choose not to play the game.
So that's my political rant. I promise not to do a lot of these, probably never again, but to anyone out there feeling hopeless right now, we'll get through this. Life will carry on. There may be changes on the horizon, but it's not the end. 'Cause it all works out at the end. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Do what you need to do, but don't lose hope.
So that's our episode for today.
You are beautiful, you are loved, until next time.
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