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Transcript

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Tania: There’s a lot of very bad things that can happen. things might go very, very badly for a lot of people and particularly vulnerable populations. So, you know, given that like, you know, what, what do we do with, with that then? You know, it’s like, okay, if this, if this is where we’re headed, how can the stuff that I know and the stuff that I talk about and the stuff that I write help get us through this and maybe help us to do better next time? 

Tania: Welcome to Ready to Be Strong. I’m Tania Israel.

Pema: And I’m Pema Rocker.

Tania: Together we’re broadening our minds, opening our hearts.

Pema: And strengthening connections in a politically charged election season and beyond. And now we’re in the beyond part.

Tania: Indeed. We are recording this four days after the 2024 election. And so in this episode we’re talking about politics and grief. So let’s kick it off. Pema, how are you feeling post-election, or, I don’t know if you wanna share a little bit about how things were going in the lead up and where you are now?

Pema: Okay. I’m feeling sad, I’m feeling surprised. I’m feeling empathetic of folks that I know the varying depths of feeling and loss that folks feel. And I, because we have done this before in 2016, it feels like less of a surprise and it feels like maybe we, we know how we’ve got some know-how to be in reaction and to build in ways that we didn’t, we weren’t prepared for before. And when I say that I’m, I’m very much relaying that I am, you know, that I voted on the Democratic side. And what might be lost in the same way positions were lost in 2016.

Tania: So you’re having all the feels. 

Pema: Well, yeah, I’m having feels, but really what’s also there is I’ve got some measure too. So since this happened before with one of the main players, this happened before with Trump, and it feels like we just kind of drove off a cliff, like, oh my God, the, how, how could this happen? Since we have faced that once before, I feel a little bit more measured. Like, yeah, we saw some things change in a very big way. Bigotry got more escalated out in our world, and it seemed like there, there was a lot of allowance for that, whereas before there wasn’t. I’m afraid of that. And also it feels like we’ve got some tools that we didn’t have before, and the measure that I’m looking at this with, or that my feelings are tempered by just feels like, okay, what are our tools What’s our reality? I feel like all the folks around me are having different feelings from different angles. How can I listen? And what happens next in the listening?

Tania: Yeah, yeah, definitely. People are having quite a range of reactions. I spent the last week before the election in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, getting out the vote for Kamala. And it was a fascinating experience. It is very different from the world that I live in. It’s this town that used to have primarily Irish, Italian and Polish immigrants who worked in the mines.

And now it is a majority Dominican population who’s moved there from New York. And so it was such a mix and I, I don’t know, I feel like it was this very, like, American story there of that town and. Anyway, I talked to a lot of people and I talked to people who were, you know, voting a variety of ways and who had a lot of different kinds of life experiences and things.

So I was really like on the ground in it. I was also doing a ton of media. Everybody wanted to talk to me about, like, how do you manage election stress? ‘Cause everybody was like, so at the height of activation constantly. And people kept texting me, you know, like, friends from California were like, so what’s going on there?

Like, are we gonna win? And I was like, I literally have no idea. Like, I did not go into this hopeful, I did not go into this not hopeful. I was just like, I literally do not know how this is gonna turn out based on what I’m hearing from people. I think it could go in any direction. I was together with other people who were on the ground getting out the vote. I was also involved in some election day and election night coverage when people wanted to talk about, like, how do we have conversations with people after the election? So I was really, really busy, which was great for me because that’s one of the ways that I deal with stress, is I’m like, what can I do?

And then when it became clear, you know, that things were going toward Trump on election night, I was like, oh wow. So there was sadness. You know, I’ve been feeling a lot of loss around that. And I, and I will admit, like as a biracial Asian American woman, I’m like, oh, you know, I just, I just thought Kamala was great and is great, and I think that she did an amazing job on a campaign in a short period of time. And yeah, there’s a huge disappointment. Even though I didn’t quite allow myself to hope for it, I’m really sad. And I don’t know, since then I’ve been going through a lot of different things and, you know, some of which has to do with various analyses that I’ve come up with about what, what happened here. And we can get into some of that. But it’s been yeah, I’m basically, okay. It does feel different from 2016. ‘Cause it feels like, I mean, we were at such a level of stress leading up to the election, and I think a lot of that was not knowing, and now we know.

Pema: I’m hearing your commitment, your active actioning dedication to both the politics that you believe in. out there canvassing for Kamala Harris. And then I also hear, you know, these past several months that we’ve been doing this podcast and before your absolute dedication to you know, narrowing this divide, this divided nation. I am struck by and curious about you holding those two batons or kind of standing in those two places. I really appreciate how you can hold the space for all of that. you have equal dedication to both, in my words, the fight and also the union.

Tania: And I guess I don’t find those at odds. Because frankly, you know, now we get a little bit into my analysis. I think one of the things that’s really challenging for the Democrats is I feel like there’s a lot we don’t understand about a whole bunch of people in this country. and I’m not talking about like the, the Democratic party or you know, the people running for office.

I mean like the on the ground, like people who are Democrats and people on the left and people who are progressive. There’s a lot that we’re not getting, or at least that some of us aren’t getting about those other folks who you know, the folks who voted for Trump. And I don’t think that means we need to change our agenda to accommodate. Like it’s not about moving our ideas toward the middle. It’s actually, I mean, I think about approaching other people with more humility, with more kindness. That when people aren’t quite where we are. In terms of the way we’re thinking about, you know, changing things, you know, like change, like, like more expansive understandings of gender. It takes people a minute to catch up with that. And I feel like there’s been a lot of intolerance for people who aren’t exactly where we are. And I don’t mean, you know, the anti-trans policies, I don’t mean that, like, I don’t mean tolerating that. I mean not necessarily labeling everyone as haters who isn’t on the same page as we are. The evidence says that that’s not true. The evidence says we overestimate how much the other side feels hate toward us and how much they dehumanize us. And so our message is about, you know, they hate, they are ignorant. There, there’s a lot that, you know, they are driven by fear. I mean, I’m not saying that’s not true, I’m just saying it’s equally true of our side.

You know, like people are like, oh, they’re really making their decisions based on fear. And then what everyone I’m talking to says is, oh my God, I’m terrified. You know, it’s like we’re all feeling the fear, we’re all kind of ignorant about what’s going on with the other side in some ways. And so I kind of see it really working in concert ’cause I feel like, you know, one of the things that I am very committed to is our democracy. And that’s one of the things that concerns me most about what might happen during this Trump administration, is a real erosion of democracy. And I feel like ideally the Democrats would shore up democracy. But I also feel like we’re not going to have the opportunity to do that if we don’t also put forward some more attempts to understand and show some kindness toward other people. I don’t know. Does that help make sense of it?

Pema: Oh yeah. I mean the, the, the brush strokes are broad. I feel like you can say that. We can say that about every spot on the spectrum. It feels like it’s true. And also I’m hearing over and over again and feeling the depth of your vote, just potentially cost me my life. You know, anti-trans policies, increased bigotry violence. And we’ve had conversations where not everyone is violent and yet violent things happen after 2016. I think that hate crimes increased. So I’m like, I’m hearing and seeing people upset about how it looks like, yes, your individual vote potentially cost me my safety. And I’m also hearing from our conversations and learning that that is not necessarily true.

I think that what you’re saying can be spread across an entire spectrum of voters. I feel like this election has shown us the many, many different, like we might be polarized in a divided nation, but it feels like there are many more divisions in our each sides than even then two polls. I am talking about right now, a statistic that I read this morning about Missouri had like 12% of people voted both for Trump and for abortion rights. So the feeling like that you’re sharing can be spread across the entire spectrum, and yet it just feels so personal. You know, the losses of those, those potential losses to autonomy feel very personal.

Tania: I have to say that the thing that’s really clear. Is that a lot of the American public does not want what the Democrats are selling. You know? And I’m like, okay, it’s what I want, but there’s something I should try to understand about people who don’t want it or who didn’t vote for it, because otherwise, I don’t know. We’re just going to like, the more we kind of double down on our misunderstandings and misperceptions of the other side and our distancing, then the less, less chance we have of not just winning, but the less chance we have of advocating for things that are in the broad interests of Americans and that, people are looking for.

Pema: We’ve got this, this consideration here. What’s helping us right now? And I am also thinking about the title of our podcast, Ready to Be Strong. So I came into our podcast thinking, yeah, let’s be strong. Let’s strengthen ourselves internally so that we can hear each other out and make some connected choices together. And on the other side of the election, I’m thinking, right, how can we be ready to be strong? How is it different now? How’s that consideration different?

Tania: I think it’s even more important that we come together and rise to our potential. And that’s really what Ready to Be Strong is about, like, how do we strengthen ourselves individually and collectively to, to do our best? And right now, I mean, people are grieving and that’s really, you know, this is, this is your jam, this is your area of expertise. This is what I’m seeing so much. So I have to say like, I’m not like today. Everybody must do this. ’cause what I’m realizing is that there’s a lot that can happen right now as people are grieving where we can further alienate people. I mean, our own people, our other people because we are in a lot of different feelings and in a lot of different understandings of what happened. So what I think is most helpful is not to try to direct that too much toward other people. You know, to my, my rule about grief is that I should forgive everyone, everything that they do when they are grieving

Pema: Hmm

Tania: uh, It’s just coming out of a lot of feelings. And so I’m recognizing in this, I’ve got my own feelings about stuff that are really incompatible with the feelings that some people around me are having. And it’s hard making space for incompatible feelings. So anyway, that’s sort of my thought about like, yes, there are things to do to move forward in the ready to be strong mode. I think that maybe the most important thing to do right now is to try to allow people to have different reactions and allow space for that. But I’m curious from a grief perspective, like what’s, what’s your take on what’s going on now for you and others?

Pema: Well, I heard you say two things that ring true for me when I think about grief, and one of them is, one of them is this perception I always have. Every single time there’s going to be a that, that there’s a loss or a trauma. I think like individually in family, in community I think, okay, we’ve lost someone. Something terrible has happened to all of us. Everybody’s going to be on their best behavior to recognize that this is hard and how can we help? But that is never true. That’s never true. It’s not true for me. It’s not true for others that I engage with because we’re, we are all messed up somehow by our loss, our feelings, and even if we’ve got it all, if, if, even if I have it all together over in this one category of my life, I’m really messing up in another category.

And, you know, maybe I shouldn’t use that phrase messing up, but I’m not behaving as, as a as, as a kindly or as aware as they could behave in other, other times. And the, the other thing that makes me, that what you say brings to mind is to listen. So, you know, we’ve been talking for several months now about, really listening, how do we activate our listening so we can hear people on the other side? And so that our listening can hopefully maybe make space for people that we’re talking to on the other side, to listen to us, to feel safe, to hear us as well. And we, you know, when someone has experienced loss, I feel like the very first level, all I can do is listen. I. I have a recent experience of a dear friend who went through a really big loss, and I found myself listening to her express her grief, and I sat with it for a minute at a time, and then I would offer her a solution. Have you thought about X, Y, Z? And then she would share more. Well, have you thought about A, B, C? And then she would share more. And then after our call was done, I just thought, Pema, you just tried to action your way through her absolute loss. And so I got back in contact with her and I just said, I’m really sorry. I, that was a time for me. To just be with you in your pain and listen. And I offered all these solutions instead. And in some cases solutions are really, really helpful. And especially at the beginning of a loss, just being present with somebody as they feel their pain is kind of the way to go.

Tania: Yeah.

Pema: And right now feels like a time to listen to each other. Which reminds me of another topic that you brought up in earlier conversations about this divide that we’re in and strengthening ourselves inside of it, which is we’re not only less divided than we think that we are. We are more diverse than we think we are. We represent more intersections, each of us individually, than  we think of the other person. So if you’re a Democrat, listen to your Democrat friends and see how different they are from you. And so in this moment of loss, if that’s what you’re feeling, listen to the other people who are also feeling loss and I wonder how much that would change actions going forward if we really did have the skill to listen. I do think it’s a skill that we don’t necessarily have and that we’re presented with an opportunity to practice our skill in grief, our skill in listening. And that’s like the big, my big driving question all the time is how much, how much capacity do I have here? And if I feel like I don’t have a lot of capacity, at least maybe I can listen and then hear what might come next.

Tania: Yeah, and I think the thing that we hear, you know, you’re saying that the political divide and grief both have this thing in common, which is that listening can be healing in a way. And they also have this thing in common where if everybody’s experiencing the division and everyone’s experiencing healing.

Listening to someone else’s that’s different from yours may really rub you the wrong way. And it can be harder to listen when you are experiencing your own pain, and especially if you feel like your pain is somehow caused by the person you’re listening to, you know, or people like them. So one of the things I recognized for myself, and I knew this like on Wednesday, I was like, the thing I’m gonna need to keep in mind is I tend to move too quickly from grieving to action, and not everybody’s gonna be there. I’m not, you know, like, like I need to give people around me more time for the grieving than I’m gonna want to. So I recognize that. So I think that that insight about ourselves is really helpful to kind of know, like Pema you talked about like, this is what my own process is like, you know, I go like you, you’ve shared that with me. Like, okay, I go through these, you know, steps. And so I think for us to know what we tend to do. And the other thing that I noticed is that when I, you know, then I was sort of in this like I was hearing a lot of people around me who have more privilege and who were, you know feeling really angry about people who voted for Trump and like, well, they’re gonna get what they deserve. And I was, and the thing I was feeling was like, okay, the self-righteousness of people on the left is not gonna help us win the next time either. And so I was, I was feeling really grumpy with, you know, those people around. ’cause I was like, oh, it’s exactly this that created the situation we’re in. You know what I’m hearing from you.

And then, when I recognized that, I was like, oh, my analysis of the situation, it’s really just a form of grief. Like I’m trying to figure out what caused this and how do we keep this from happening next time? And that made me, like really direct my upsetness about this toward, I mean, really largely people who surround me in my life. But once I recognized that, then I could not just flip into that so easily. So I think that there’s, even before we get to engaging with other people, or maybe in concert with engaging with other people, having that awareness of what we’re doing ourselves, you know, what’s our process and how is that playing out in our, in our actions and our feelings?

Pema: I have watched lots of folks over a course of a lifetime enact grief through court battles, military strikes, legislation. I have often like fighting back at each other rather than saying, oh, oh, oh, oh, I’m feeling something here. And it’s really painful. And if I am alone in my grief by myself over here, just feeling it, it’s a whole lot worse than striking out or trying to make somebody else be responsible for it. But when I notice that that’s a compulsion to put my grief on somebody else, then that feels like an indicator too. Like, okay, if you care about how this goes for yourself and other people, then take a break or go find somebody to take a walk with that you trust. Sometimes, like if it’s not a problem for you, overeat today, you know what I mean? Like um, allow yourself some space and soothing so that you don’t take it out on other people.

Tania: And it’s not that we shouldn’t take any actions. It’s not that we should like, just make room for your feelings for the next four years, you know, I don’t think that’s the answer, but I do think it’s helpful for us to notice what’s going on for us and how that’s affecting what we’re doing in this moment. So that we can really be smart about what we’re gonna do in the next moment and, and when we are ready for action to bring that forth from a place that is grounded.

Tania: We’ve been talking a little bit about you know, while we’re in it, having some awareness, having some listening, giving some space. Let’s think about, you know, what, what comes next? And do we have some thoughts, some guidance about where to go from here? So what you got, Pema?

Pema: So something that has gone around in my head like an earworm in the past week, Tania, has been a quote that you speak of from rent, which is the musical rent, which is the opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation.

Tania: Mm-Hmm.

Pema: And I have been thinking, okay, here we are in the loss phase. Here we are in the listening phase. Here we are in the deep, painful feeling phase, and I think about creation. What do we create when we are, what do we create now? And I have been thinking, what do I create right here in my home? On election night, I couldn’t listen to or watch the news. My poor partner was all set too, and even wanted to invite some people over, and I was like, oh, I’m so sensitive right now. I don’t think I can handle that. And so for me, in those moments, I created some separation from that input and from that loud, loud input when I knew that I would find out the result later. What do I wanna create in my neighborhood? I got to walk next door a couple days before and see my neighbor in her hilarious dinosaur costume. I got to spend some time with some dear friends, even for just 30 minutes by having them over to see what my kind of new floor and rug looked like, you know, and then we got to talk about some old stories of feeling and loss. And I got to give them my book that recently came out in print, that’s Ash and Spirit. And I got to tell them a story that I tell that I actually don’t tell in the book, but that shows up in the dedication. They asked me, where does that come from? And they had never heard me share that before. It’s really sweet. And so I realized, oh, look at this. Here’s something that I created from the loss that I experienced as I was trying to make, like, have an understanding of this loss.

A book got created out of it. And then community got created out of my efforts. And then many moons later this conversation got created out of it. So I’m curious about what are we creating both locally in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our communities, and for each other as we are trying to bridge where we’re standing in loss to where we need to support ourselves in this new environment?

Tania: Yeah. I’m so glad you brought creativity into it because one of the things I was really struggling with on Wednesday, I was like is there something, anything helpful that I could post on Facebook? I’m like, I sort of feel like I didn’t post all my pictures of my canvassing that I was doing, like to get out the vote on election day. Like I waited too long. And now I’m like, well, now I can never post these pictures. Like I can’t post joyful pictures with all my get out the vote stuff. And I was like, okay, well I can’t do that. Like, what am I gonna like, should I just stay quiet? But is there something, I feel like a lot of people were texting me and like, Hey, how are you doing? But then also, you know, people who wanted to know like, what do, what do I do? How do I deal with this? And somebody sent me a poem via text. And I was like, it took me a little while to track down who wrote the poem. ‘Cause I was like, I’m not gonna post it without, you know, crediting it appropriately. But then I found it and I posted it on my Facebook and so many people are like, thank you, this is helpful. I mean, a ton of people were posting poetry. And that really struck me because yes, we could have been posting all kinds of analyses of things and all of this stuff, but people posted poetry. And then when I was, yesterday I was kind of in a funky place with all this.

And I was like, I don’t know how to unearth the feelings that I’m having. And a friend had posted this beautiful song on Facebook and I was like, oh, this song really brings forth my emotion. And that’s something I need. I need this art to create a space for me to have my feelings. So I think art is so valuable right now.

Pema: Mm-Hmm. I feel like that art is kind of like a campfire that we can all hold our hands around, you know, like warm our hands. I feel like poetry speaks to us, speaks for us when we can’t speak, when we don’t have the words for it. Music does the same thing. I love that. Among your friends, sending you texts, texts and asking how you’re doing right. After that, a friend sent you some poetry.

Tania: Yeah.

Pema: Yeah.

Tania: When I think about, okay, we are processing emotions right now and yeah, around our country there’s a lot of different emotions that people are processing. I mean, frankly in my world, I’m not hearing any of the celebration or, or even relief of the other side, you know? But someone did say to me today that they had talked to somebody who was like you know, ’cause they were like, oh my gosh, I’m feeling so crushed right now. And so like, my government does not represent me, you know, and all these things. And someone said, yeah, well how do you think I’ve been feeling the last four years? You know? And it’s like, oh, okay. You know, which, it sounds shocking. I remember people saying that, you know, when Obama was in office and you know, after, after Obama wasn’t in office and Trump was in office, people who felt like, oh yeah, I’ve been feeling like my rights have not been attended to, and my life has not been considered in these past eight years, and now you’re getting a taste of that.

So there is something there where I’m like, oh, yeah, I, I don’t know what it’s been like for people, you know, for a lot of people these last four years, if they didn’t feel like their values were represented by the government and or at least by the federal government, and so. This is where I’m like, okay, there’s some opportunity for understanding when we have these conversations with people and when someone’s like, yeah, well this is how I was feeling, rather than being like, what, you know, like, what on earth? I can’t even imagine that. ’cause that’s not been my experience to be like, oh, what have, what have I been missing? Like, what have you been experiencing that, that I, that I didn’t really understand? And I think that there’s a lot of possible openings for that. Again, doesn’t have to be this week, doesn’t have to be this month. Although we got holidays coming up where people are gonna be with family and maybe people who are in a different place. And sure, we can sit around, we can argue about stuff and we can, you know, express our hurt and our and our upsetness at each other. We can also, like, people can rub it in if they feel like they’re side one, but what if we really instead took those opportunities to say, you know.

What, what this election really makes clear is that we aren’t all on the same page in this country. And if we can each reflect on what is it that we just don’t get about where other people are coming from, like if you were like, I don’t understand why Kamala Harris would want the government to be paying for people to transition their gender, you know, in prison.

Like, if you didn’t understand that, wow. I bet you could ask somebody who, who does understand that and who agreed with that. You know, if you don’t understand how somebody who you know is an immigrant could vote for Trump, who, you know, who wants to, you know, build the wall higher and deport people, okay, I bet somebody could help you to understand that.

You know, it’s like there are things that seem so unfathomable to people in this country about how the other side is thinking about things. I would love it if we recognized where we’re feeling so disconnected because we just can’t understand. And then when we have the opportunity to find out more and even more so than talking about the issues. ‘Cause I do feel like, you know, there was like, oh, well there’s, you know, the issue of the economy and there’s the issue of, of immigrant rights and there’s all of these different issues. But I feel like some of it really comes down to understanding what kind of community do you wanna live in? Like what feels comfortable to you? What kind of a country feels comfortable to you? Because I think that there’s a lot where there’s different things that feel comfortable and feel like they make people belong. And if we could understand that a little bit better, I think we would go a long way toward healing some of the ruptures.

Pema: I think that that sounds ideal. I. I just, as I heard you say all that, I was thinking, oh, wouldn’t it be fun that if we, okay, so we have a pre-election season. We have election season, and wouldn’t it be fun that in post-election season, we all play the game of, okay, what do you, what are you feeling? Why do you think that?, like the post-election season is all curiosity.

It’s the game of curiosity. How many data points can you collect from the people that you listen to? Well, wouldn’t that be ideal if we all wanted to know that kind of thing? And I think that some people wanna know and other people just don’t. Folks are either distracted or they’re of a totally different mindset. And so I’m hearing myself say all that and it feels very pessimistic. And then I just think, all right, we’ll just, the more people that accrue in curiosity, the more curiosity makes a difference.

Tania: Yeah, so grieve and create and cultivate curiosity, and listen.

Pema: Yeah, they sound like really good places to be right now.

Tania: I’m Tania Israel, professor, psychologist, and author of Facing the Fracture.

Pema: And I’m Pema Rocker creative coach and author of Ash and Spirit.

Tania: Make your choice,

Pema: Are you ready to be strong?