Feeling disillusioned by politics

It makes sense. And is here, I humbly believe, for a reason

Feeling disillusioned makes sense.

Being inundated by so much whiplash-like change and wound-filled energies has its effects. It naturally leaves a lot of us feeling disillusioned by the state of things, especially politics.

A dear friend reached out to me after I posted an invite to phone bank for Harris. He took me up on my invitation to talk about this election and politics more generally, and shared a feeling of general malaise towards it all. Distance. 

What I heard in his voice and felt from his words was a sense of disillusionment. Something I relate to, believe makes a lot of sense, and has a role to play in the bigger picture of these times.

Below I share some thoughts on this, like:

• What’s happening for us on the ground.

• How our expanded consciousness as a collective plays into .

• What to do if you’re feeling disillusioned these days.

• How at the heart of it, disillusion is about breaking free.

Let me know what you think ❤️

What’s happening for us on the ground

We’re constantly being bombarded by information about the world and our political system—especially about the parts that don’t work. This naturally wears us down. 

To even use the word ‘information’ here doesn’t do it justice. It sterilizes what’s actually happening for us on the ground. It evokes this image of us being up in some Ivory Tower looking down at numbers and letters and patterns going by. Taking in ‘information’ with our telescopes from this removed, secular view. Inquisitively nodding at each other while sipping tea and jotting down notes. 

But instead we’re in full on panic mode, gasping for air and looking around for anything to hang on to. Knocked down and pulled under by wave after wave. Never able to recover from the last. A tsunami-like rhythm to it all, sweeping our feet from under ourselves.

Outside of select policy wonks and DC talking heads who can shelter themselves within in an evidence-based approach, the majority of us are psychically worn down and it shows.

Wave after wave…

These waves just keep coming:

There’s the terrain of takes on what’s happening out there, which, on one hand, I love. It’s fun being able to traverse between different perspectives and worldviews and opinions and commentary. Try on someone’s take like a pair of glasses, look around, see what I see.

But, if not careful, it can leave me spun out—What’s true? What isn’t? What does looking at all of these angles do for me? Am I more engaged? Or does it lead me to suspend my judgment so much so that I float away?

Then there’s the onslaught of news and research and imagery. When does my thirst for knowledge and curiosity about what’s going on become too much? When does the act of taking it in become a sport? A fix? An unhealthy itch that I need to scratch?

And then how does it all translate into who I am and how I show up? What energetic patterns and imprints do I carry with me throughout my day? Do they feed into my conversations and interactions in ways I like? That I think are helpful.. positive? Or bigger-picture, do I find myself swinging across the pendulum between hyper-activation and numbness, ultimately throwing up my hands in dizzying defeat?

Expanded consciousness & our new relationship with the world

These experiences with politics make sense.

It makes sense in the context of the digital age, this age of awareness, this age of mass media, and this age of expanded consciousness.

The term ‘expanded consciousness’ is often used in hippy dippy communities to signal something inherently positive. But I want to use it here with you in a more agnostic way.

I’m using it in a blanket way to say that our conscious awareness of ourselves as a world—and of all the different players and parts within it—has expanded.

Because of that, our relationship with the world has drastically changed. It is much more intimate. We have a closer sense of who she is. Therefore we’re figuring out how to have a relationship with her; with a world that’s changing fast and in a lot of pain. 

For me, within my story and orientation, it has led me to get consumed by the world's pain and to over-give. For others, it can lead them to push everything away and grow numb.

The myriad of different responses we each have to our new relationship with the world make sense, and leaves us with an invitation to figure out what to do with it.

If that’s where you are, lean in

If you’re feeling disillusioned these days, and it feels like that's where you need to be, then I encourage you to lean into that. 

Not because being disillusioned is a place we want to stay, or something we want to cultivate within ourselves, necessarily. But because it’s here, and is your mind-body-heart-system’s way of telling you what you need right now. 

It’s telling you,

“This is just too much.”

“I need to pull the covers over my head.”

“I need the volume to be turned down.”

“I need the dizzying nature of this to chill.”

So if that's what you're experiencing, know it makes sense. And I'm here for you.

I’m here for you to work with and to move with that disillusionment in whatever way you feel called to.

Which, again, might mean staying in that space for a bit. Staying with the covers over your head. The volume turned down. Until you feel like you've been able to collect yourself a bit more and allow some of the dizzying energy to pass.

And I'm also here if you want to begin taking steps to parse out what you feel, parse out what you're experiencing, and process little nuggets of it to find touch points to ground yourself in. Whether that be values or vision, specific issues that feel the most salient, or felt sense guideposts to navigate through this Dark Night of the Collective Soul. Whatever you need and whatever speaks to you to be able to engage with the world in a way that actually works for you, I’m here for it.

Breaking free from illusion

As I close here, and reflect on the word ‘disillusionment’ itself, I’m being show how at its core it holds within it a breaking free from illusion. Breaking free from something that has kept us stuck in false fantasy of what really is. 

This breaking free gives me this image of blasting open something that previously was congealed, and is now a bunch of floating pieces and shards looking for a new home, a new configuration.

These floating pieces will find a new place to land, I deeply believe. Maybe not in my lifetime (or maybe?), but I do wholly believe that the experiences of disillusionment that are alive in my personal life have a role to play within it all.

All of ours do.