The Mid-Term Elections are over, and like any other civilized society, there are winners and losers. One of the ways to avoid toxic emotions that cause immune system suppression is to practice what I call emotional elegance in times of turbulence.This does not mean agreeing with the opposition, but rather removing from the experience, the elements that can make you sick.
The Path of Emotional Elegance begins when you recognize you are engaging in an act of self-caring during a time when resentment, hatred, and hostility, can consume you if you enter the path of intolerance.
- Sit quietly, pay attention to your breathing, drop your shoulders, unclench your teeth and close your eyes allowing your eyelids to cover your sight with gentle darkness.
- Bring to awareness the gains of your political party. Embody the feeling (sense where it manifests in your mindbody), allow celebration with gratitude to enter your consciousness, and experience the joy.
- Bring to your awareness the loses of your political party. Embody the feeling (sense where it manifests in your mindbody), allow celebration with dignity for your opponents gains to enter your consciousness, and experience the serenity.
- If objections to celebrate with dignity your opponent’s gains surface (and they will, initially) allow the experience to pass like a slowly moving cloud, and return to the celebration with dignity consciousness.
- Call a friend or acquaintance who shares your political views and celebrate with gratitude your gains. Experience the joy.
- Call a friend or acquaintance who disagrees with your political views and celebrate with dignity their gains. Experience the serenity.
This method is deceptively simple in that you do not realize the health benefits it provides. The method is not a pollyanna delusion that all is well. It is rather accessing the exalted emotions and higher cognitions that protect you from primitive affect that can lead to illness during times where your will finds opposition. What you are practicing is courageous tolerance: A convergence of gratitude and serenity that invites both parties to cooperate for a common good that exceeds our puny egos and need to validate our beliefs with subversion. Congratulations to all, if you voted.