Have you spent a lot of time leading up to the election worried about the results? Maybe you still feel the disappointment from the 2024 election, and you’re afraid to hope for this one. Hope is often tied to a certain outcome, and while this election's outcome is extremely important, putting your hope in things beyond that can help you keep going and find joy even amid any disappointment or grief that may also be present. In this episode, you’ll hear why it’s still safe to hope even if it doesn’t feel that way, and how self-trust can help you get there. It’s not about knowing you’ll get the result you want; it’s about knowing you can handle it no matter what.
How long have you been putting off the hard conversation? Join Sara live for one hour for her free workshop, SPEAK UP. There’s no replay, so bring the conversation you keep avoiding. You’ll learn the Three Speak Up Skills and figure out what’s keeping you stuck.
Here’s what you’ll uncover in this episode:
Why a part of you feels afraid to get your hopes up and keeps you cautious
Where you can still find hope even when the results of something aren’t promised
Why beating yourself up makes any situation automatically worse and how to avoid it
How to hold your concern for the future and the beauty you see simultaneously
Why your voice is meant to help create the world you want to live in
Register for SPEAK UP: sarafisk.coach/voice
Find Sara here:
youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333
Transcript
00:58
You're listening to this on Election Day, and I wanna talk about something that I have been noticing in myself as this day has arrived. I am nervous. You probably are too, but I'm also hopeful, and I'm noticing how afraid I am to be hopeful. And after talking with a couple clients and some friends today, I know that I'm not the only one because I remember exactly how I felt going into the 2024 presidential election. I truly believed that Kamala Harris was gonna win. I was so excited about the possibility of having not just our first woman president, but our first Black woman president. I had done my own campaigning for her among my family and friends. I had had, you know, some really serious hard conversations with, uh, my dad in particular about voting for her and what that meant and who that protected, and I had really invested a lot. And so when she lost, it was devastating. There was grief and disbelief and fear about what was coming next, and I know that many of you experienced that too. And so now, two years later, when we have lived through so much of what we were afraid of, I notice this part of me that feels fearful for sure and a part of me that wants to be very careful, and it kind of feels to me like, "Hey, remember what happened last time? Maybe let's not get our hopes up so high this time because that was awful, that was terrible, and we don't wanna have to recover from something like that again if it doesn't go the way we hope tomorrow." And honestly, I understand why that part of me is trying to get me to lower my hopes because after the devastation of 2024, and I think this happens anytime there is something that doesn't go your way, it makes a lot of sense to try and protect yourself by lowering your expectations. We think that if we don't get our hopes up, if we don't have high expectations, then disappointment won't hurt as much, and that makes a lot of sense. There is a part of us that is trying to actually take care of us by getting us to lower those expectations. But here's what I've been thinking about. Are we actually protecting ourselves from disappointment when we do that, or are we actually letting the possibility of disappointment take something valuable away from us today?
03:44
Because I've been seeing some things lately that I genuinely feel hopeful about. I have seen videos of students from historically Black colleges and universities marching to polling places en masse, some of them with their marching bands. It's been incredible. I have seen people going to extraordinary lengths in our country and in other countries, Brazil included, to vote and to make sure that their voices are heard. I dropped off my ballot here in Arizona just a couple of days after I received my mail-in ballot, so it was, it was a while ago. It was over a month ago, and I was genuinely surprised by how many people were there. And I know that's anecdotal. I'm not making any predictions about turnout or results based on what I saw, but it was encouraging, and it reminded me that there are so many people who care deeply about what happens in our country, people who are willing to do something about it, and I want to allow myself to feel hopeful about that.On the one hand, right, I remind myself that my algorithm, what I see is shaped by what I wanna see and what I believe, but so many people believe it too. So many people want the same kind of country that you and I do where we feel safe, where the rule of law is followed, where we are not squeezing the middle and lower classes so that everybody above us can get rich, where we are taking care of the Earth and children and vulnerable people, and where we prioritize leaving a planet for our children that is better than we found it. There's a lot of things to be hopeful for. When I see the young people of today in general, it just, it fills me with hope. One of the most important lessons I learned was that any situation was made worse when I turned on myself. If I made a mistake and then I started beating myself up, it was always worse. If I messed something up intentionally or unintentionally- And then started judging or criticizing myself. It always made it worse. And so I made a commitment that as often as possible, within my ability, I would never turn on myself. I would never participate in beating myself up. Now, it doesn't mean that I never have a critical thought about myself. Of course I do, but I notice it, and I know what to do. I wanna turn toward myself with compassion and curiosity. I wanna understand what's happening for me and take good care of myself. And as I've been thinking about our present moment, I've been thinking about how that commitment also applies to where we are in this election. Because one of the ways that I turn on myself is by withholding hope, by deciding that because I might be disappointed later, I shouldn't let myself feel something good right now. I shouldn't let myself have the kind of hope that felt like such a liability at the last election, and I don't wanna live that way. I don't want the possibility of future pain to take away my ability to experience hope and joy and beauty in the present.
07:21
We can be afraid of what might happen tomorrow in a way that raises our awareness, in a way that moves us toward taking action, in a way that does everything we can to prevent the things that we genuinely don't think are good for our families and societies and our country, and still choose to participate in hope and hopeful things today. That's really what I am trying to remember today, and it's what I wanna offer you.I can be concerned about the future and take steps to prevent what I think needs to be prevented and be joyful, notice the beauty, have hope, revel in the satisfaction of the life that I have been able to create, the relationships that I have, the joy that I have, the love that I have, the connection that I have today. Because I also think there's another really important piece to this. So much of what I teach women is about learning to trust themselves, and one of the things I've learned is that self-trust has nothing to do with knowing how things are gonna turn out. Self-trust means knowing that whatever happens, I will stay on my own side. I will feel disappointed if things are disappointing. I will feel grief if things are sad. I can be angry, I can be scared, I can be heartbroken, and I can take care of myself through all of it. I don't have to trust that things will turn out the way I want. What I can trust in is my ability to handle it either way. And I think that gives us a different way to approach hope because we often attach hope to a certain outcome. We hope a particular candidate wins. We hope a particular policy passes or that a particular bill dies, right? We hope things turn out the way we believe they should, and I think we should hope for that. Of course we do. These outcomes really matter. They affect real people's lives, real people's rights and safety and opportunities.At the same time, there are other things I can put my hope in. I can put my hope in young people who are marching literally to vote, in the people who are standing up for our environment and the world that they want to inherit, in the people who are organizing and helping and caring for communities and s- looking out for their neighbors and speaking up about what matters to them. I can put my hope in the fact that people are still loving each other and taking care of each other. I can find hope in really ordinary things too.I went to a play last night with my husband. It's called Proof. It was magnificent. People are creating. People are writing. People are producing. I can have hope in that. I can go outside and put my feet in the grass and feel the sun on my face. I can take that moment to let my body settle, and I can notice the beauty just outside. I can laugh with someone that I love. I can appreciate a good meal, beautiful sunset. There is still so much poetry and beauty and love happening in the world right alongside the things that are painful and frightening, and I want to experience that too because my fear of the future, sometimes it's really big and really overwhelming, and it steals today from me.
11:06
So hope can also be an act of paying attention to what is still good and still possible today, and our attention is one of the things we have some power over. I think this connects to something else that I really care deeply about in my work with women. Your voice was never meant to only express who you are. It was meant to help create the world and the relationships that you wanna live in, and that's what I actually see people doing right now. They are participating in creating the world they wanna live in. They're telling stories about the world they wanna live in. And every time we do that together, we are creating something new, and that is something to put some hope in. Whether that's voting or speaking up, caring for someone in your community, or having a hard conversation with someone that you love, we are participating in creation, and that participation really matters regardless of what the election results are.So if you're feeling nervous- If you've been like me feeling nervous for it feels like weeks now, I 100% get it. Me too. I'm just gonna notice the part of me that is trying to protect me from disappointment. I'm gonna tell that part that I appreciate it looking out for me, and I can totally, completely understand why it is worried, and I'm just gonna remind myself that whatever happens, I am staying on my side. I'm gonna pull that little part in close and give it a hug, thank it for the work that it is trying to do, and remind it that whatever it is, we'll feel it together, that we can enjoy the things that are good today, that we can let ourselves hope. There are gonna be a lot of things that we can't control today, but in that, we get to decide how we are going to live, and I'm trying to live as someone who still believes good things are possible. Take good care of yourself. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.
