How to Manage Yourself and Your Feelings in Divisive Times

These uncertain times can be challenging, from whichever side of the divide you’re located! Here are some thoughts about how to get through in the best shape possible.

Mr. Rogers to the rescue!

Fred Rogers—Mr. Rogers—was a gem who helped children and their adults look at the wider world with a calm acceptance and tremendous empathy for others. After the 9/11attacks when people were so frightened and unsettled, he urged people to look for the helpers, people committed to helping others through difficult days. Finding those people can inspire us and give a sense of hope.

You may find the movies about Fred Rogers to be interesting as a way to “meet” the person behind the myth. “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” is a documentary about Rogers and “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is a biopic about Rogers, starring Tom Hanks. Both movies discuss Rogers as someone who had anger issues and bouts of pessimism. In other words, he was a flawed human, as we all are, who did his best and helped others to better understand the world and its possibilities through his imperfections. He died in 2003, and was a helper whose legacy lives on.

Be kind

This suggestion isn’t about manners; it’s similar to warming up emotionally. You do it for yourself, because it feels better to go through life warmly disposed to life than being cold toward life and others, and it has a wonderful side effect of raising the emotional temperature for the people around you. Being kind is similar: you do it for yourself because it feels better to be kind than to be cruel, and it feels great to the people in your orbit.

Being kind can be as small as being polite to the person who serves your coffee, delivers your mail, or schedules your doctor’s appointment, or holding the door for a stranger with their arms full, or as large as speaking out in support of someone who’s being treated poorly locally or globally. For those of us who absorbed a parent’s anger growing up, we may have a pretty deep reservoir of anger that is our default position in situations where someone is being treated unfairly. But our anger may well make the situations worse. Better to be kind and firm, rather than escalating the situation be adding anger to the mix.

Let the good times roll

Depending on the orientation toward pleasure of the parental figures of your childhood, being on the side of a good time may be your default position (lucky you!!!) or you may have to really think your way there because of your “programming.” But going to hopelessness isn’t going to improve your or the world’s condition, though it will remove the possibility of fun, no matter what you’re doing. So determinedly looking for the fun and being open to humor can improve your life, if not the economy, on a daily basis. Silly baby or animal videos are great for this.

Choose your adventure

If you’re someone who likes to take action about the causes that are near and dear to your heart, you can avoid overwhelm by choosing only one cause on which to focus your efforts. Whether that’s early childhood education, an arts organization, immigration, healthcare, housing issues, climate issues, the narrow focus can keep you on track, rather than spread too thin and burned out.

Grab hope where you can find it: the 3.5% rule

Harvard University political scientist Erica Chenoweth “found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change” (David Robson, 5/13/19 BBC).

Love the kids and pets in your life

If you don’t have kids or pets, enjoy the cute kids and pets you see in your daily life. It can be magical to see the world through the eyes of a young child.

I’ll never forget the experience of a flight with my toddler daughter many years ago, who loudly gave a “play-by-play” description of the clouds she saw from the window of the plane and the changing colors of the sky. I was concerned that she’d disturb the other passengers within earshot but wasn’t about to try to dampen her enjoyment. At the end of the flight, a man in a nearby row commented that he flies all the time for business and takes it all for granted. But that my daughter’s excitement and joy in the experience made him take another look and helped him recapture his own sense of wonder.

And it’s impossible to overestimate the pleasure of watching cute baby animals being their adorable selves: https://youtu.be/VtXR6cYj_jQ?si=slYu3fvTAXFjZXRW and https://share.icloud.com/photos/0b3hmRcKY91P1-_9xam27qJZg.

Widen your circle of care

And if you’d enjoy more regular doses of children and/or animals in your life, volunteer at a hospital to hold babies who need more care or at an animal shelter, or volunteer to tutor children, or be a Big Brother or Big Sister to a child, or tutor a non-native English speaker in English

Other volunteer opportunities include doing food prep or food deliveries at God’s Love We Deliver or through other organizations to help people who are ill or have food insecurity.

Connections are priceless

Keep in touch with your friends. If you work remotely and/or live alone, be sure to talk with someone else everyday. You’ll feel better and less isolated, and you’ll brighten up someone else’s day, too. Humans are social creatures, so our connections are important. Even incidental connections help, with a salesperson, repair person, even if you never see them again, it’s still human connection and generally feels good to both you and the other person.

An old friend from many, many years ago from a city I used to live reached out recently. We texted, then had a two-hour phone conversation that was enjoyable and reminded me why we had been good friends before our lives moved in different directions and we lost touch. What a pleasure to reconnect!

Pay attention to how you’re thinking about things

Are you getting revved up? Are you ruminating? It’s important to pay attention to your outlook. Are you unknowingly handling yourself like someone who frustrated you as a child, and not even realizing it? Are people in your life today commenting that you seem “off”? Not like yourself?

It can be helpful to remove yourself from as much of the news cycle as possible—scan an article or two, rather than doing a deep dive. The broad contours of what’s going on are likely enough for most of us.

You may need help to stop worrying about the divisiveness of the country and world, or to stop picking arguments with family, friends, and strangers about the things going on. Read about anxiety treatment here.

And if you need help to calm down and handle things in a way that feels better to you, reach out to me. I’m here to help!