Lessons The Unpresidential Transition Taught Us
by Astrid Ferguson
A woman, Kamala Harris, as our vice-president of black and Asian descent, the COVID vaccine becoming widely accessible, and winter storms looming right before the holidays . . . CHILL! 2021 is setting up to be one hell of a year already! It’s no secret that 2020 has been a whirlwind, but the presidential election/transition, honey! WTF?! I mean, we were resurrecting dead people in absentee ballots! We were throwing stale bread over Zoom calls with family members and stomping on face masks like Ave Maria Purisima! We were reenacting the worst terrible-two tantrums, tugging our ears, sticking out our tongues, and spitting loud NOOOOO’s at our parents in the middle of the Toys R’Us aisle with this election. Ooh, Wee!
I think this unpresidential transition taught us a lot about our reactions to:
Things not going our way
Refusing to take no for an answer
Facing rejection
And/or facing adversity
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and has voting rights they can exercise however they see fit. We must also comprehend that people have choices. They can always choose to ignore or disagree with our opinions and vise versa. And it’s natural to have a hopeless or combative response to situations or people who reject us. However, we can always choose to diminish the amount of energy we give to our reactions. So here is my honest attempt at explaining these reactions using vibrational energy frequency concepts.
Hopelessness Feels Permanent
The pandemic already had us ready to explode. Then Pandemic, the whole year of 2020, brought us down to a hopeless state and most of us are still residing there. We had major legends Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna Bryant pass away early this year unexpectedly. Many of us found ourselves grieving without really knowing him personally. Simply because we could empathize with Vanessa Bryant’s loss and Kobe Bryant’s values. Then—the downward spiral full of deaths, lockdowns, and quarantine began. We thought we were going to save our butts from the hopelessness with toilet tissue, literally. We started hoarding out of panic. I still don’t know what toilet paper was going to do but I will certainly continue to try. Then it was followed by massive layoffs, more deaths, canceled sports (this one hit my husband hard); talk shows were trash (remember Ellen in her living room?), children were separated from the families kept in cages in large quantities at the border in inhumane conditions and virtual learning (how the hell can we forget that?). I mean typing that sentence was painful enough. I know there were countless events that occurred earlier this year but I am getting anxious just rehashing everything that was co-mingled into the volcano we call 2020. It definitely feels like we were acting out scenes of 1918 in real-time.
Vexation for Every Season
We thought we could revive Hot Girl Summer and that was shut down a week into our failed attempt. Take a moment to take that in. We were at beaches pretending like COVID wasn’t going to grab us like Scorpio in Mortal Combat “Get Over Here!” Holy smokes! Then we had—and still have—BLM movement protests surging in all 50 states and 19 countries after a video of George Floyd dying like a hunted deer on camera emerges. Hopelessness has now shifted to vexation! Have you ever tried talking to someone while angry? How did that work out?
It just seems like we were re-traumatized every couple of months this year. So it’s only natural that all this animosity built up and unleashed during our presidential election and continues into the presidential transitional period. We had periods of connecting with and disconnecting from one another. We have had our ups-and-downs phases, mirroring our energy levels. So of course our former Commander-in-Chief had a hard time accepting the results. He didn’t comprehend why he wasn’t an automatic winner. He probably never lost a single thing in his life. Okay let me stop being sarcastic, maybe he has, but this was also not a typical election. We were/are still in the middle of a pandemic. People were feeling anxious about standing in line in large crowds while COVID loomed nearby. Following the results, people and media channels argued about the results saying things like, “the media doesn’t choose the winner,” followed by lawsuits to slow down the counting process even more, only for those lawsuits to be followed by more lawsuits. Holy S*it! It reminded me of myself trying to get over imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and insecurities all at the same damn time!
“It Is What It Is” Burnout
Moms (dads too) and teachers are seriously trying to operate from an “it is what it is” energy level because they are just trying to get through each second. That is how intense it has been trying to balance, school, work, laundry, health, pandemic safety protocol, wellness, mental breakdowns, and everything else during a pandemic. Shoot! We are burned out, kinda like how most of us felt watching the presidential debates this year.
That is what we have slowly been seeing with this unpresidential transition. Some people are conceding now that the electoral college has solidified the president-elect, Joe Biden, as the new Commander-in-Chief of the United State and Kamala Harris as the new Vice President of the United States. It reminded me of how many of us have reacted to the pandemic. We don’t like practicing social distancing but we have learned to accept it. We’ve learned to connect with one another in creative ways because we learned to live with the pandemic normalcy. We surrendered trying to change our circumstances and just moved forward with what’s within our control.
Small Moments of Hope, Synergy, and Deep Connections
We did, however, resonate at higher energy levels in great moments of need. We marched together, protesting for a common cause, we donated to those in need, we checked on our neighbors to ensure they had what they needed, we came together to get people registered to vote, and fostered so many healthy discussions pushing for change. Yes, we have a long way to go, and I am sure if we continue to push forward we will eventually reach the sandy beach of impactful change.
Outside of these sporadic moments of synergy, we were resonating in very low vibrations throughout the entire year. So watching our unpresidential transition is like watching ourselves trying to get through our pandemic transition. We will resist a lot at first because we have been feeling hopeless for a long time. We will become combative whenever we are told “no” because it feels like that’s all we’ve heard. We will get to a place of denial because we’re experiencing vexation and it’s hard to readjust. We will eventually get to an “it is what it is” mentality because it’ll feel like it’s our only option. Once we center ourselves and find our footing, we will learn to let go. Once we surrender, we will resonate at higher energy frequencies and begin to see opportunities and make sound decisions we never thought possible.
This is not an attempt to excuse our former 45th president. This is more of a kind reminder that we are not all that different from one another and we can always learn from these uncomfortable situations. We go through similar stages, we are human beings after all. My hope is that with time we learn to read our patterns early so we can ground ourselves and begin growing in the direction we truly desire. That is probably the most important lesson I learned from our unpresidential transition. Transitions aren’t meant to be easy or feel good, but they will happen anyway. We may not like how it feels, but change is inevitable. Let us be kind with ourselves and reframe our thinking to accept No’s as redirections instead of hurtful rejections. Let us vow to surrender this idea of controlling every little aspect of our lives and live in the only real moment we have. Everything else will work out the way it is intended. If only we learned to trust the universe more we would throw less terrible-two tantrums.
If you want to start resonating higher and surrender some of the stress you’ve been carrying from this entire year, join me in Choosing Joy After a Long Year of Grief virtual course, where I show you my tried and true techniques I use with my coaching clients. It will help you shift from a place of anxiety and overwhelm to a place of joy and calm. If you’re not ready to join just yet, come on over and join one of my Choosing Joy masterminds.
What are some things you learned about yourself this year? Did you spot any of your own reactions in the underlining of this unpresidential election/transition? Feel free to share as much or as little as you would like and ask a friend. You may realize you have way more in common than you think.
