Facing anxiety and fear after election results
I hate to be right but yesterday's election result was social desirability bias in action.
Yesterday was Election Day, and a majority of Americans have once again decided to give the highest office of our land to Donald J. Trump, a polarizing figure who uses dog-whistle and drained-pool politics to keep our country divided (I discuss both of these phenomena in Breaking Bias).
For the past two months, I have been on the edge of my seat about the outcome, disbelieving my own instincts that most Americans — including most white women — are not ready to elect a woman, particularly a mixed-race Black woman as our President. I too succumbed to the inspiration and joy of the Harris campaign, overlooking the fact that slightly more than 50% of the electorate did not feel inspired or joyful for a single reason: the messenger was a woman of color.
Friends, there is no other way to say this — but my heart is absolutely shattered. I spent every waking moment since January 6, 2021 writing Breaking Bias. I wanted more people to know why and how bias keeps us divided and what we can do about it to bridge polarization, tackle misinformation, and heal divisions. I tried to warn the campaigns by attempting to share my scholarship and writing about social desirability bias, confirmation bias, and plain old racism, sexism, homophobia, and prejudice at prestigious outlets like TIME, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and others.
For me, none of what I have done has been about building my brand, making money, or gaining fame. Rather, all of my actions have been guided by a genuine concern for our common humanity and alleviating the suffering of bias. And last night, as I watched the election results, I had to honestly acknowledge the hard truth, one that I have unconsciously denied, that my research, message, and scholarship has remained underestimated not because of what it is but because of who I am — a gay brown immigrant of faith named Anu. Today, millions of women, black, brown, queer, and other humans who’ve been underestimated for no other reason than their being are feeling this way too.
My dears, I am sitting with the discomfort, the uncertainty, and sheer heartbreak that comes from acknowledging this difficult felt-sense truth and witnessing a battered spouse return to their abuser. And with mindfulness I notice the tension in my shoulders, the clench in my jaw, and a sinking feeling in my chest. I notice that my breath is shallow - the exhale much longer than the inhale, and my mind is racing with worries, despair, and uncertainty. Observing my somatic experiences reminds me of what many of you have shared with me about how you feel: fear.
We have done everything right. We’ve been sending postcards, canvassing, calling voters, and donating to candidates. And yet, here we are.
At this time, I encourage you to acknowledge and feel fear as a scientist would observing their own inner experience. Beneath the fear, you’ll notice an affect, or what I call vedana. As I introduced the concept in my book:
Every sense experience we have through our six sense organs (i.e., sight, smell, taste, touch, sound, and thoughts/emotions) has associated with it an affect, valence, or feeling tone that is called vedana in Sanskrit. This aspect of our humanity is not the collection of feelings or emotions we experience as humans, but rather the bare affect beneath each sensory experience. This bare affect falls on the spectrum of pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant, what we often label internally as good, okay, or bad feelings.
Because of these underlying vedanas, we often identify our fear with reality. But as I wrote last week, for me, FEAR is False Expectations Appearing Real. Fear is about living in the future, and this takes us away from the most important moment there is: now. It makes us lose ourselves in the coulds, woulds, and shoulds of our own minds and prevents us from acting. Mindfulness is the key to noticing, acknowledging, and accepting things as they are—and acting to create a different future, now.
Cultivating Mindfulness Post-Elections
So what can you do? You can cultivate new habits rooted in mindfulness toward your own afflictive emotions—and the vedana behind them. That might sound abstract, but here are some practices from my PRISM Toolkit for Breaking Bias:
Move from the future to the present. I have noticed that my discomfort comes from envisioning future doomsday scenarios. “What happens now? How much more suffering will continue?” In those moments, I invite you to return to the present moment. There is uncertainty in the future; we can’t deny or change that. But what we can do is notice our mind’s tendency to drift to the future and gently encourage our mind to come back to the present.
Notice what you can control right now—and do it. Self-care. Self-love. Your health. Your nutrition. Your sleep. These are all things you can control. Choose to spend your time in ways that will nourish your body, mind, and soul.
Limit your news and media intake. Set a timer when you engage with the news, including social media. I personally check my newsfeed for about 20 minutes and turn on an alarm on my phone to make sure I don’t overdo it. I encourage you to be rigid about this and notice how you feel before and after. As I discuss in Chapter 10 of Breaking Bias, an influx of negative media coverage, propaganda, and round-the-clock election updates isn’t good for anyone.
Surrender and trust. This is the hardest part of this process, and it may feel contradictory. After all, there is so much suffering, polarization, and violence in the world. However, we must recognize the extent of our control in this situation and commit to continuing the work of equity and belonging, regardless of the election outcome. In the words of Dr. King, we must trust that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. My Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian faith also teaches me that I am not in control, only God is — and my God is one that shines love and compassion. I may not be able to feel it, and I trust Her to reveal to it me when the time is right.
Incorporating these practices into your daily life might seem small, but doing this is the path to kickstart new habit creation. With whatever is to come, we will need each other to be thinking, feeling, and present beings — and practicing now is a good way to ensure you’re taking care of yourself and staying focused on the work, no matter what happens in the next few weeks.
Overcoming Polarization with Love
The years leading up to this election have been a wake-up call for every single one of us. We are living in a time that calls to mind the Weimar Republic before the Nazis took power in 1933, a historical period marked by active misinformation, divisive politics, and the dehumanization of marginalized groups. For me, we must change the hearts and minds of enough people to build a society that serves us all—a society where inclusion consciousness replaces the mind virus of exclusion consciousness. We must feel connected to each other not as Black, white, Asian, Hispanic/Latine, or Indigenous people, and not as Republicans and Democrats, but as human beings.
This work is up to all of us in our own communities, particularly among white communities and among cis men. But it’s not work that happens out there, in other places, and with other people. It’s inner work that starts with each and every one of us. We must learn to cultivate the compassion and love that can help us move beyond the dominant or privileged identities we possess. Here’s what I had to say in my book:
Just as we can strengthen love and kindness for ourselves, we can also train our minds to cultivate it for others. For any dominant and privileged identities that we have, we can cultivate compassion for those who are marginalized or subordinated on that identity’s hierarchy. This capacity to feel is what my teacher Sharon Salzberg calls the “quivering of the heart.” This capacity of our human body, heart, and mind is what inspires and empowers us to act in the name of what is fair, just, and good.
For me, as a brown Indian man, this practice allowed me to feel the pain of women and girls around the world, of black people, of indigenous people, of trans people, and many others as my own and compelled me to respond by founding my organization and doing what I can to alleviate their suffering. Modern neuroscience is catching up with what ancient wisdom traditions have preached for millennia: mercy, empathy, compassion, and loving-kindness are the keys to healing divides within us and in our families, workplaces, and communities.
We will need this work more than ever in the years to come.
Attend My Upcoming Book Events
Thursday, 11/14, 6–7 pm: Author Talk with Anu Gupta, BOSTON
If you’re in the Boston area, I’d love for you to join me at the historic Boston Athenaeum for a public book talk and discussion. Register here.
NYC Folks: Save the Date: Thursday, 12/5, 7 pm: Hueman Bookstore, details to come soon
You can also watch recordings from some of my past events! Check out my talk at the New York Insight Mediation Center, where I was joined by Leslie Booker, Guiding Teacher at New York Insight, in conversation about my book. Watch the recording.
I was also recently in conversation with the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister at Middle Church in New York, where we talked about transforming consciousness from exclusion to inclusion. Watch the recording.
Some Terms from the Breaking Bias Glossary
Vedana: one of the five attributes of the human primary identity that refers to the bare affect or feeling tone beneath every sensory experience, on the spectrum of pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant.
Mindfulness: the practice of noticing and becoming aware or conscious of what is happening in one’s experience—body, heart, and mind—in the present moment; it is the M in my PRISM Toolkit.
Resources and Reflection
My on-the-ground report in Times Square for NDTV. The day before one of the most divisive presidential races in recent U.S. history, I spoke with NDTV's Natasha Israni and geopolitical expert Jamie Metzl about the election. Watch here.
My conversation with House of Beautiful Business. Last month, I spoke with HOBB conveners Martha Schabas and Tim Leberecht about social desirability bias and confirmation bias—and how breaking bias is necessary for organizations and individuals to build a more sustainable, inclusive, and beautiful future. Watch here.
Some housekeeping…
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Anu, thank you for your brilliant work and much needed advice for how to move forward in these painful and anxiety filled times.