see, hold, & express:

A guide for Managing Election Anxiety

This guide is shared from the personal experience of Kristen (they/them), our Creative Lead and Training Developer at Inclusive Insight. A queer, non-binary, autistic experience designer, Kristen specializes in crafting emotionally resonant experiences that invite people to deeply feel and understand themselves. Kristen not only helped develop the training for our See, Hold, Express framework, but they also use it personally to navigate the waves of election anxiety. Here, they share how this framework has been a source of strength and support, with insights to help you navigate your own big feelings.

the framework the guide

Kristen Witte, PhD

Creative Lead & Training Developer

Finding Ground in Turbulent Times:
my Journey Through Election Anxiety

Three nights ago, I dreamt he won. And he won so forcefully that I wasn’t even watching the results as a sea of red moved across the US on November 5th. In the dream, she conceded her loss a little past 5pm Chicago time. Polls weren’t even closed yet in the West, but his victory was so dominant, she didn’t stand a chance.

I woke up feeling scared, desperate to brush it off as just a dream, just something my mind cobbled together. As I type, I can feel the slime of anxiety flowing down my arms. Into the keys. Climbing up the screen. Burrowing into the words like a parasite. Waiting to catch the eye of another and consume them.

… So that’s a lot. It’s a pretty big feeling to have and made even bigger because I can’t actually do anything about the presidential election. He might win. And I’m just going to be in it, scared of what the next four years will look like.

But. I’m also terrified that I’m just going to be stuck with the anxiety slime. Forever.

Merely thinking about that feeling persisting feels so overwhelming that my instinct is to push it away. To tell myself it won’t be that bad. To remind myself that it will only be four years, that I can handle four years.

And with the best of intentions, I’m trying to fix my feelings when my body needs to feel.

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in the eye of the storm: election night reflections using "see, hold, express"

It wasn’t a slime. It was a wind-up. A tight, constant, Jack-in-the-box wind-up. I was vibrating. My eyes were narrowing. I stood up. I sat down. I paced. I named it - “I’m anxious. This feels and looks bad.”

And I let myself feel it. I trusted myself and my body to be in the anxiety, reminded myself with each pace, each time I named it, that I would not be stuck in a never-ending wind-up. I reminded myself that it would reach its end, that it would not overtake me.

I felt the wind-up reach its peak as they officially called North Carolina… Georgia… as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin started burning red. A final wind on the Jack-in-box. My shoulders, arms, and back tight… tighter… tighter…

‍Pop…. collapse.

I laid down, my body hollowed out. Weak. Numb. Stunned. Not by the result - it was always possible he could win - but by the decisiveness. The speed. The clarity. That, I was not prepared for.

I woke up on Wednesday, seeing the official call, and I let myself feel scared. I let the tears flow down my face. I let my body be in the sensations - the tightness in my chest, the slumping of my shoulders - and I held on to the knowing that it will not overtake me.

The tightness is just information. It’s my body telling me I’m scared.

My fear of what might happen to me, to my family, to my loved ones, to all of us, is a valid response.

Crying. Hugging my family and friends. Telling the people I love that I always love them. Making soup to share. These were the outlets to my fear. These were the expressions that brought my body back to baseline. These were the embodied acts that moved me through the fear, rather than leaving me stuck in the overwhelm.

I’m still scared. And I’m grounded in that fear. I can be in it, and know in my body that it will not overtake me.

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Emotions aren’t just states of mind. They are full body, biological responses with a beginning, middle, and end that are actually designed to process our emotional states - if our minds can let our bodies feel. Often, our minds become so scared of the emotional overwhelm, we shut down our bodies' innate ability to process an emotion. It’s in the body processing that we build emotional resilience to deeply challenging situations (like the election).

so what do we do to feel,

instead of fix?

the framework

At Inclusive Insight, we use a 3-step framework called See, Hold, Express. Let’s break each of those down.

see

When we see our emotions, we acknowledge them and give them space to be. We affirm our response and recognize our body is sharing information with us.

hold

When we hold our emotions, we affirm that our emotional response is valid, and remind ourselves that we can be in it. That it will not overtake us.

express

When we express our emotions, we activate the mind-body connection. We give an outlet to the emotional energy in our body, allowing the full wave of our emotional process to crest and bring our body and mind back to baseline.

the step-by-step guide

At Inclusive Insight, we use a 3-step framework called See, Hold, Express. Let’s break each of those down.

see

hold

Holding our emotions is about reminding ourselves that any emotional response is both valid and will not consume us. It’s using our mind to remind our body that we’re safe, that we’re going to be okay, even if it doesn’t feel like we’re going to be okay.

express

Expressing our emotions is often the most challenging part. It’s when we allow our bodies to move in the way they need to digest and release the emotional energy we feel. This might mean punching a pillow… but more often it means dancing or shaking our limbs, drawing or doing other art, journaling, going for a walk or a run, or simply crying or sobbing. It’s the expression of our emotion in whatever form it needs, that brings us back to our emotional baseline and builds our emotional resiliency.

Our current culture often puts a lot of judgment on expressing emotion, preferring instead to idealize logic and rationality. The result is that most people don’t know what kinds of expressions they need to fully metabolize their emotions. Yet, But this part is as critical to emotional processing as eating is to satisfying hunger. We can’t tell ourselves to just “not be hungry” (and if we do, there’s big impacts on our health), just like we can’t tell ourselves “just hold and ignore this big emotional energy in your body.”

conclusion

I use the See, Hold, Express framework almost every day—for big emotions, small emotions, joyous emotions, painful emotions, and emotions of every shape, size, color, and texture. For the harder emotions, using this framework doesn’t make them go away. I’m not 'cured' or 'fixed,' but I am more regulated, more confident, and more grounded. I know in my body that I can be in the anxiety slime and still find my way through it. It will not, cannot, overtake me.