How To (Almost) Feel Good About The Election Result

To say the last few months have been tumultuous is like saying, ‘I don’t want to get in a large bath tub full of starving bull sharks with my testicles dipped in fish guts’ – it’s fairly obvious.

And when the big day arrived the Democratic support melted faster than a polar ice cap with tens of millions of people refusing to get off their asses and cast their vote.

If you had the right to vote and you didn’t exercise that right because you didn’t like either of the two main candidates, you really shouldn’t complain.

I’m an open book.

I value free health care and free education. I may be a pinko-commie-bedwetter, but I really like the thought of an educated, healthy country.

Equally, I really don’t think a US Military that is spending more than the next nine countries combined (including Russia, China and the UK) needs rebuilding. It’s kind of already built unless you have plans to invade Uranus.

I got fed up of the constant stream of bullshit pouring from the 45th President’s mouth without any need for decency, honesty or humility, but so what?

I couldn’t vote, and even if I could have, he won Florida by such a margin that he wasn’t going to be impacted by the voice or vote of an angry dude with pasty skin and a strange accent.

Yes he lost the popular vote and he got less than one-third of eligible Americans voting for him, but them’s the breaks

It’s done now, so no whining (and yes I am aiming that at myself too!).

Life goes on and there’s always a positive side to focus on, if that is, you’re prepared to look for it.

I got a great e-mail from a Life Coach attending the current Coach the Life Coach training.

She was distraught at the result and wanted help reframing it, not just from me, but also the people on the course.

The cool thing about reframing is that it is scientifically proven to rewire our brain in a good way.

You can lower your stress levels and increase your happiness all without spending any money or leaving the comfort of your own head.

It never means changing the event, that would be delusional, merely the way you view it.

There was nothing I could have said to myself that could have changed the fact that Trump won the election.

As such, it was incumbent on me to change how I was looking at things if I was to stop feeling so down and despondent.

I have to admit I had been a very naughty Life Coach and hadn’t thought of reframing things prior to then, so I immediately took up the challenge and came up with ten reframes in ten minutes or so.

  • At least unlike Brexit it’s not permanent and you guys can throw him out in four years if he acts like a tool
  • We know the system isn’t rigged
  • Kate Brown, the first member of the LGBTQ community was elected Governor in Oregon
  • It may wake up the center and left in France to the very real possibility of Nationalist nut-job Marie Le Pen taking power in May
  • Pot heads are happy. Well at least the ones who can remember what happened
  • It’s exposed the fact that this country still contains millions of racists. You cannot deal with a problem if you cannot see it
  • The Republicans didn’t get to 60 seats in the Senate giving them the power to push through any bill they wanted
  • North Carolina said ‘no’ to anti-transgender discrimination and voted in Roy Cooper
  • The election is over
  • I can go back to the UK and you can all come with me if you like?

Others on the course added their reframes too and all of a sudden I din’t feel so bad.

If you’re struggling to come to terms with the election result, take the time out to think of one killer reframe that can blunt your disappointment. Then please do me a favor and share it in the comments so we can all benefit.