Anxiety around Politics, Bad News, and the Election – W/ Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC

Emma – Studio Mic: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. I am excited to be here. I honestly avoid this topic a little bit. I think a lot of us do and it’s like a painful big bull. I don’t know. It’s just a little bit overwhelming trying to figure out what to do with the news, but I brought along a fellow therapist, my good friend, Lindsy Cabrera, and she is a licensed mental health counselor.

She is amazing and she specializes in Latino mental health. She loves neurodivergence, ADHD, autism. She parents kids with some neurodiversity and her heart is in community mental health. But one of the real reasons I brought Lindsy here is because ah, when I’m around Lindsy, I feel like the world’s not such a terrible place.

She’s my comfort animal. So my comfort spirit animal. So anyway, I’m so glad you’re here, Lindsy. Thanks for coming.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: I’m happy to be here too. Can’t wait.

Emma – Studio Mic: Awesome. Let’s see. Today we’re going to be talking about politics. [00:01:00] No, we’re not talking about politics at all actually. We are not going to be talking about what to do about this candidate or that candidate.

We’re not going to be telling you who to vote for. We’re not even going to talk about specific news stories. We actually Are going to focus on the process. So in therapy, we call this process versus content. Content is like, oh, what did he say? What did she say? What did he say? What did she say? And the process is oh, how do we foster the process of living the life we want to live. How do we build systems into our life to manage emotions? How do we build systems in our life to manage our circumstances in our situation? So that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. So welcome everyone. I’m glad you’re all here. And I guess we’ll jump in.

So my first thought is is this it’s coming on fall, which is like beautiful. We also have a lot of news going on. It’s an election season in the United States. And we’ve got this [00:02:00] fall season is so interesting. Fall moving into winter. It’s oh, it’s getting darker. You’re going to be spending a lot of time with family, whether that’s a good thing or not a good thing.

We have an election coming up. There’s some intense news stories. We’re all going to be like surrounded by like winter and people and elections. I think we all need some help managing this. I would like to, I’m going to pop up, I’m going to pop up this question for the audience and I want to just hear from the audience a little bit.

Like how has the news affected your mental health? How are you guys out there managing? Lindsy, what are you noticing? What are you seeing in, in people as far as their, how they’re managing with all this stuff?

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Yeah in my clinical work, I’m seeing kind of two camps. I’m seeing a lot of people that are feeling like they’re just too inundated, too connected, too overly stimulated by all the news stories or the newsreels.

And then I have a similar camp where people have been there, [00:03:00] but because of that, they’re like, I am not consuming any news. Because it’s better for my mental health. I hope that today, in what we talk about, we can maybe help you find some balance where you don’t have to live under a rock, but you also don’t have to have a news IV in your arm.

Kind of finding somewhere in between, where you can stay informed, feel like you know what’s going on, but it doesn’t overtake your life or your mental space up here.

Emma – Studio Mic: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like I’ve been there like I would say eight years ago I was very involved in politics and I was like commenting on Facebook and reading all the things and listening to the news from multiple sources.

And then 2016, like for me, shifted a lot of things where it’s oh, this isn’t it be, I think it has become harder to have like discourse. conversations.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Yes.

Emma – Studio Mic: I think it’s become harder to a little, I would say at least in the last 20 years, I would say in the last eight [00:04:00] years, it’s been harder to have peaceful discourse with members of my family, members of my community, members of my church the internet than it was in the past.

And yeah, Alicia asked, how do I stay informed without becoming overwhelmed? I hear you. I hear you. Okay. So here’s my first thought on this. My first thought on this is I’m going to take this banner down so I don’t get distracted by it. Let’s talk about how our brains work. So for the previous, like thousands of years, prior to a hundred years ago, if we were to get news, someone had to bring it to us, or we had to access that news at the speed of walking or at a horse.

I guess a hundred years ago, there were some trains, perhaps some steam powered boats maybe, but prior to that news arrived at the speed of walking. So if we heard some bad news, it would be like, oh my gosh the neighbor just ran over here and says a tree fell on his house. And there are, [00:05:00] like, his possessions are inside and getting crushed or something.

And in that moment, we would have a stress response. It’d be really normal to have a stress response. Your body’s going to get activated. Your heart rate’s going to go up. You’re going to feel worried. You’re going to have thoughts of oh my gosh, are his kids okay? And then you’re going to think, what can I do to help?

And if this news arrived to you at walking speed, there’s a decent possibility or running speed, there’s a decent possibility that you could take some action so that stress response is really helpful. It activates your body to run next door and help him get his dog out of the house or help him save his house or help him protect what can be protected.

So that stress response led to an immediate physiological response in our bodies that led to taking action in a practical helpful way. Okay. Now we get news about the entire world, as much news as we could ever consume in an entire day. You could watch news all day every day, never read at all, and we’re separated from that action ability.

So the way our brain works is, [00:06:00] whether we’re in danger or not, if we perceive danger, if we think about something dangerous, or if we believe we’re threatened, so let’s say like a politician makes a comment about your community or about your demographic, then that feels like a threat. And whether that’s a real threat or not, which it may be it will activate that stress response in your body.

And the hard thing is there’s no like house to go help, right? Like it’s hard to take physical action to reduce that stress response. So a lot of us end up drowning in the stress without actionability. And anxiety is actually really helpful natural response in our bodies. But usually only if it allows us to take some action.

So I think one of the reasons news can be so anxiety inducing is because it’s hard to take action on it. Do you have any, do you have any thoughts on this Lins?

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Yeah. Even just thinking about, I think it was Alicia that had the question about like, how do I do this without becoming [00:07:00] overwhelmed.

Some advice or some things that I talk about with clients is, find news sources that feel credible, that feel valuable to you, that the tone of the reporting fits your, I’m going to say your arousal level. So if it’s a, if it’s a, let’s say a reporting style, that’s very like sensational and dramatic.

If you’re an anxious person, that type of style might put you on high alert. And so maybe you need someone that’s a little more. muted or less, dramatic or more matter of factual in their delivery of the news. So sometimes it’s a tone issue, right? There’s certain channels or certain reporters, certain media outlets where I just like the tone.

So I think one that can help. I think another thing to think about is that you don’t have to be seeking out all the sources possible to get all the information that you need, [00:08:00] because I think that’s the rabbit hole that we can get in, right? Okay, so I hear this one breaking story, let’s say, or, there was an important political event that was televised and or broadcasted or streamed in some way, right?

And so then we’re reacting to something on the larger scale, right? It might be a national, especially in this election season, something national. And we have these questions about I want to be informed. I want to know what’s going on, but if I’m looking at this from too many sources or for too long, I get overwhelmed.

So that’s when I say find it again, back to the tone, the reporting style that feels comfortable to you. Also, sometimes, I’ve told many an anxious client, go to the party, but set a time limit. If you’re done, if you’re a natural introvert and after a half hour, you’re looking for somewhere to crawl up with a blanket, make that your time limit after 30 minutes leave the party. You made your appearance. You supported your friend’s birthday, whatever, and you [00:09:00] left when you felt comfortable. So I think sometimes that might be something, maybe you’re watching a debate. Maybe you can’t handle the multiple hour event. Maybe watch a half hour of it or watch an hour of it.

Emma – Studio Mic: A summary the next day.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Yeah, read the summary the next day. Some people do really well with reading news stories versus seeing it live.

Emma – Studio Mic: Those are some, that’s some good advice. And I like that. I like your approach because it takes into account a neurodiverse approach as well, which is like the sensory aspect of news matters.

So there are news channels like when you watch video of something with loud, excited commentary, that’s going to have a much stronger emotional impact than reading it in a newspaper. No one gets newspapers anymore. Some people do. I wish I still got the newspaper, but reading it in a story is going to be a little bit less intense.

I like that. I like that approach and that way to think about it. And there are charts out there. If you’ve seen the media spread [00:10:00] charts that show like where, yeah, where media outlets lie on the political spectrum, left to right, and accuracy, like how often they’re sharing information that’s accurate, how often they’re sharing information that is not based on facts.

And so considering one of those charts can be helpful as you consider your news sources. One of the other things I like to tell people is like okay, we have to understand how news media works. They make money based on running ads. They make more money depending on the more views they get.

And news media, most news media wants more views to make more money. They’re gonna be more likely to share stories that get more views. Now, the thing about this is that our brain has a natural default to err on the side of looking at things that are scary. So if you are looking at resources and looking at dangers, your brain is going to ignore resources, good things that are going on in your life when there’s something dangerous, [00:11:00] and this makes sense, like our ancient ancestors, maybe they’re out in a field gathering watermelon and there happens to be a saber-toothed tiger there, which one are you going to pay more attention to? If you only pay attention to the watermelon, there’s a hundred watermelon, a hundred good things in your field, and one dangerous thing in your field, you’re going to pay attention to the more dangerous thing.

That’s our brain’s default approach to keeping us alive, but it doesn’t necessarily keep us happy. So you have to know that the news companies that are for profit, they’re generally going to run more stories that point out what’s wrong instead of point out what’s going right. And the algorithms on social media are going to favor the podcasters or the hosts or the stories that are more extreme and more dramatic than the stories that are more nuanced or careful or thoughtful or boring, right? So like we’re talking like PBS News versus Info Wars, and I’m not referring to left versus right here. I’m not talking about political parties. I’m just saying [00:12:00] news reporting style. PBS News is much more nuanced, but much more boring. And so your brain is not going to pay as much attention to that as oh my gosh didn’t you know all these people hate you? Oh, I better look at that one. Okay.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: It makes me laugh, Emma, because I had a, I had a civics, a government teacher in eighth grade that was obsessed with C SPAN.

Emma – Studio Mic: Okay. Yeah. That’s a great example.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: And that is about, I think most of us would be like, cool, I can fall asleep to that. That would be cool.

Emma – Studio Mic: ASMR sleep.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Yeah. So it just makes me laugh because, even then, and we’re talking, this is like nineties here, guys. The tone was one where it was like, I feel so informed and also just so zen about what’s going on in politics and in lawmaking right now.

So obviously we don’t really have that option for most things, but it’s just funny because I think we have a natural tendency to seek out sources or seek out, [00:13:00] avenues of informing ourselves that really do match our personality or temperament. I think that is helpful to us. And yeah, maybe sometimes we do want to be informed about the more sensational things and just, okay what is that all about? I don’t know yet. That’s still valuable, right? And we can still manage that if we have a, like an inclination to, to look into those things and learn, why not?

Emma – Studio Mic: Yeah. And for some people, like their jobs require them to be very informed, like a legislator or a lawyer or people who are actively engaged in their community whatever their things they’re working on.

And for some of us, for many of us, I think It’s important that we’re just intentional about how we’re using news media, how we’re using this, like, how much time we’re spending with news media. So if you look at anxiety is not actually dangerous. Stress is not actually dangerous. Chronic anxiety and chronic stress can be harmful. And so it’s like when we want to be informed, but we also see that it makes us anxious, okay, let’s just [00:14:00] be intentional about when we consume news, how long we consume news, what sources we consume. And the thing I would say, like for many people who experience anxiety around the news is turn off your notifications.

Put yourself let yourself choose when you look at the news instead of letting the news choose you. And I was a bad example of this yesterday. I was hopping in the shower and I was like, I’m just gonna check the news real quick. And there was a story there that made my head pop a little bit.

And I was like, ahhh! And I was like that when I was getting in the shower and I was really upset about something that had happened a world away. I was like, man, that was not intentional. It would have been a lot better if I’d chosen like three o’clock in the afternoon, I’m going to check my three news sources, and then I’m going to go back to doing what I was doing.

I think for a lot of people’s anxiety, I would say, you don’t need to look at the news first thing in the morning. You don’t need to look at the news throughout the day. It’s like the worry. It’s like scheduled worry. It’s okay, I’m going to choose one time per day that I’m going to look at this.

And then the rest of my day, I’m going to go back [00:15:00] to paying attention to the other things that are important.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: I love that suggestion, Emma. I love to I’m noticing this question here from Marie saying that, how do I balance information and the need for facts all while managing my emotions and my sense of peace, right?

I think, like you were saying, structuring when and how we’re consuming I’m gonna say all news, not just election or politic news, but just world event news. Who isn’t really guilty of the doom scroll, right? And you’re into one news story and then it’s you’re into another one, and then you’re down this rabbit hole, and before you know it, an hour has gone by, and your anxiety’s through the roof.

I think, in response to Marie’s question, I think you, you actually already answered your question, in your question, by saying, how do I balance? Look for a [00:16:00] balanced approach to how you are consuming. Your sources with whether that means I only scroll through during my lunch break at work, or I only, I set a time limit in 20 minutes I’ll look at stuff and then I stop, put my phone down and go do a different activity, or I have my three sources that I check daily. And once those three sources are up, I’m good. I know that sounds a little regimented maybe, but I think if your goal is to balance being informed with maintaining a balance with your mental health, we all need to set certain limits.

And not just with hard news, I think just all of us, we can be consuming so much media on our phones, not even upsetting media, that it just detracts from other places where we want to spend our time as well.

Emma – Studio Mic: Yeah, I think so. I think so, Lindsy. [00:17:00] And Here’s the question I ask myself sometimes.

What if we only consumed as much news as we could act on? What if we only consumed as much news as we were able to take practical action on? So I would take in some neighborhood news on my neighborhood Facebook page. I would take in some city and community State news and be like, okay, here’s a little, I can act on a little bit of this and I’ve taken just enough national and world news that I could actually know what kind of actions I wanted to take because if you do look at the stress cycle, it’s okay, you see a danger.

Your body reduces the fight flight freeze response. If you face that threat and you take action on it, your body releases the parasympathetic response. You’re like, okay, I took action. Whether it worked, whether I succeeded or not, regardless, I took the action I needed to take, then your body relaxes.

And I think it’s this feeling of helplessness that leads us like so many people to feeling like really trapped and continuing to look at the scary stuff, but not take action. And that leads to this chronic stress response where [00:18:00] then a lot of us just want to put our heads in the sand.

And I have been guilty of this just okay, nevermind. I’m never reading the news again. I’m never going to look at politics again. I’m never talking about politics again.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Yeah. And I love that idea of finding something actionable, because especially related to wanting to be informed.

There are a lot of key issues that come up in an election season, right? If you have one or two specific topics or issues that you feel very strongly about, maybe that’s a good place to say, all right, let me research my local and national candidates, right? In this one or two areas that feel most important to me. And then you start to feel informed about things that feel important to you. And then maybe that’s also a way where you can do something actionable in your scope of influence. So I’ll give an example. We live in Massachusetts. Pretty, [00:19:00] education-focused state to live in. But, I was noticing that there was a lot of commotion around book bans in state legislature.

And I thought to myself, oh my goodness, books have been one of my favorite things since I was a little kid. What am I going to do? I put a little library in our front yard. And I try to have a very diverse array of books in there. Is that something that’s, going to change the scope of an election for someone?

No, of course not. But is it one way that I can feel like I’m supporting my community and literacy and being informed and enjoying just reading to enjoy it, that’s one small thing I can do. That could extend to, that’s my example, but of course there are so many other areas where if a certain issue or a certain cause, even if we’re thinking of kind of global news if something feels really important to you, choose one small thing that you could do to alleviate or, support, help [00:20:00] a marginalized group, a, cause that feels important to you.

There are so many ways that we can at least put the drop in the bucket of making something a little better for someone else.

Emma – Studio Mic: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it’s easy to think it’s just a drop in the bucket. What does it matter? What does it matter? And I just have to go back to Margaret Mead, right?

She said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” And if you ask people like, how many of you are concerned about climate change? Maybe some people aren’t, but many people are. And it’s are you also trying to limit consumption and recycling. Let’s just start there. And it’s okay if the, whatever percentage of people who were concerned about this just took small actions, it would add up, it would add up to millions and millions of people taking tiny actions, if you worry about like your community or the kids in your community, okay, what can you do to support those kids?

Can you volunteer at the school or be a big brother, big sister? Can you call your legislator. I’ve [00:21:00] actually found surprising success in contacting my local legislators and just being like, hey, here’s my thoughts on this. For example, the other a while ago, there was a, I don’t even want to talk about the school shooting and my local congressman who is a good guy and he’s actually from my city.

I think he’s a good person. He sent out an email and the top line was like, oh, we know that mental health is the reason behind school shootings. And I was like excuse me. I have a few studies to show you about the, where gun violence impacts most people and school shootings are horrific. I hate them, but it’s actually much more likely to be a suicide or domestic violence situation is where people die from guns.

And I just was like, hey, let me just let me just show you like what the evidence is saying about the impact of guns. And he like was like, oh, that’s helpful. Thank you. And it’s like something that like, I live in a very red state is something he could at least consider. And I was like, cool, thank you.

So I think [00:22:00] whatever your stance on the issues, it’s like talking to people who are like in a position, that’s an action you can take, you can reach out to your congressperson or your representative wherever you are. Oh, I hope that wasn’t too political. Oh man, I have to bite my tongue sometimes because all of us have opinions and we all have things to say and it’s like how do I choose action that’s going to be really helpful and not action that’s inflammatory. So that’s what I constantly kind of battle.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: I have a thought on that too, Emma, because we’ve been long time friends. And I think one of the things to consider is, and this is actually I think an important point probably for the audience of, we all have, hopefully, relationships with family members, co workers, colleagues, community members, where there’s some pretty wide differences in our leanings politically, right? [00:23:00] And I’ve had conversations with friends about this, where it’s oh yeah I know this is how you lean, and this is how I lean, and it’s wildly different. And one of the things that I found Is helpful is to focus on our relationships with people versus, what a certain political party or leaning would have to say about our loved one or friend that believes different from us politically. And I think that there’s, we’ve lost the ability, and I’ve noticed this a lot in just individual therapy with a lot of clients post pandemic, we’ve lost the ability to agree to disagree in a respectful and civil way. Just like mind blowing to me because as a therapist, I’m like, 90 percent of my clients are like, I hate confrontation, or I don’t know how to manage conflict. And that’s sometimes [00:24:00] why the big reason we’re in counseling, right? And so part of that is understanding isn’t there something to be said of I care about you.

This is my point of view. You care about me. This is my point of view. Let’s talk about where we can find similarities and things that we value versus just trying to convince one another that the other person is right or you’re right. You’re right more than the other person. Yeah,

Emma – Studio Mic: Yeah, I think I’m right so I’m the one trying to convince everyone else that I’m the right one. But I think we all can work to be a little bit more humble.

And I think, this is a chance. This is a chance to build some skills. I’m going to pop up a comment that someone asked that’s similar along these lines, but I think this is an opportunity for us to practice building skills where we can be good listeners, where we can be open to considering that we might be wrong.

I might be wrong. What? That we can be willing to set [00:25:00] boundaries in an assertive, a firm and kind way. And okay, what if we just think of politics as oh, this is a chance to practice assertiveness skills. Nick Wignall, he’s an author. I read a lot. He’s a psychologist author who I read a lot.

He has been talking a ton about assertiveness as a treatment for depression and I was like cool whatever and then I read the book he recommended and I was like it totally helped me like fix one of my relationships and I was like, this isn’t news to anyone, but assertiveness is the skill.

So there’s passivity where if someone comes up to you like, here’s what I think about this candidate. And you’re like, okay, whatever. I don’t want to talk about it. There’s aggression. Here’s what I think about this candidate. You’re stupid. Here’s what I think about this candidate. That’s aggression, fighting back, putting someone else down.

The goal is competition and getting your own way. And passivity is about conflict avoidance. And then there’s passive aggression. These are the four communication styles. Passive aggression is where you’re like where you’re like, oh, I’m going to act like everything’s fine. And then I’m going to get really I’m going to go gossip about you behind your back or undermine you in some way.

And then the fourth category, which is [00:26:00] the healthiest for relationships and individually is assertiveness, which is where we respect other people’s points of view and we express ourselves and our own wants and needs in a firm and kind way. And it’s ooh. Maybe that’s how I start thinking about politics.

Okay, here’s a chance to practice.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Emma, I’m scrolling through some of the comments and yes, this will be posted later if individuals can’t join the live question. A few others had that question.

Emma – Studio Mic: Great. I’m glad you brought that up. Yup. This will be on the channel and the live streams don’t show up that it’s actually harder to see live streams later, but if you go to my channel and you go to content and you click on live, that’s where you can find it.

You can see my videos that have been live, yeah. Lindsay, how do you think, what do you think are some of the distortions that come? Like how does the news and politics distort how we see other people?

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Ooh, this is a good question. I like that question. Okay. So a few things I think in [00:27:00] therapy in general, if you’ve ever worked with a counselor, we talk about a lot about cognitive distortions or errors. . Some really quick examples of that are black or white thinking, catastrophizing, negating the positive. So there’s I, the way I like to think about it is anything that you could think that’s extreme in your mind is probably a thinking error or a cognitive distortion.

Yeah. So one of the things that. I love to see in popular media, not really sarcastic guys, is that they are appealing to all of these cognitive distortions, . You love your country if you vote for this party. You hate your country if you don’t vote for this party and I want to make a, there was someone, oh gosh, let’s see.

There was a comment earlier where someone had said something like, I just hate the news because I feel like we’re being manipulated. I’ll try to find the [00:28:00] commenter that said that, but I think one of the, you are very right. I think you’re on target commenter. And so I think that anything that could be distorted is distorted, and then obviously it distorts our perception of other people, because we’re like, oh, if you believe this, I’m going to put you in this category of, and fill in all the name calling ideas that you can think of rather than seeing this as a person that maybe believes this for a certain reason, has a story that’s impacted by this one issue that’s being brought to light.

And so it can be a little complicated to tease out, you’re trying to pit me against someone and change my perception of my neighbor because I know this one thing about them. And I think that’s dangerous, quite honestly, because it, again, I always go back to, and this is something I go back to all the time think about how certain things impact your relationships.

If you no longer wave to the neighbor [00:29:00] because they have a sign for a political candidate, then you don’t particularly enjoy what is that about? If you had never seen that sign, would you have stopped saying waving to them when they’re pulling out of their driveway? Probably not.

And so I think part of it is this dangerous, slippery slope of, I’m going to make assumptions about you because I know this one thing about you.

Emma – Studio Mic: Yeah. And I was listening to an episode of the Hidden Brain podcast, which is an excellent.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Oh, so good.

Emma – Studio Mic: Yeah. And the guy was saying If when they did this big study and it showed that in general people believe that people of the other party are the ones who are more likely to be manipulated by the news, more manipulated by social.

So like Republicans think liberals are all or Democrats are all, manipulated by the news, misinformed and following bad traditions and vice versa, right? Democrats think that Republicans are all being manipulated by the news, misinformed and less likely to be careful in their consideration of what they’re voting for.[00:30:00]

And the reality is I think this is one of the most common cognitive distortions that political candidates use to manipulate people is othering. It’s putting people in a category of other. These people aren’t like you. These people are bad. These people are like, we are the good ones and if you’re one of the good ones you will be on our team.

And they’ll use terms to describe these groups, whether they use terms like communist or idiots or farmers or they’ll use terms like immigrants to make these groups of people or racial terms to make these groups of people as being bad or good. And always trying to imply that if you’re the good one, you’re going to be on our team and both sides all like most sets.

I won’t say this is limited to any one group of people. There are some candidates who use much stronger rhetoric like this. What you want to look out for is labeling groups of people as others. And usually [00:31:00] this is an unfair characteristic because when we group people into these big groups, it’s easy to hate them.

But when you get to know these people up close, when you get to know people of a different party, of a different religion, of a different race, of a different, completely different socioeconomic status. When you get to know them up close, they’re actually, it’s much easier to love them. And that’s that.

You might think you don’t do this, but do you hate billionaires? Not you Lindsay. Of course you don’t hate billionaires. I sometimes think I hate billionaires. But yeah is there a group of people who you’re like, oh, it’s easy to hate these people. Do you know them? Have you talked to them?

Have you had them over to dinner? Have you listened to their story? Because when we get to know people up close, it’s actually much easier to feel understanding and compassion for them instead of animosity, I would say.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Yeah, and I’m seeing in the comments too, a lot of people have mentioned it’s stressful to talk to the same friends, relatives, acquaintances that just repeat the same talking points without listening to one another.

And so I love your [00:32:00] suggestion, Emma, of if you really struggle with a certain group of people or certain, just a way that someone has a difference from you, how much time are you spending really? And I’m going to say like actively listening to that person’s point of view, or how often are creating situations where you might not be in a majority group for whatever reason that might be right and how that could look for you, think of even I have a relative that’s in the truck driving industry, which is very male dominated. And it’s been interesting to hear their perspective when they deliberately reach out to, women in the field and kind of ask them what their experience is like. And, it’s just about taking the time to communicate with someone that’s not exactly like you, like that is not hard guys.

We all can do that. We may choose not to, but we can. And I think one of the things is that if you, I’m going to bring up boundaries since we therapists [00:33:00] love boundaries. For all the friends here, viewing and commenting friends or family members are just repeating the same things that stresses me out.

I think it’s helpful to set a boundary Hey, it seems like we’ve had this conversation several times, I’m respectful to listen to it, but honestly it stresses me out. When we talk, can we focus on other things besides politics? Or I very much understand your point of view.

I agree or disagree, but I’d rather our conversations and interactions be focused on other things. Our friendship is not based on just this one topic. That can just dispel a little of that on slot. If every time you talk to this person, they’re mentioning that same talking point or a few talking points, that just gets redundant too.

Like it’s hard to stay engaged in a friendship or a relationship where that’s what’s mentioned every single time.

Emma – Studio Mic: Yeah. And I like that example of like how to be firm and kind. So you’re setting a boundary saying, oh, we can, let’s talk about politics for five minutes and then let’s change the subject.

I’ll listen to you for five minutes, [00:34:00] but can we talk about something else? Because I’d rather go play pickleball. I’d rather talk about our kids. I’d rather go for a walk. I’d rather weed the garden. Let’s do something else together. That’s like more going to be more supportive and building. Oh, you love Trump and I love Kamala or vice versa.

I love Kamala and you love Trump. What if we go volunteer at the food bank together? What if we actually help someone in our community? What if we go read to kids at the school? What if we both go to a debate and we both share our opposing views and then we go and have coffee after whatever, right?

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Let’s go pick up litter on the town beach.

Emma – Studio Mic: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Thar would be glamorous

Emma – Studio Mic: Because I think we all have this sounds so cliche but like when you get to know people up close you have more in common with them than you have that’s not in common with them.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: And going back to hating billionaires, no, haha, I don’t, that’s not really the comment I want to make, but I want to say that I think, Emma and I have both done clinical work for long enough to know that I have had clients on [00:35:00] every extremity of every social issue, political issue, and I can honestly say that the fact that they’re sitting in front of me and wanting to engage and asking for help, and obviously they’re because there’s some kind of change they want in their life, bridges like that gap in a very significant way.

Like it might be like, wow, I did not see that coming with your strong feelings about this one issue, but man, I’m glad you’re here. And there’s work that you feel that can be done in therapy and that you feel like it’s valuable to carve out the time and your resources to participate in therapy.

And so I think that’s something to remember, guys, Someone’s making an effort and you are too to meet together for whatever reason, a conversation, a coffee break, a lunch break at work volunteering at a similar community event. The there’s something that brought both of you mutually to put your time and resources and effort into something.

So maybe start [00:36:00] there.

Emma – Studio Mic: Yep. And I think if we want to be mentally and emotionally healthy, we have to be willing to tolerate a little bit of discomfort. in order to connect. That’s an essential part of relationships. Like we have to be able to accept that being with other people is not always going to be comfortable or agreeable, but we can make space for that.

And I think we make space for that by allowing for nuance. We don’t say, oh, this one topic, if this person disagrees with me on this issue, then we can never talk or we can never be friends. It’s oh we can disagree about this. And I’ll also notice the other things that we have in common. It involves like not othering people, not labeling people as others and grouping people into these categories.

And it involves just trying to be as nuanced as possible on these conversations. Like all or nothing thinking is bad for your mental health and it’s bad for your political health and it’s bad for like our communities. It just simply is. [00:37:00] So I think that’s the intersection of mental health and politics for me is can we be nuanced?

Can we be assertive? Can we be respectful? And can we actually challenge our brain’s like automatic default assumptions?

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Yeah. And I think another thing is it’s super helpful. to recognize our discomfort when we consume or see something that feels conflict that creates conflict internal conflict for us so if i read something that i don’t agree with or that i think is terrible right like i’m going to have a reaction about that like Emma spoke about that earlier in the life but what do we do with that internal conflict and how do we manage it and if we can manage our own emotions around oh initially that took me back and then okay let me just take a moment to be a critical thinker like read it through think it through, we can apply that same thing to live [00:38:00] conversations we have with other human beings like our first reaction is not always our true reaction or our best reaction. So part of it is how do I critically think through?

Sort of what is what I’m experiencing, whether it’s an internal individual experience or shared experience with others, and then see how you can make sense of that and manage your own emotions while also engaging in a meaningful way with another person. And that means you both might need to self regulate, not necessarily co regulate because you might not be helping each other do it, but you might be in parallel ways, both self regulating how you’re feeling in an interaction and then hopefully bringing again, a respectful civil discourse to the joint conversation or interaction.

Emma – Studio Mic: Yeah. And, I think I keep going back to this idea of like helplessness, this idea of the news makes me feel helpless. I’m gonna pop a comment up here and it’s a little bit, it’s gonna be a little bit of a controversial comment, but I want to use it. This is YouTube, [00:39:00] so if you’re commenting, these are public, guys.

Here we go. So Captain FOMO says, “It’s sad that I have to be a closeted Trump supporter and I have had friends cut me out of their lives over it. So now I only make friends with other conservatives because of how judgmental liberals are.” I’m just going to highlight the end of this where it says, how judgmental liberals are.

This is an example, and I know this goes from both directions. I know people on the left do this, I know people on the right do this, but this is an example of putting people into a group and deciding that they are a certain way because they are, and that justifies my behaviors of doing a certain behavior because these people are as a group, inherently doing something wrong.

A nd I know how easy it is to fail. to feel this way, whether you feel this way towards people on the left, people on the right, people in Africa, wherever. And it’s if we want to make the system better, we have to [00:40:00] be the change we want to see in the world. We have to be the change we want to see in the world.

So if liberals are being judgmental, Don’t judge them back. We can’t cast out darkness with darkness. This is what Martin Luther King said, right? We can’t we can’t make the world a less judgmental place by judging people. We have to choose to respond one better, like in a more high quality way than what we see as the lumps of people around us. And it’s possible. Of course, some people are judgmental. Let’s be more nuanced. Some liberals are judgmental, and some liberals aren’t. Some conservatives are judgmental, and some conservatives aren’t. That’s a much more nuanced and less all or nothing thinking way of thinking about people.

So use more nuanced language. Don’t lump people into groups. And work on yourselves. Now if a liberal is all these Trumpians are awful, I would be saying the same thing to someone who is saying that about all [00:41:00] these people who support Trump. Let’s not lump them into groups.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Yeah and I love that Captain FOMO started with his comment or his comment with it’s sad that I have to be a closeted and I’m going to leave out a closeted anything supporter, right? Like we are talking about a political climate right now, but, what if you are a vanilla lover in a sea of chocolate lovers, or whatever I think this is what becomes problematic that you have, you feel that there isn’t safety in expressing your real opinions.

And I think that’s the real disservice that we’re doing to one another kind of society wise that we feel that we can’t trust ourselves to have respectful disagreement, right? And so no one should have to be a closeted anything. R ight? But if we don’t feel that there’s emotional or even like true physical safety and sharing what we really think and feel about certain issues, opinions, then of [00:42:00] course we have to say, yeah, I’m a closeted, I’m a closeted Swiftie, or, I don’t know, pop culture, right?

And so part of that is just, fear based, instead of being like, we can manage conflict, we’re all adults, we can figure this out. So yeah, I think that it’s, You are speaking to, I think a bigger concern that we all have to manage and figure out.

Emma – Studio Mic: Yeah. And I think it’s hard. There’s been times where I have these knee jerk reactions to the news or comments or things people say that I’m like, but if I just slow myself down, I generally have a more reasoned response. So that’s another thing.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: I know. One of the commenters, Mommy C Star, she had said being a critical thinker is brilliant. Love first think then speak. Oh, there you go. You found it. Oh yeah. Emma’s a little more savvy with these lives than the first time I’ve done this.

Emma – Studio Mic: [00:43:00] Five total ever. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: You know what you’re doing. I think this is a great idea because when we have an opportunity to, like Emma said, fight that knee jerk reaction. Just give your brain a hot second to be like, what do I really think about this? Or am I just reacting to the first thing I’m seeing or thinking?

And I will say that generally those thinking errors, those cognitive distortions that we talked about earlier, that the news kind of, sensationalizes the goal is to get an immediate intense reaction.

Emma – Studio Mic: That’s right. Yep. You get more views, more clicks, more likes, more minutes watched if you’re intense and frightening.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Yeah. And so I have those moments where if I fight that urge, I’m like, ha, damn the man. I’m not falling for this, guys. So I think sometimes that’s part of it too, recognizing that we can be [00:44:00] wise consumers of, media.

Emma – Studio Mic: Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. I want to wrap this up. And I want to just highlight, okay, our brain has a natural default to notice the negative and it makes it feel like the whole world is ending.

But is the world actually worse than it was a hundred years ago? Is the world actually worse than it was 200 years ago? Maybe some in some areas, maybe. And maybe in other ways, not. So let’s talk for a minute. What is how’s the world better than it was a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago? Any thoughts on this?

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Do we have a lifetime to talk about this? I think realistically, Emma and I have actually had this conversation a lot because we both have anxious kids, spoiler alert. And like the world has never been more secure, more safe, more connected. However, I’m going to. like l lean in to what I mentioned just a minute or two ago where it’s we [00:45:00] literally just lost my train of thought.

I’m so

sorry guys

Emma – Studio Mic: The world Okay, so it people feel more anxiety about the world than ever and the world actually is safer than it ever has been. Like there’s less kidnappings. There’s less murders. There’s less wars. Global income has actually Increased. Global poverty has decreased. There’s penicillin Freaking antibiotics and vaccines save millions of lives every year.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: I remember my thought.

Emma – Studio Mic: Go ahead.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Related to this, again, the perception, it’s a perception issue, right? Is the world better? Hands down, we could give a lot of evidence of how the world is better than it ever has been, right? But there’s this perception of a lack of safety because we lean in a lot to our anxiety. And also, so does popular media and, so I think part of it, again, is, make that list of what are the things I’m grateful for that create [00:46:00] relative ease and comfort in my life. And when you can look at all those things, you’re whoa, okay, maybe it’s not as bad as I thought it might be.

Emma – Studio Mic: I think it’s so easy. Our natural default is to notice the negative. That’s how our brain is wired and we have to manually turn on the let’s notice what’s going okay right now. Karen says, “Women can vote.”. Heck yes! How long have we had that right? Under a hundred years? I don’t even know. When did women get the right to vote?

Early 1900s.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Early 1900s.

Emma – Studio Mic: Yeah. Yeah. So for like basically the previous thousands of years, women could not, women couldn’t vote. Kids do have access to antibiotics. That’s amazing. We’ve got better, better medical advances than ever. I often worry about the wars that are going on.

My heart breaks for what’s. what’s happening to civilians everywhere, but there, there are, there is actually less war and violence worldwide than there has been on average in the course of history. War used to be a much more frequent, common problem. [00:47:00] worldwide.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: And I love that you mentioned that one specifically too Emma, because a lot of us are in a position to do something actionable with that.

I’m so worried about wars globally. How can I get connected with a local organization that supports refugees or supports relocation or, although it feels like a drop in the bucket, again, to use that analogy again, I think often if we can just. get a little bit outside of our heads and more out into what can I do to alleviate a struggle for someone else or to support causes that I’m passionate about.

Like we have some great work we can do. And I venture to say that if we’re out there doing some of that work, it helps our anxiety because at least we feel like in a small way we’re controlling a small part of how that’s a challenge for someone.

Emma – Studio Mic: I think, yep, as long as we, yep, and if we just focus on what [00:48:00] we can change. So I guess this would be my closing thought is do the locus of control activity. Take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle. What can I change? What can’t I change? And you can make a long list of all the things you can’t change.

Make whatever length of list of the things you can’t change and circle one or two of them and just take action because that’s all we can do. If we allow ourselves to really focus on the things we can’t change, we’re gonna feel anxious and helpless. That’s how we’ll feel.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Yep. Great closing thought. I echo that.

Emma – Studio Mic: Cool. Thank you so much for being here, Lindsy. Any other last thoughts, any other

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: No, this was fun. Thanks for your patience. This is all new to me, but yeah. Emma and I can literally chat all day every day about such a variety of things. So I’m grateful that we have an audience that can see how our brains work kinda on the spot.

And I guess I will say to one other [00:49:00] thing. Here’s my plug always. Even when there are more short term stressors like an election coming up in a few months, a couple months, actually Short term really focused therapy is not a bad choice. I know sometimes it can take a long time to get in somewhere, but honestly, one, it could be a focus of your existing individual therapy if you’re already in it, but if this is something that you’re like, this is causing enough disruption or, stress in my life that I want to approach it, ask for some short term therapy to have a space where you can share all your opinions and you don’t have to be a closeted anything and can, get some professional support on how to set boundaries on how to, maximize your ability to stay informed, but still keep your peace.

That’s what we’re here for among many other things.

Emma – Studio Mic: Yep. Therapy is awesome, man. I wish everyone could get therapy from Lindsey. That’d be great.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: I would love that. Just kidding. That would be weird, but yeah, I [00:50:00] understand.

Emma – Studio Mic: Thank you all for being here. Difficult topic. But I hope y’all have gotten one or two things you can try that might make things a little bit better for you. So thank you all so much for being here. Thanks for watching and take care.

Lindsy Cabrera, LMHC: Yep, take care.

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