Living our Yoga and the 2024 Election Cycle

Two days after I got back from a yoga retreat in Sweden, I went to vote early. Given that our election cycle is abnormally long compared to the rest of the developed world, I had spent many months contemplating who I was willing to give my vote to and if I even wanted to show-up to vote. But, as someone who has voted in every election since I was 19, I just couldn’t stomach the thought of not voting (no judgment if you made this choice).

Once I got into the voting booth, I voted for a third party candidate for the first time in a general election. 

Let me explain why. Back in 2016 and 2020, I was a Bernie Bro, and while I was profoundly disappointed that he did not run third party or independently after the 2020 primary, heaven help me, I will always love that man. Why? Because his run showed me and millions of others that it was possible to ask for more. It was possible to ask for universal health care. It was possible to ask for free public college. It was possible to ask for everything other developed countries have that makes their quality of life so appealing. 

Once I knew that it was possible to ask for the whole meal, I couldn’t go back to asking for crumbs. 

In October of last year, I watched in disgust as Israel began to prosecute a genocide against the Palestinian people. Hospitals, schools, refugee camps have all been bombed with funding that comes from US tax dollars. And, I have been disgusted to know that at any time, the sitting president could end this horror with a single phone call. Yet, he will not.

When Kamala Harris became the nominee, I thought that there was a chance that she might come out forcefully against what was happening in Palestine. But, everytime she was given an opening for distancing herself from the president, she demure and not in the cutesy way (see what I did there). Everytime protesters went to one of her rally’s to beg her to come out against the genocide, she brandished them with her patented “I’m speaking,” line, and I knew that I could not vote her.

I could not put my name next to someone who is a part of funding this genocide.

I could not put my name next to someone who cannot and will not do an arms embargo.

I cannot put my name next to someone who won’t state the truth.

And while I understand the impetus to vote as an act of harm reduction, that’s not something I can do anymore. The harm that I see everyday being inflicted against the Palestinian people is beyond what I can imagine. I don’t see the blue side as being any less harmful than the red side anymore.

The Titanic is sinking and we’re all just jockeying over who gets to captain this sinking ship.

Waking up the day after the election to the news that Trump won a second term, I did not feel shocked in the way that I did when he won his first term in 2016. However, I did feel shocked to see my friends’ reactions on social media: voter blaming, shaming, and despair. And, while I can empathize with their sadness over a second Trump administration, I urge everyone to resist the urge to call 20-30% of the country irredeemably racist, homophobic, and xenophobic. 

In fact, yoga has a lot to say about this. Yoga calls us to imagine or cultivate the opposite. In the Yoga Sutras, this is called pratipaksha bhavana. In Yoga Sutra 2.33, Patanjali compels us to cultivate or imagine the opposite when our thoughts become disturbed or negative. This has direct implications to where we are at now as a collective. When faced with a person or people who have opposite views as us, can we have the presence of mind to hold their humanity and toimagine things from their point of view instead of having the knee jerk reaction that they’re irredeemable, and we’re right? 

Yoga also asks us to use our viveka, discernment. This requires that we use our critical thinking skills, which are vital in the wake of this election. In this moment, critical thinking skills require that we think about all of the ways that the Democratic party failed voters and not the other way around. Critical thinking skills in this moment ask that we look at the missteps of Kamal Harris as well as the current administration that she is a part of. Using our discernment, means that we move beyond knee jerk reactions in order to see the whole picture.

In yoga sutra 1.33, Patanjali offers yoga practitioners four keys or tools for life. The first is to develop friendliness towards those who are happy. The second is to cultivate compassion towards those who are struggling, and the third is to admire those who are doing good works in the world. Finally, the fourth key is to develop discernment or detached observation towards those who are in opposition to our values. This fourth key asks that instead of taking the view that they are the sinners, and we the saved, that we instead develop a sense of equanimity—detached indifference and through this detachment perhaps we can become curious, beginning to take on this group’s perspective.

Further, Tantra asks us to recognize that each person is enlivened by a spark of God, a piece of Ma hidden in our hearts. This same spark that enlivens me also enlivens you, your friends and neighbors, and maybe most critically, those who think differently than you do. This does not mean that we need to see all political beliefs as good or valid. It doesn't mean that we don't have preferences.It does mean that we honor our shared humanity by listening with curiosity and thinking critically before issuing blame.

2024 has brought so much unrest: devastating weather events, the genocide in Gaza, and now, this election. Falling into reactivity is normal and understandable, but yoga and tantra ask us to sit in the discomfort until we can be changed by it. Yoga and tantra ask us to hold and honor the shared humanity of all. This is living tapas. This is honoring sovereignty. This is living our yoga.

Written by Mandy Henderly