Welcome to the Infinitely Precious podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

Hello, beloved. How are you today? And I really do mean, how are you today? I wish I could be in person with each of you who might watch this later, live at noon or later on in the week or years to come because I really want to know how you are. Not just the standard fine answer, the true answer from the core of your being.

I will tell you that I talk to a lot of people who are concerned, maybe even anxious about the election that's happening today in the United States. Concerned that it will turn out one way or the other, concerned about votes being disenfranchised. And intriguingly enough, one side thinks their votes won't count and the other side worries that there will be discounted, in a historical fashion. The way that perhaps their boats have always been discounted. And in the end, don't have any easy answers in the midst of your concern, in the midst of, in the midst of your anxiety about this election.

I am in many ways just like you, except that I'm my own person and you're your own person. But I I have biases. I have thoughts. I have hopes for this election that, may or may not be realized. And I know that no matter who wins, I will still have work to do on the far side.

Work of healing, work of listening, work of, struggling. Admittedly, because of my own egoic biases, I am fairly certain that in one instance of winning, I will have a lot harder work to do. But for this moment for this moment, I want you to stop. I want you to stop where you are. I want you to determine and feel where you are feeling most anxious because it manifests in your body where you're feeling most concerned.

Perhaps it's a tightening of your belly. Perhaps you've noticed that your shoulders are, very, very tight because that is where your concern, your anxiety, your frustration is resting. Maybe you feel it in your heart as you're concerned for people that you love maybe being disenfranchised by this particular election. Maybe you're concerned about the violence that seems to be, forecast around this election. A greater police presence in various polling precincts because there is an anticipated kind of anti election bias that seems to be spinning.

All those things dwell in our bodies. We they it's not the feelings manifest themselves in you. They're made real. These bodies of ours are part of the way we sense the world. And, when they get uptight, when we get concerned, they manifest themselves and become part of our body's memory.

So maybe you can practice, being gentle with yourself today. Have you done what you can do about this particular event? If you are a registered voter, have you voted? Have you made your voice heard? Because if you have, you have probably done what you can do at this point.

Most people are pretty dug in at this point. No matter whether or not you give them permission to vote one way or another, they're probably already going to vote whatever way they're going to vote, if they're going to vote. It matters that you do what you can. And then once you've done what you can, what is yours to do, you have to let it go. This past weekend as I listened, at a conference I was away at, one of the, the last things that, Francis of Assisi said to the friars, as you know, before he died, his last charge to them.

He said to them about himself, I have done what is mine to do. Now you must do what is yours to do. And so have you done what is yours to do? Have you voted? And now what is yours to do is to let it go.

You can sit anxiously watching the polls all day long. I am told that some final vote counts won't, be, complete for days, and there will be challenges, hopefully, not violent this time around. Hopefully, we'll find a way through to accept whatever happens and to let it go. But if you have done what you can do, I don't know that it's to your benefit to sit and watch all of the punditry and all of the talking heads telling us what it looks like is going to happen. Because what all what it looks like is gonna happen and what happens is not always the same thing.

So borrowing pain, uncertainty, suffering from the future doesn't do any of us any good. I so want to speak peace into this time, and yet it's hard to find peace when you wonder if your voice will really be heard. And even if your voice really is heard, if it will matter. If it will be enough to matter to the things that matter to you. Same is true for me.

Will the things that matter to me be heard? All I can do is what's mine to do. Not gonna borrow from someone else. I don't have to listen, you know, to the shouting and to the ugliness that may or may not transpire thereafter. And, no matter what comes of this election, I will continue to do the work that is mine to do, to try to be the loving person that I am, to try to be kind to those, and to advocate for those who are disenfranchised oftentimes by our system, who are left out, whose voices aren't heard.

Those are the folks that I will try to be present for, try to listen for, try to to to hear their concerns. So I don't know that I've given you any easy answers. There aren't any. Catch your breath. Check-in with yourself today.

Find out if you're getting tense in your body, if you can feel it in the way you ball up your fist, if you can feel it in the way that your heart is beating very, very hard and fast, you might be find yourself, breathing very quickly, sort of hyperventilating. You can take that moment when you catch yourself in those, places to slow down your breath. To slow down that fear response, that might be rising inside of you that invites you to fight, to run away, to be present where you are. It is perhaps hardest in times of uncertainty to be present where you are, to realize you're not the only one who's very concerned about today, but others are. But remember to to listen to listen and let go of what you can.

Do what you can, what is yours to do, and then let go. Let go. Not saying it's easy, but I am saying it's worth the effort, the practice of pushing forward. No matter what, please remember that you're infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift that you are. And the gift that you are is a a wondrous gift regardless of, regardless of anything people might use to label you.

You matter. You matter. Your words, your thoughts, your feelings, who you are matters. In the vast scheme of thing you really do, you matter. So I hope for you that you will find some peace and some grounding in today in the midst of, and up in the days ahead.

Whatever uncertainty lurks with you, come back to listening to your body, listening to your heart, slowing down for a moment, giving yourself space to adapt and work within the things that are going on in this world. But you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved. You are a gift. You're unrepeatable in all the universe. Be that gift today as kind to one another as you can be.