Meditate & Masturbate

Hot tips for troubled times

During the 2016 and 2020 US presidential election cycles I could not eat enough chocolate bars to pacify the intense anxiety I felt. I love chocolate but I’d often go through two bars in 20 minutes watching the presidential debates, never mind the stomach ache that followed. And then…. Repeat. I was literally eating my feelings.

This kind of behavior is called filling a void. When we mindlessly use [insert your escapism of choice here whether it be sex, food, drugs, alcohol, etc]  to fill a void we are avoiding feeling hard emotions. My chocolate bars were an “instant gratification” fix that substituted something enjoyable for something I really didn’t want to feel (distress over the state of America.)

Unfortunately, filling a void through instant gratification with things we actually savor to the point of excess is habit forming. After awhile we become numb to them, or need more dopamine hits. Hard truth, it’s not easy to sit in a “bad” feeling without wanting to distract yourself. And sometimes you just need to.

Here we are again, in the aftermath of another divisive election in the US, and the collective anxiety, fear, rage and sadness, (not just in the States but globally) seems to be turned up about 1000%. The race was tight, tempers are high and I’d be willing to bet that weed and wine sales are sky high, too.

Half the country (including myself) is in a state of distress. The reality is sinking in that we are a nation with very different ideas of what America should look like. I am bracing myself for a difficult transition period and the next four years. 2016-2020 was rough as fuck, personally and professionally as the CEO of a sexual health education company. Our site was hacked more than once, I received a constant barrage of hate emails/DMs and comments and grew tired of defending myself to the trolls.

I don’t want to go back to that constant state of fight or flight, even though I know there will be plenty of fights ahead I will need to get behind. How can I participate in what is sure to be another challenging period without losing my damn sanity?

Many of you may be feeling the same. So where does that leave us? In a limbo state of anxiety, depression and fear? Escaping extensional (and potentially very real) dread via mind numbing, mind altering methods? Filling the void and feeling out of control of the fate of our country?

This past week I found myself reaching (more than once) for the chocolate bars while doom scrolling. To be clear, I am not trying to revert to stress eating through the winter. It’s high surf season and I’m back in training mode after months off my board. Which means spending a lot of time in a wetsuit that won’t fit with a muffin top.

So I am reminding myself here, by sharing with you, my top healthy practices for remaining in a neutral state in the midst of chaos. These habits, which are 100% free, allow me to retain some degree of control over what I can—namely my own mental health.

One habit started years before the other but each remain core mental health practices. I can thank an Academy Award nominated filmmaker for teaching me to do both. Meditate and masturbate, that is. Here’s how it went down….