A dedicated space focused on care, safety, and resilience in political life, offering guidance on self-care, digital security, risk prevention, and emotional strength in high-pressure political environments.
Build your tribe, connect your people, and learn to navigate chaos
Eva Sander
There is no question that we are living in uncertain times. Maintaining a constructive and positive tone in our statements, positions, and stories – even when they are connected to traumatic situations, contexts, or experiences – helps encourage others to amplify and replicate them.
In this kind of scenario, learning how to live with uncertainty and fear becomes an invaluable skill. It allows us to build resilience and sustain healthy, stable leadership over time.
If you need a boost of encouragement, Naomi Klein offers a powerful explanation of how shock events can open the door to change.
And Margaret Heffernan shares what we need to develop in order to face an unpredictable world.
Build Your Tribe
“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.”
Seth Godin
Carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders will eventually burn you out. Driving social change is a collective effort. Building your personal brand increases your visibility while protecting your reputation and authority, making the transition into leadership the next natural step.
Contrary to what many believe, data analysis shows that working with small, highly interconnected groups is far more effective than trying to appeal to large, undifferentiated masses.
That’s why we recommend working with the concept of a tribe, rather than relying solely on traditional audience segmentation (usually based on age, gender, profession, etc.). But what is a tribe? A tribe is a group of people who are interconnected, have a visible leader, and share a clear and common set of values and ideas.
Renowned marketing consultant Seth Godin puts it simply:
A crowd is a tribe without a leader.
A crowd is a tribe without communication.
Based on these premises, it’s essential that you maintain high visibility and enable multi-directional communication channels with each tribe you want to engage and lead.
Learn more about tribe dynamics in these videos: Seth Godin: The Tribes We Lead
Connect Your People in the Cloud
Having access to tools that make it easier to build communication systems, and connect your tribes doesn’t have to be expensive. Here are four platforms that can be extremely useful for grassroots organizing and campaign communications:
Using its webinar mode, Zoom allows you to collect participant data through registration, run live polls, and control who appears on screen. It also enables live streaming to Facebook or YouTube, helping you expand your reach.
StreamYard allows you to broadcast simultaneously across multiple social media platforms—your own or those of partners (with their permission, of course).
Canva helps you expand your content creation team without losing control over branding and messaging. The Pro version allows you to build a brand kit, share templates, and automatically generate content formats optimized for multiple social media platforms from a single piece of content.
Google Drive is probably the best place to save and organize all your campaign’s documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Make sure you give the proper access to the right people.
5 Self-Care tips for the electoral campaign journey
One of the most important ways to practise self-care during a campaign is by building a circle of trust.
For everyone, but especially for women, running an electoral campaign is a process that demands self-care, courage, determination – and, above all, mental balance. The pace is intense and the journey is tough because, beyond the fact that politics is already more hostile to women than to men, women candidates also face family pressure, prejudice, invisibility, and much more. Unfortunately, the list is long.
There are countless challenges that can make any candidate feel overwhelmed, or even lose their ground, at some point during the campaign, right?So, what now? How can you navigate this process in a way that’s less traumatic and more compassionate with yourself?
Trust the process and hold our hand, you’re not alone.
We’ve put together five self-care tips for the campaign period, based on insights from psychologist Bruna Perillo. She’s the mother of two women and three cats, graduated from Newton Paiva University, specialised in Gestalt therapy, and is also a co-founder of the School of Empathy.
TIP #1 Strengthen Your Support Networks
This tip might sound obvious, but it’s crucial: you won’t get through this alone. Strengthen your support networks and build circles of trust. That way, you’ll have people to lean on during moments of stress and anxiety, and you’ll also reduce conflict and burnout.
This applies to your family and, especially, to your campaign team. After all, they’re the people you’ll be spending most of your time with during these intense weeks on the trail.
One of Bruna’s recommendations is to introduce check-in and check-out exercises with your team. What does that mean? Setting aside time (before starting the day) to talk about how everyone is starting the day, feeling, their expectations, and their needs at that specific moment. At the end of the day, repeat the exercise to reflect on how people are ending the day, feeling and what the day’s main challenges were.
“Check-in and check-out exercises help build trust, recognise shared purposes and values, and improve productivity. Identifying and creating strategies for rest is essential to the success of any work that demands intense physical and mental effort.”
Bruna Perillo, psychologist
Building this team (even if it’s a small one) should be intentional. Surround yourself with people who align with your values and whom you also feel aligned with. That makes it easier to open up, build trust, and fully commit to the campaign without fear.
TIP #2 Focus on the Present to Manage Anxiety and Expectations
Your own expectations, and other people’s expectations of you, are major anxiety triggers. But what is anxiety, exactly? According to Bruna, it’s a temporal distortion: suffering either over something in the past that you can no longer change, or something in the future that hasn’t happened yet. We’ve all been there.
So how do you deal with it? The healthiest approach is to reconnect with the present moment, focusing on your values and on the actions that are actually possible right now. You know that saying, “What can’t be fixed, must be accepted”? Lean into that.
Here are a few of Bruna’s practical tips, little gems to keep close when anxiety hits:
Writing exercises can be a powerful form of emotional release. Take a piece of paper and, without judging yourself, write down everything that’s bothering you. Try to identify what’s grounded in reality and what’s rooted in imagination or projection. This helps clarify what you can act on and reduces anxiety about what’s beyond your control.
Practise conscious breathing exercises (even for just one minute, simply paying attention to your breath).
Have psychological support or at least one person who listens to you genuinely and without judgement. Everyone needs a safe space to express fears, struggles, and doubts – especially during a campaign.
TIP #3 Manage Stress
Stress is part of campaigning, that’s a fact. A candidate often juggles two or three work shifts a day, and that pace can exhaust both body and mind.
Learning how to manage stress is essential if you want to make it to the end of this long process in good shape. The core advice here is simple: be kind to yourself. Bruna suggests a few small but powerful habits to help reduce and manage stress:
Maintain a regular routine for meals and hydration.
Don’t neglect your sleep. Seriously, it’s sacred.
Keep notes or reminders that support your workflow and help you recognise how productive and meaningful your day has been.
Take short breaks whenever possible: listen to music, read a few pages, pause to breathe or reflect, anything that helps you recharge.
Whenever you can, keep the answer to this question written somewhere visible: What motivates you to be on this journey? Staying connected to your purpose fuels creativity and strengthens your ability to face challenges head-on.
TIP #4 Bring Your Family Into the Process
It’s very common for candidates to grow distant from family and friends during election periods due to the intense workload, especially when those people aren’t directly involved in the campaign.
That’s why recognising and nurturing your support network is so important. Ask yourself: who are the people supporting me on this journey? According to Bruna, this network is what sustains us and helps us understand that it’s possible to maintain meaningful relationships, even with less time and physical distance.
Every relationship is a two-way street. Use whatever free time you have (however limited) for a call, a message, or a video chat, fully present with the person you want to stay connected to, even in the eye of the storm. But watch out not to be so hard on yourself, this should not be a point of pressure, but of release.
If you feel guilty, for example, about overburdening your partner with daily tasks or not being as present as you’d like for your children, one way to assess whether that guilt is valid is to truly listen – to yourself and to them.
“Reflect on whether you’re acting in ways that conflict with your values and purpose, or whether you’re being overly self-critical, comparing yourself to others, or trying to meet external expectations. Once you recognise this, you can create new strategies that are more aligned with who you are.”
Bruna Perillo, psychologist
Regardless of how involved your family and friends are, they need to feel part of the process. We also offer a great video class with Thais Ferreira on how to involve family (especially children) in the campaign journey.
TIP #5 Get Your Personal Finances in Order
Money can be a major source of stress, and you don’t need extra headaches during a campaign. Keeping your personal finances organised is also a form of self-care. Setting realistic goals for a healthier relationship with money is part of taking care of yourself, believe it.
Understanding and addressing your financial situation can help you avoid overspending during the campaign, taking on debt you can’t afford, or draining your personal savings.
We hope these tips help you recognise the importance of prioritising self-care, and of being kind to your team, your family, and, most importantly, yourself. We don’t want campaigns to end in trauma, but to be meaningful learning experiences that strengthen you for the long run.
If you or someone in your network becomes a target of any kind of digital attack or threat, we recommend the following steps:
Document and Log Incidents
Once you’re operating in this environment, it’s essential to document what happens and not let incidents go unrecorded. This helps build a body of evidence in case the violence continues, whether from the same source or multiple ones.
Documentation means observing what happened and creating a record by collecting all relevant information about the incident or attack, allowing you to fully understand what occurred, even long after the fact.
Why is documentation so important?
Keeping thorough records is critical for protecting both the organization and the individuals affected. Documentation helps identify aggressors and attack patterns, supports prevention efforts, and allows incidents to be stored alongside their context, so informed decisions can be made.
We recommend documenting and recording:
Attacks
Incidents: anything unusual happening to your accounts or devices, as well as in the offline or physical sphere.
How to Document
Create an incident log
Develop a simple incident log or tracking document. You can find an example here(if you want to use the Excel template, make a copy and save it to your drive so you can adapt it to your needs).
Organise the storage of supporting evidence, such as:
Screenshots of unauthorised logins showing the date, device, and IP address.
Screenshots of harmful messages where the profile image and date are visible.
Screenshots of the social media profiles used to harass someone, including the profile photo.
Think carefully about the safest way to keep this document updated and securely shared among team members. It’s also strongly recommended to create backups.
Offer Your Support
In many cases, the attacks don’t happen to us directly, but to colleagues, allies, or other women close to us. It’s essential to be prepared and know how to respond assertively and with care. We recommend the following support practices:
If you’re close to the person being attacked, offer immediate assistance. Keep in mind that they may feel overwhelmed and unsure about what kind of help they need. Stay calm, practise active listening, and be patient. Avoid adding pressure or stress.
In cases of doxxing (when sensitive, detailed, and extensive personal information is maliciously published online) you can offer a safe place to stay (such as your home) if the person doesn’t feel secure.
You can also offer to moderate their Twitter account or blog comments to give them a break from managing the harassment.
Another way to help is by researching national and local laws and platform policies related to online and offline harassment, and turning that knowledge into concrete actions. You can visit the acoso.online project, which provides legal tools and information related to digital violence, including the non-consensual sharing of intimate images and videos.
Make Yourself Heard. If you don’t know the person being attacked well, you can still raise your voice on social media, call out what’s happening, and speak publicly about this kind of abusive behaviour.
Organise Collectively. If you want to have a greater impact, consider organising a collective response, which is far more effective than individual actions alone. Bring together friends and trusted contacts to coordinate a Twitter storm, for example. This shows the person under attack that they are not alone, and that such attacks are unacceptable.
Write a Statement of Solidarity. If you’re part of a social organisation or network, you can draft a public statement clearly rejecting gender-based violence and online harassment. It’s good practice to have people with expertise in social justice, gender, and feminism review the statement.
If the person under attack is part of your organisation, make sure they review the statement before it’s published. You can also prepare a response protocol in advance, outlining clear steps to follow if someone is attacked online. This helps prevent further harm and enables a more effective, coordinated response when incidents occur.
Engage with the Media. Depending on the nature and context of the situation, you may consider speaking to the media and highlighting the sexist nature of online attacks. Always consult with the person being targeted before engaging with journalists.
If you don’t know them personally, you can try reaching out through your “web of trust,” using shared connections and trusted online networks. Be mindful of the additional stress and harm that media exposure can cause if someone is made visible in mainstream outlets without their consent.
Recommended Reading
Digital Security: Why and How to Record and Document Incidents, by Indi (2018).
Women also inhabit digital spaces, such as social media, on a daily basis. Given the constant digital violence and online attacks that take place in these environments, platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter/X have been making efforts to strengthen their privacy and security policies, as well as to provide resources and tools to help create safer spaces that promote autonomy and privacy through user control and user experience features. Let’s take a look.
Use a pseudonym if you don’t want to be easily identified.
Be aware that you can change your username at any time on the platform.
If you have accounts on other social media platforms,use different usernames and contact information to reduce the risk of someone linking your accounts and gathering more information about you.
Use of Photos
On both platforms, your profile photo and header image remain public even if your account is protected.
Choose photos that don’t easily identify you, and change them at any time in your profile settings.
Keep in mind that using the same photo across platforms makes it easier for others to identify you. Reverse image searches can reveal information about you that isn’t visible on Twitter.
Use different photos for different platforms to prevent cross-linking.
Update photo-tagging settings so that only people you follow can tag you—or disable tagging altogether.
Location Privacy
Make sure the feature that allows your account to share location data is turned off.
Consider removing location information from all social media and apps, if applicable, through your privacy settings by selecting “Remove location information”.
Be aware that the content of a tweet itself can reveal your location, regardless of your privacy settings.
Post Privacy
Update your privacy settings to protect your social media and to control who can follow you by approving follow requests.
Keep in mind that third-party applications with access to your account may be able to see protected tweets.
On Instagram, set your account to private.
Communication Privacy
Use direct messaging to communicate privately with others.
Configure your settings to receive messages only from people you follow and who follow you back.
Note that people added to an existing direct message group won’t be able to see the conversation history from before they joined.
Login Verification
This is an additional layer of security recommended before allowing access to your account.
You can enable this feature by providing a phone number to receive login verification requests.
Once activated, in addition to entering a password, you’ll receive a notification to approve the login attempt, preventing hacks.
Notification Settings
Configure email notification settings and choose whether you want to receive emails about activity on your account or prefer not to.
These emails may include changes to account settings, password updates, and new login alerts.
We’ve developed a model that allows us, in an intentional and in an organised way, to build strategies and resistance mechanisms that help us:
Identify our adversaries (in order to)
Understand the threats (and then)
(Re)assess our vulnerabilities (so we can)
Identify our resources and assets (and thus)
Strengthen our capacities
Risk Assessment
Risk = Threat × Vulnerability / Capacities
Threats are multiple and external to us. Vulnerability is also an external condition that makes us susceptible (both individually and organisationally) to attacks. Vulnerability increases as a result of socio-economic, cultural, and political inequalities. This is why women and marginalised groups are significantly more exposed to violence and risk.
Strengthening our capacities ensures better readiness and more effective responses to the risks we may face.
“We must be able to create our own mechanisms and support networks, losing our fear of power structures, connecting those submarine cables to our cultural cables, outsmarting planned obsolescence, rebuilding computers and our environments, hacking society to extinguish inequality and violence: inhabiting the internet with our languages, beliefs, knowledge, culture, and lives, so that any of us can appear, move, and exist freely and safely.”
Self-Assessment
In this section, we ask ourselves which everyday practices may be putting our digital security and our Digital Rights at risk. The core questions are: How do we define our online risks? What risk factors are we exposed to, and how can we identify them?
Through a series of self-reflection questions, we can recognise unsafe practices:
Are our passwords alphanumeric (do they include a combination of letters and numbers)? Or do we use passwords like “1234,” our pet’s name, or our birthday?
Can we identify secure websites? Do we know what an HTTPS certificate is?
Do we send our passwords through insecure messaging apps like WhatsApp?
Do we store passwords on a piece of paper on our desk or at home?
Do we open unsolicited links or attachments, or ones whose origin we don’t know?
Do we believe the “Nigerian prince” asking for our bank details via an unknown email?
Do we know what password managers are?
Do we leave our devices unattended in public spaces?
What is resilience? What can I do to become a resilient person?
by Maru Marquez and Alan Best
Over the past few years, the word resilience has been everywhere; psychology, physics, economics, and, of course, politics. If we want to be successful, we must be resilient. Yes, a powerful mantra.
But what is resilience? What is it not? And, most importantly, what can you do to become a resilient person?
If this topic interests you, welcome. We hope this guide is useful as you navigate your challenges as a woman in politics.
What Is Resilience?
It may not be the most exciting starting point, but let’s begin by understanding the core meaning of the word resilience.
The Royal Spanish Academy defines resilience as:
the “capacity of a living being to adapt in the face of a disruptive agent or an adverse state or situation”;
the “capacity of a material, mechanism, or system to recover its original state once the disturbance it was subjected to has ceased.”
Other definitions of resilience include the “ability to apply creative resources, make decisions, and take effective action,” and “the ability to “overcome obstacles and emerge stronger from the experience.”
From an etymological perspective, resilience comes from the Latin resilire, meaning to bounce back or to start again. In simple terms, resilience is about our ability to transform a challenge into a positive outcome, learning from and capitalising on the experience.
What resilience is Not?
Resilience is often mistakenly confused with two other concepts:
Resilience is not resistance.
“Look at her resilience; I’m impressed by her ability to withstand political attacks.”
Resistance and resilience are not the same. Resistance can be useful (and sometimes necessary) to face obstacles. But if we only resist without generating real change, we may remain stuck indefinitely in an unacceptable situation, such as ongoing sexual harassment.
Resilience is not emotional suppression.
“Look at her resilience; despite all the difficulties, she remains stoic and unshaken.”
Resilience has nothing to do with hiding or denying emotions. It’s independent of how we display (or conceal) our feelings.
So let’s bounce back: resilience is about transforming a negative situation into a positive outcome. It’s not enough to simply resist or adapt; there must be a positive shift, a return to a healthier or stronger state.
This requires six key elements:
Discipline
Skills and competencies
Values and principles
Responsibility
Purpose, mission, and goals
Support network
The Myth of Sisyphus
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus angered the gods with his extraordinary intelligence, managing to cheat death (twice). As punishment, he was condemned to push a massive boulder up a mountain, only to watch it roll back down into the valley, from where he had to retrieve it and start again, forever.
Not exactly a dream life. However, Albert Camus suggested that perhaps we all live some version of Sisyphus’s life.
What matters here is that the link between Sisyphus and resilience is not his endless patience or ability to endure suffering. It lies in his capacity to reach the solution, the ideal state, the summit, excellence, again and again.
If you’re interested, you can watchthis video on Sisyphus and Camus.
Five Characteristics of a Resilient Person
Now let’s move past theory and ancient myths and get practical. What defines a resilient person? At least these five traits:
1. Sense of Control
Resilient people tend to believe that their actions influence outcomes. While some factors are beyond our control (such as natural disasters) a resilient person prioritises agency and focuses on how their choices shape their future.
2. Problem-Solving Skills
When a crisis strikes, resilient people look for solutions. They observe the problem without getting trapped in it, understand its dynamics, and envision a successful resolution.
3. Survivor Mindset
In moments of crisis, resilient people often activate what psychologists call a survivor mindset. They avoid seeing themselves as victims and instead believe that a solution exists, and that they can find and move toward it.
4. Emotional Regulation
Resilient people are able to regulate their emotions effectively. While we’ll explore emotional management in a later module, it’s important to note that resilience is not denying emotions, on the contrary, it involves recognising, accepting, and working with emotions in order to face challenges more effectively.
5. Self-Compassion
Resilient people are compassionate with themselves. They know when to rest, how to care for themselves, and how to forgive themselves when outcomes don’t meet expectations. Resilience prepares them to face future challenges with greater strength.
How Can I Access My Resilience?
Some people seem naturally resilient, but resilience can also be learned, practiced and strengthened. Here are five practical strategies to help you access and build your resilience:
01
Find Your Purpose
We’ll explore this in depth in a later module, but Sisyphus’s life is only absurd without purpose. In moments of crisis, ask yourself: Why am I doing what I’m doing?
02
Trust Your Skills
Self-esteem and self-confidence play a crucial role in recovery from difficult events. When negative thoughts arise, remind yourself of past successes. First, recall specific achievements. Then identify the skills you used, remember you still have them.
03
Build Your Support Network
Sharing emotions, receiving encouragement, and getting constructive feedback can be the starting point for solutions. A broad and diverse network multiplies your resources to face both political and personal crises. Meet new people, engage with genuine interest, and stay connected.
04
Embrace Change
Both good and bad events are temporary. Resilient people see every challenge as an opportunity to grow, learn, or move in a new direction. Humans naturally seek stability, so embracing change requires conscious effort and ongoing practice. Try changing something in your life at least once a month, your routine, your look, or a new activity, to strengthen your tolerance for uncertainty.
05
Take Action
Don’t overthink to the point of paralysis. Observe and analyse, but most importantly, act.
Final Advice
While resilience is essential for success and well-being in politics, it’s equally important to know when to ask for help. We all go through difficult moments – and like Sisyphus, we will face them again.
There will be times when we can’t see the light or access our inner strength. Remember: you are not alone. There is always someone (a family member, a friend, or a professional) willing to help.
You are responsible for your own life, and asking for help is a responsible act.
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