Mesirow is the founder of the Elected Leaders Collective.
Being an elected official today takes an extraordinary level of courage. And it’s taking a toll on the mental health of our elected officials. A small cadre of brave people, part of a project called the Elected Leaders Collective, is supporting leaders in doing their work in a healthier way, bringing tools of mental wellbeing to the arena. Too many heart-led elected officials are dropping out when we need them to stay in and change the system. With new tools of personal inquiry, transformation and empowerment, we can make it happen.
Let me share how I found this calling. I was bright-eyed and energetic, with a keen intellect and servant’s soul. Passion oozed from my core. A voracious reader, I consumed endless books on policy, learned every theory and studied the greats. I learned in the field, volunteered for campaigns and causes, became a state delegate, and took leadership seminars. I did all the external work that was expected of me. I applied these talents by running a statewide race at just 23 years old. I was idealistic and thought I would change the world.
Then reality struck. Someone tried to sell a Senate seat: moral decay. Social media screamed at me: public hate. Entrenched interests in my own party slowed progress: nihilism. A can’t-do attitude pervaded: apathy. Ward bosses operated like mob bosses: a toxic culture. Privately I battled my own demons, as years of childhood trauma ran the programming deep in my brain. I pointed my finger at others, blaming them for the world’s failings. I numbed the pain with workaholism, food, alcohol and drugs.
The liquid of ecstatic possibility turned to cement structures that would not change.
Though I did not know it at the time, I could not hold the toxicity inside me and that in the system. I dropped out and took with me my passion, zeal and force for change. All the books had been for nothing. The light at the end of the tunnel of democracy dimmed.
For the next eight years, I worked on healing, conquering addiction, and reforming my relationship with food, alcohol, work, and sleep. I looked inward, understanding the lessons my traumas were here to teach me. Like an archeologist, I uncovered my life’s purpose and operationalized structures, boundaries and a community to support it. This was the start of my internal work, work that I knew never ends. Having been elected as a city councilperson at 32 years young, I could apply my internal and external learning to giving back to my community.
Then reality came again. Hate poured in on social media; I listened to understand. The newspaper traded in misinformation; I spoke the truth and cultivated personal advice. People confronted me at the farmer's market; I met them with kindness. Colleagues' sought incrementalism, and I trusted in our collective wisdom and supported them. Working two jobs, I experienced stress and became overwhelmed, meeting people with curiosity, cultivating mindfulness. I experienced all this, taking radical responsibility and asking, “What can I do to alleviate the condition I claim not to want?”
The cement began to liquefy and possibilities opened.
During Covid I committed my life to "healing our politics." I founded the Elected Leaders Collective. We help heart-centered leaders of all kinds find their own, personal transformation. Working with a community of over 100 elected leaders across the country we co-create safe, sacred, confidential space for mission-driven public-sector leaders.
Everyone needs a community to support them, so we built “The Pride,” our signature peer cohort group coaching program. We provide courses, workshops, coaching and small-group work to help leaders remove our internal blocks, build resilience, and get out of our own way, as I had to learn over all those years in the wilderness.
Our politics is toxic, and it need not be. We can change our collective condition by changing our individual conditions. It takes all of us. And it works.
Myriad scientific studies confirm the efficacy of mindfulness, mindset work, and other methodologies we employ. Consider Google’s Search Inside Yourself corporate wellness project, which found that applying techniques of workplace mindfulness reduced the experience of burnout by 30 percent and increased resilience and “bounce back” by 42 percent. In this same research, acts of constructive empathy rose by 39 percent, co-worker compassion grew by 22 percent and, as a result, finding “workable solutions to difficult problems” improved by 22 percent. Imagine what we could accomplish in the public trust with 22 percent more solutions to difficult problems and feeling 39 percent more empathy from our co-workers. I want to live in that world.
As a result of doing the work, elected leaders and public servants’ lives are improving.
During the great resignation, we aren't dropping out, we are dropping in. We are experiencing a decline in stress and anxiety. Our feeling of connectedness and trust is increasing. We are becoming more effective. We are healing our politics by healing ourselves. It has happened to me. My days of stress per year are down from over 300 to under 30, my anxiety is down 70 percent in two and a half years, and our community is passing transformational legislation, deferred for nearly a generation.
This is the beginning. We welcome all heart-centered leaders. We are building something new, together. Diversity of all kinds, including thought, is celebrated, and you are welcome.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.