A breath for these tough times

Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.

Announcement on Emergency Calming Down Techniques

I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.

Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.

I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤️

Loving transitions / loving the transitions / loving in the transitions

The scary times are so scary, and how do we cope at all

This is theme zero, right? The abiding question.

And getting more relevant by the moment.

The scary times are so scary, and how do we cope at all.

Even if you have been avoiding ingesting the news (very reasonably, it’s hella stressful) and you only get occasional drips and drops of how bad things are, I think we are all aware that these are increasingly scary times, and that the level of scary itself feels exponential.

Relational, approach, connection pieces

While I do not have a cure for any of the scaries, obviously, I still want us to talk about approach, and to consider our relationship to how we approach anything.

Because how we approach one thing is related to how we approach the other things.

And also I want to talk about some 80 year olds who are on my mind, which right now feels unconnected to the first theme, but the fact that I want to talk about both means they must be connected, so let’s explore that too, and find out how.

Attention to the transitions

When I am experiencing the 3am scaries, and who among us is not, at least some of the time…

I end up bringing my attention and focus back to the practices that have been sustaining for me for my entire adult life, from my yoga practice.

I practice drawing inward, and this does not mean ignoring the troubles of the world or forgetting to care about the world.

It means strengthening the habit of being able to sort of pull in and get quiet, so that when it’s time to expand outward and be in the world, we can do it from grounded, focused strength and steadiness.

Attention to the transitions

And I practice bringing my attention to the transitions.

That is to say, the infinite transitions, the connecting pieces that take us from moment to moment, breath to breath, movement to stillness to next movement.

I practice giving my mind something to focus on, for example my breath, the sensations arising in the moment, any tiny adjustments I might be able to make towards comfort…

And I practice making that focus right-sized so it pulls me into the moment and into the experience instead of pushing me out.

More on that later? Possibly…

There is a lot I could say on all those themes but for now I just want to gently drop them into the cauldron, like ingredients.

Are they the answer to life, the universe and everything? Not necessarily. And also they are stabilizing, grounding practices for me, in the moment. You might have other grounding practices of your own.

Mainly I want to acknowledge our current reality: right now things are scary, we don’t know how or when they might get better, and it’s a bewildering time to be, and to be in.

Lovingly and patiently

Everyone seems to be mostly operating from trauma response, shit is getting weird, and it’s hard to know how to focus, or get centered.

How to stay grounded in reality when there is seemingly no consensus reality. Etc.

I am pausing and taking a breath for this question, this conundrum.

Lovingly and patiently lighting a candle for it, and for us.

Acknowledgement and legitimacy for this experience and for how unsettling it is or can be.

84

Recently I was catching up with my hiking buddy Dave, and he was showing me photos from his ten day hiking trip in Mexico.

While he was there, he met an 84-year-old woman who was traveling on her own, and solo-hiking the same trail.

She was there doing a Spanish immersion program, staying in home stays to practice Spanish outside of class, and doing Duolingo drills during the breaks. And, of course, hiking.

What a cool thing, to say yes this is the time to learn Spanish and explore a beautiful place.

I adore her and wish her well in all her grand adventures and all her small adventures, and in every moment.

And then another story like this

My posture teacher sent out a newsletter about one of her students who is currently taking a teacher training at 81 (and still teaching plank pose, like a badass).

This also made me think of the lovely woman who came to one of my retreats at 77, and her goal-wish was STRONG AND STRAIGHT AT EIGHTY-EIGHT, which I think about all the time. What a beautiful wish, what a cool project. May it be so.

I notice how sometimes I can catch myself telling a boring story about age, like how I am one year away from fifty (god willing), and oh no all the things I haven’t done and probably I will never do them.

Or is it even worth it for me to busy myself with wishes about new challenges. Sounds like monsters!

What is a better story

So I want to play with new and better stories, about how many good things are possible, and how I can surprise myself.

And also how the things I have already done are meaningful and cool and special, because I did them and I was lucky enough to have this life.

What are the better stories, the compelling stories?

The superpower of exquisitely bored by nonsense!

May I shift my focus to more compelling stories and to taking on challenges. Maybe even cozying up to these challenges, obsessions or anything else that seems fun and fulfilling to me

And may I continue to be exquisitely bored by any old story that comes into my mind to tell me it’s too late, and I’m past the right age, and I don’t get to have more learning, more joy, more adventure, more good surprises.

As we say in Hebrew (mostly to little kids), that is nonsense in tomato juice!

It rhymes in Hebrew, which is better, but still, a highly effective phrase to use when responding to monster voices in your head telling the same old boring stories…

And yes, people vary, and we want to remember this too

Obviously, we all have different lives, bodies, experiences, and so much is luck and happenstance and more luck and who even knows…

And I certainly don’t mean or want to imply that hiking a mountain is, like, the correct or ideal way to be in your 80s.

For sure I don’t want to put pressure on myself or anyone else to have to hike up a mountain ever or at all, never mind at that age, or to set up any imaginary [trophy experiences] as a way of beating ourselves up when we don’t reach them.

That too is silliness in tomato juice.

We are where we are right now, and we’re working with what we have available to us. A breath for that.

A lot of ways

I am also thinking about how my dad will be 80 this year. He gets confused walking a few feet down a hallway, and the other day when I called his caregiver on the phone and she told him I was on the line, he said I DON’T CARE very loudly. So there’s also that.

Meanwhile, his brother, my favorite uncle, will be 85 next month. He is a fierce, funny, love-fueled force of nature. You can meet him walking in the forest, pausing to hug his favorite trees.

When I call him, he laughs happily and says, “Hellooooooo, Montana!”, which is his nickname for me.

So yes. There are a lot of ways we might be at any age, if we are lucky enough to get there, and it goes how it goes.

Again, so much is unknown, and life is full of curve balls. If we get really lucky, we might pick up some good nicknames along the way.

I might make some mistakes

I have been thinking a lot lately about the art of transitions, about drawing inward, about attentiveness to these practices as a cure of sorts, or at least a medicinal calming salve for these scary times.

Taking care to take care. Taking intentional care. Slowing it down, coming back to breath and to playing with our stories.

About how doing this allows us to be make mistakes, be with the mistakes, notice the mistakes, and be really kind with ourselves about that too.

Like okay, that wasn’t how I meant to do that, and also that’s how it went this time. How am I going to play next time? What am I learning here?

Good job, babe. You’re doing amazing, sweetie.

I make mistakes, I meet myself in the moment, with some sweetness and a smile, if I can, to the extent that I can.

And there it was

I was jotting down some notes today after my morning practice, about these exact themes, and then I put on the audiobook I am listening to which is a very modern take on a noir detective mystery style story.

And the protagonist said something like, “I might make some mistakes, but at least I won’t make the same ones as before…”

Yes, okay, there it is.

I am here to pay attention, and to pay even more attention than that. And it’s not that I won’t make mistakes, because of course I will, but can I meet them with this loving attentiveness?

Loving-[anything]

I have written here before about how much I love LOVING KINDNESS as a phrase, and how effective Loving is an enhancement to a quality.

This is how I got from my wish for Clarity (which can be overwhelming, and too much) to a wish for Loving Clarity, which is clarity that delivers itself in a form that is digestible. I am able to receive the clarity because it is clear, but isn’t so harsh that I have to recover from the experience of encountering it.

Does that make sense? I hope so.

So now I am thinking about Loving Attentiveness, Loving Curiosity, Loving Practice, Loving Approach.

What percent loving and what percent witchcraft

A friend sent me this article about erosion restoration in Lordsburg, NM, and it gave me some good clues.

I laughed delightedly at the notion of a restorative process being “30 percent science, 30 percent art, and 30 percent witchcraft.”

And I guess 10 percent luck? At least. Most things are.

Anyway, maybe a lot of things go like that. What else is like that?

What else is like that?

Can we apply this combination of science, art, witchcraft and luck to things like moving through scary times and being loving and attentive with the transitions,

I made some new mistakes today and also repeated a bunch of the old ones. Can I apply some loving attentiveness to that too?

How is that for a conscious approach to the hard things. Or to anything for that matter…

Onward

So yes, I am thinking about transitions and about what makes a transition into a Loving Transition.

Loving transitions, loving the transitions, and what about loving in the transitions.

This is the approach. Attentiveness, patience, curiosity, trying things, and attuning to how I am doing in the transitions, moment to moment, breath to breath, in how I am responding to myself with ever more kindness.

Scary times call for many things (including taking a pause to bake), and right now I am working on channelling exquisite attentiveness to the transitions.

Also meeting monster stories and rewriting them. Paying so much attention, even more attention than that, and adding loving-kindness.

Can we try experimenting with that? Let’s see how it goes. Drop a note in the comments and let me know what you’re playing with right now…

May it be so, or something even better

Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.

I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.

Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.