hello friends,
Happy Sunday! If you’ve been working along with me this month on honing somatic skills, I hope you’ve had some moments of clarity and equanimity. I hope you’ve discovered that even the worst sensation will pass. I hope that you’ve found practices that work for you when you need to heal and when you need to process. And, more that anything else, I hope you sense in your bones that we all can be more skillful at managing our own energy state: when we meet ourselves with gentleness, we can be with it all.
And managing our energy is a pretty good skill to cultivate right about now.
I’m not going to suggest that a month of paying attention is the end of the road. This is a lifelong practice. If you’re interested in continuing, I highly recommend Deeper Mindfulness: The New Way to Rediscover Calm in a Chaotic World by Mark G. Williams and Danny Penman. Last year, I had the opportunity to take an in-depth course in equanimity with Mark Lau, PhD, who himself trained with the authors. It was transformative.
Having said that, I love myself a good and simple short-cut. You know, the emotional equivalent of using a safety pin to keep a button in place until you have the time for a needle and thread?
That’s what stocking the somatic first-aid kit is all about.
Since the spring of 2020, I’ve tweaked my own first-aid kit several times. I imagine you will, too. But throughout all the variations, I’ve found four things that are always useful: gratitude, happiness, comfort, and remembering that all things pass.
(1) Inoculate yourself with gratitude. If you can start your day grounded in the sensation of being grateful, you’re ahead of the game because it is really hard to get hooked by anxiety, resentment or fear when you’re feeling grateful. The trick, of course, is to really feel it down to your toes. We all know about gratitude practices, but when they are flat recitations for why you should feel thankful, you won’t get the benefit of the energy. To give yourself the shot in the arm, you need to find something (anything!) that you truly — to the bottom of your soul — are grateful for. Then for a few breaths, let your body feel that luscious sensation. This is really important: as long as the gratitude stays in your head, it’s not going to have the effect you want. You need to feel grateful the way you feel elation when you are on swing just as it hits the pendulum peak. It just happens.
The goal is effectiveness. Don’t edit yourself because something seems silly or trivial. If you’re deeply grateful for Magnolia Bakery’s banana pudding, use that. If knowing that you can always rely on your brother, use that. If you still can’t believe your luck that you found the perfect fountain pen (a pale blue Nagasawa), use that. Whatever is authentic.
Just try to spend a few breaths — or maybe the time it takes to brush your teeth — every morning sensing what you are grateful for.
(2) Mix your happy elixir. This is a fun one. What we’re looking for here is an antidote to all the negative energy that will randomly come your way. This is not about ignoring purposeful mistreatment. This is about navigating the world with equanimity. It’s perfectly fine to have normal human responses when life doesn’t unfold the way we like, but acting when we’re in the middle of feeling those entirely normal responses is rarely wise. Just think about the last time you were angry about something your sister said and you let that cruel comment slip out.
It’s much more skillful to not make emotional messes in the first place. We all need ways to bring us back to our wiser selves. And a little glimmer of happy can do that. Animals and children reliably bring smiles to the heart. Isn’t that what all those cat videos are about? There certainly is a place for using technology in your first-aid kit, but I’m going to invite you to try this with your own imagination. Is there one thing, or a few things, that will bring a smile to your face just by thinking of them? Maybe it’s your cat’s wiggling back-side before he attacks the toy you’re dangling in front of him. Maybe it’s the memory of your toddler’s chocolate-smeared face on her second birthday. Maybe it’s the sight of your own bed head (or, if you need some help, you can imagine my Einsteinesque morning hair).
Again, the point is not to come up with something clever to write down, the point is to come up with something that makes your soul smile. And then, when something throws you off kilter, reclaim your equanimity by reminding yourself to smile.
(3) Create your comfort quilt. This is the tool for when you’re feeling hurt, sad, overwhelmed or anything else that makes you want to pull the covers over your head and not come out. Ever. In the same way that feeling resentful doesn’t support wise action, feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or unworthy doesn’t either. In order to navigate our own lives with wisdom and skill, we need to see life clearly. And, we don’t see things clearly when we’re suffering.
My comforting practice is about as basic as it gets. I bring to mind the kindest, gentlest soul I have ever met — my grandmother — and imagine my child self snuggling next to her on the sofa. Because I spent so many happy times with my grandma, I’m able to easily drop into that feeling of comfort. I touch the slightly-rough damask of the couch, smell the faint floral notes of her perfume, sense immense love as she strokes my hair. The intention is to find a tried-and-true method for comforting ourselves.
When I feel raw, I take a quick trip of imagination to my grandma’s living room. After I relax into feeling comforted, I can revisit what sent me here in the first place: an unexpected death in the family, war on the other side of the planet, a professional setback. Usually, things aren’t as grim as I thought. And when things are that grim, I have the strength to deal with them wisely because I’m in a place of feeling comforted.
(3) Make a remember reminder. Most days, I fall into the trap of thinking that how things are is how they will always be. I know this is delusional thinking, and yet I do it. Over and over. When life is neutral or pleasant, the delusion is neutral or pleasant. When life is anything but pleasant, the delusion is also anything but pleasant. It’s very human to forget.
And yet, as every major spiritual and wisdom tradition points out, nothing is permanent. The truth of impermanence is hard to accept because it means accepting that there is no such thing as happily ever after. Yes, there is a tension between what is and what we would like to be. There are a lot of people, corporations, even political parties, peddling the fairy tale that there is a singular happy ending if only we do/buy/believe what they are selling. And, yet, we all know the truth.
What helps me to remember that all things pass are the hibakujumoku (survivor) trees. If you’re not familiar with the story, it starts in August of 1945 when a nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Gingko trees were left with burned leaves, scorched bark and stripped branches. A year later, green shoots pushed through the devastation. Now, seeds from those survivor trees are being shared and grown around the world as living symbols of resilience and peace. (Yep, that’s why I chose the gingko leaf as an icon.)
Don’t overthink this, but find some way to remind yourself that all things pass. When we can remember this truth during difficult times, we will find some comfort. And when we remember this truth during pleasant times, we’ll remember to savor the moment. Either way, we’re cultivating equanimity and clear seeing.
That’s it for this week!
warmly,
alison
