Hello!
It’s been so long since I’ve written. It’s been weighing on me that my last post is over a year old. But, as I’m sure you can relate, we’ve all been through a lot!
I’m not going to start off with a long post, though I CAN say I have one coming about Ted Lasso that you should read. 🙂 I may have to do a whole series on Ted. (Thank you to you-know-who-you-are for encouraging me to watch!)
Mostly, today, what I want to acknowledge is that life is a lot these days. Pandemic, qanon, climate change, the ongoing violence of (and increased visibility of) racism….it’s a lot for our souls and our nervous systems to handle.
Remember to do your important work. The basic, simple, hard work of managing a human soul.
Pay attention to when you need to move and lean in….and when you need to back off and rest.
Pay attention to what feels comforting right now and do that when you need comfort (if it’s eating leftover Halloween candy make sure to do it in moderation and then pick one of the other comfortable but less sugary things LOL).
Watch out for catastrophizing and challenge it when you see it. Bring your mind back to what you can control right here, right now. Practice acknowledging the rest and letting it be—but turn your attention away from it.
Take healthy action to change the things you want to change—or contribute to changing them—recognizing that as the abolitionist Theodore Parker said and Dr. Martin Luther King paraphrased,
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight, I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
I’m using this quote because I think it reflects a fear so many of us have right now about the future of the Earth, the future of humankind, and future of animals and bugs and trees. Instead of focusing on catastrophizing, let’s be humble and acknowledge what Parker says. That we cannot “pretend to understand the moral universe” and that our eyes reach “but a little ways.” We hope MLK and Parker are correct: that the arc bends towards justice. But for now, we acknowledge that we can only see “but a little ways” and we work with what we have.
Calming our bodies, finding joy in the beautiful, small (and not so small) things, and engaging in good work.
I’ll be back soon to talk Lasso!
R