How to cope in one minute or less.

I’d like to have a nicely tidy message of how to cope with another layer of scary news in the world. “How to solve world peace in one minute or less” would be a very splashy title. This seems thematic. My deep desire for things to be orderly and organized and my experience being so blatantly not. I have to be honest that I am grateful for the teaching of life constantly being a mess. It’s almost like I have to relearn the acceptance of the messiness of life daily.

There’s a story I tell in therapy nauseatingly often. It’s how I had a car accident and had nerve damage and the physical therapy people recommended that I try yoga. I loved the idea immediately - felt like good branding. Therapists love yoga. I started going and loved it but hated the rest period at the end. I tried to leave early, but the yoga teachers did not like that. The said the rest was essential to yoga, that it was part of the experience. It took me four years until I was not making a grocery list or planning my day during that rest time. I couldn’t learn how to just let go. once I did, the experience of being present and resting was truly healing.

I relate to my clients who want the quick, easy, painless fix. And even the ones who are willing to get a little messy for a short time as long as it doesn’t last long. For the most part these are people who have had too much pain already. But it turns out that it isn’t how we heal. We have to feel our feelings to heal. We have to be present in the mess. We have to choose self-compassion when we want to berate ourselves. There is no quick fix, but learning to lean in to the rest, compassion, play and beauty feels like a step in the right direction in the midst of so much other fear and uncertainty.