Cultivating Steadiness in Unsteady Times
The pandemic has introduced many problems we could not have anticipated or planned for. Keep cultivating the steady mind needed to respond wisely to whatever arises.
Posted — UpdatedLet's be honest: it can take a Herculean effort to remain steady in these terribly unsteady times. It seems there is always another headline, when I open the news in the morning, that sends my heart rate up and my shoulders up to my ears. Whether it's reported that we've hit a new record daily case count or hospitalization rate or number of daily deaths is beside the point, we are in that dark period post-holiday travel when the news is more likely to be bad than good. We are also ten months in from that Friday the thirteenth announcement last March that in-person school and other details of life as we knew it would be changing. We are tired.
As many of us learn as we age, while we can and should do our best to put in place the external and internal supports we need to live with peace and equanimity, we cannot -- through our own effort and planning -- control every circumstance that lands on our doorstep.
This week alone, I've had to figure out answers to problems I'd not encountered before, like:
- What if you suspect Dad has COVID, but is too weak to go out to be tested?
If I have learned anything at all during the years I've been working with families to problem solve the issues that arise during the last years of life it is this: put in place the practices or habits you need that enable you to meet whatever arises with a steady, flexible and wise manner. As Epictetus, a Greek stoic philosopher born in 50 A.D., once said, "It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."
That is something we can have control over.
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