In listening to them it’s clear that people are widely noting that they are finding three things difficult: a) mornings, b) transitions back to peace after bouts of intense emotion, and c) bedtime.
Yesterday I talked about the advantages of a good morning start, and today I’m commencing my first online morning meditation. If all the tech works well, it should appear just below this paragraph, shortly after 9am MST, and then it will remain here so that anyone can play it whenever it suits their timezone. It will also be live on facebook and hopefully here as well.
The Morning Meditation
9:00am MST
Since I am doing these 9:00am (MST) weekday meditations to help people through this strange physical distancing experience, it only makes sense to also address the evenings. That is why I will also be doing an 9:00pm wind-down broadcast which will be visible below, and/or on facebook.
The evening sessions will be designed to leave us with a positive sense of ourselves and of the world. That’s a good place to start from, on our journey toward sleep.
The Evening Meditation
9:00pm MST
As we all move through this experience it’s almost as though our lives had been written on an etch-a-sketch. And now that life has been turned upside down and shaken, we have no lines to follow.
We are all starting with a blank slate. It may be disorienting at first, but it is also an opportunity to go in absolutely any direction. But we benefit by going consciously.
If this crisis ends and we all just race towards our old lives with our heads filled with the same busy thoughts, and a mindless desire for a return to a ‘normality,’ then we have failed to take this time to reconsider essentially everything we we’re doing and owning.
This is a chance to hit pause and ask ourselves –as a huge worldwide group– where do we truly find value in life?
For most people, this strange experience has lead us to become more aware of aspects of our lives and ourselves that we may have never before given any consideration.
On the more mundane side, selling tight, restrictive clothing is likely going to be a tougher sell after all of this time at home relaxing. But on the important side, if we ask what’s driving people most crazy about all of this, it’s that people the world over feel starved for basic human presence.
Simultaneously, and informatively, stuff we own that is just about our egos and showing off for others, has suddenly lost its value. After all of this isolation, the last thing we want to do with a fellow human is to try to drive them away from us by trying to belittle them in some meaningless clothing or car or house competition.
Through these weird changes, every one of us, the world over, has in some way, shape or form, been given the opportunity to witness our former lives as though they were frozen in motion. We have a remarkable opportunity to learn from this, and to use what we learn as we more consciously build a new life, in the wake of COVID-19.
Despite the fact that it’s been forced upon us, this is an opportunity worth taking seriously. If the world has to go through with this, let’s do our best to ensure the world, and we, come out having used the lessons learned, to build a more conscious society with more meaningful priorities.
Think about it throughout the day. Think about it as you go to sleep. And then tomorrow, start two lists: 1) things I miss about my/our old life (eg. visiting my neighbour, hugging my friends, meeting people at the dog park etc.), and 2) things I’ve learned from the crisis (eg. that I do enjoy reading, I like talking on the phone or, humanity is better than I was giving them credit for, etc.)
The first is a list of things we took for granted. The second is a list of what we’ve realized we value. The question going forward, post-crisis, is this: why weren’t we noticing what our ego was doing before this? And why did it take a crisis before we asked ourselves if we were living in alignment with our actual values?
This is not a pleasant experience in very many ways. But the same was true of WWII and many great things emerged from that. If people approach this like a spiritual or psychological gym, this terrible time can be converted into one of the greatest gifts our generations will ever receive. Let us meet all of this sickness and death with a new regard for life.
peace. s
I help people achieve better mental health by teaching them about reality.
