The world is an overwhelming place right now and over the past few weeks my emotions have seesawed from sorrow to anger to elation to fear. I’ve literally felt as if I was getting seasick from reading and watching the news and getting whipped into a frenzy only to have the next bit of news sink me into despair. There have been days when I have literally felt numb because my system cannot handle all of these emotions.
When I started to feel the numbness and the hopelessness, I had to reach deep inside myself to find serenity. I had to take extra time to mediate and I had to consciously choose to detach. I liken detachment to the eye of the hurricane, it is a place of deep calm that helps me to have clarity when the insanity of the world is swirling around me.
I struggled with how to define detachment in this world because I do care about the results of the confirmation votes, I do care about what happens to the environment, and I do care about education and all the other important issues. I realized that for me, right now, detachment means I need to focus on the actions I can take and not on the results. I can call. I can email. I can fax. But I can’t guarantee that every action taken by our government will be in line with my values.
The best analogies I can use are from the sports world and from the world of medicine. When it’s the last minute of the football game and the team that is losing has the ball, they don’t just give up. They continue to fight for the win because there is valor in the fight. And when paramedics come across a gravely wounded person that they are pretty sure won’t make it, they don’t just give up. They give it their all and do everything within their power because miracles do happen.
I have to emulate these heroes and continue to give it my all even if I think my efforts won’t matter because I believe in valor and miracles do still happen.
Cairn by Cairn 