Taking a breath and coming back to love

What to do when the world is on fire

Source: L-R, Reuters, Al Jazeera, People

“Our culture, our society is dissolving. We are collectively entering the chrysalis, and structures we have come to rely on and identify with are breaking down. We are in the cocoon and we don’t know what the next phase will be like. Learning to surrender to the unknown in our own lives is essential to our collective learning to move through this time of faster and faster change, disruption, and breakdown.”

Kaira Jewel Lingo
We Were Made for These Times

It’s been quite the collective start to the new year. I, along with so many of us, have watched as LA has burned to the ground, now covered in ash and smoke.

Last week we finally saw a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, so the fighting (which has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians) can stop so the hostages can be released and the people in Gaza can have some reprieve and hopefully heal.

And we will watch today as Trump returns to office, bracing ourselves for what’s to come.

I remember last fall going to a retreat with Kaira Jewel and Dr. Larry Ward and Larry said this time we are living in, it’s like that moment when the trapeze artist is reaching for their partner — we are suspended in air, waiting, hoping we will not fall to the ground.

The work isn’t to reach further or try to grab hold onto something else, the work is to be in that moment. The question then becomes: How do you want to be in that moment? In this moment right now?

Getting back to the basics

This time last year, because of a major upheaval in my life, I was completely overwhelmed by emotion — fear, grief, anger, sadness. In many ways, my heart felt completely broken and I felt hopeless.

We had a friend — an aspiring monastic — who was staying with us at the time and she had sat in meditation with me one morning when my emotions were particularly overwhelming. She looked at me tenderly and advised me to get back to the basics of the practice, to remember that our breath, taking that simple pause would help me get through moment by moment.

It was a welcome and needed reminder for me. As someone who has dove more and more into their studies, this revelatory connection to pausing and taking a breath has saved me so many times in the last decade. It is why I share these practices, it is why I write this newsletter, because the power in just one breath can be transformative.

“If we can breathe in and out, putting our mind completely on our breathing, or feel our bodies and put all of our attention on the sensations in the body, we can create that space. We slow things down and let our nervous system recalibrate and center. The external situation may not change, but we’ve changed in relation to our external situation. If we can stop, we have the chance to touch into something deeper than overwhelm. This practice of pausing, or stopping, helps the seed of our question to mature and ripen into the guidance and direction we need.”

Kaira Jewel Lingo
We Were Made For These Times

That is my invitation to you in these moments of overwhelm that are surely to come: Simply take a breath. Pause, come back to your body and look at what’s happening in your immediate surroundings and see how you can care for yourself in that moment.

That might mean putting your phone down to stop reading the news; that might mean drinking a glass of water, going out for a walk; it might mean calling a friend; it might mean hugging your cat, dog, kid, partner; it might mean laying on the ground and letting yourself cry. But whatever you do, just keep breathing.

“And I say to you, I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to humankind’s problems.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

One of the reasons why I am committed to the Plum Village lineage is that Thích Nhất Hạnh’s approach to Buddhism is rooted in activism, it is directed towards justice, love.

During the Vietnam War, frustrated by the traditional approach of monastics simply just praying for the war to stop, he started doing his work outside the monastery — rebuilding homes in bombed villages, helping feed and educate children, preaching to both sides about what peace could and would look like. His relentless push for peace is what inspired Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize and for him to ultimately begin what is now considered Engaged Buddhism. It was the beginning of a friendship that still has ripple effects today.

After Dr. King was assassinated, he was devastated but knew we had to continue on.

What they both knew is that preaching wasn’t enough — it was also in the doing. Dr. King often said, “Life's persistent and most urgent question is “What are you doing for others?"

So I end on this note, my friends as a reminder that the work isn’t just to breathe, but is for us to all care for one another. That pain and suffering you are feeling in your heart — once you are ready and grounded, let it compel you to action. Dr. King’s legacy and commitment to justice for all resonates more than ever today, and I hope that we can all find that fire inside all of us to work toward our collective liberation.

Because the world needs us, we all need each other, and we cannot get to other side of this moment without each other.

So tell me in the comments: What are you doing to take care of yourself right now? And what issues and causes are you leaning into?

Please share insights and resources so we can build our own version of a beloved community right here, right now.