And Now What

The presidential election in the United States is over. While at the time of this writing, the House can still go either way, the Senate and most states went Republican. For half of the country, including me, this is alarming because of the very divisive rhetoric and policy directives.

For the other half, they hear about a border that is out of control with a world that is getting more and more volatile every moment along with the “inflation” issue (which has been proven over and over to be corporate greed and price gouging, but I digress). Each day they are asked to accept things that are against everything they have been taught. Even the Olympics didn’t help with the whole women’s boxing debacle that made it sound like there was a trans woman allowed to box (which wasn’t the case) and the media not displaying the whole image in the opening ceremonies, intentionally making it look like there were (heaven forbid) DRAG QUEENS recreating The Last Supper instead of The Feast of the Gods.

There are a few things that come to mind and the first is an old Zen story of the Farmer:

This is the story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed. “Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy for his misfortune. “Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe,” said the farmer.

The next thing that comes to mind is a quote by Ekhart Tolle:

“Problems are mind-made and need time to survive. They cannot survive in the actuality of the Now.”

When we are worried about what is going to happen, we are what psychologists call Future Tripping or Anticipatory Anxiety. What happens is that we put all this energy into things that may or may not happen often out of our control either way.

While I am not saying to forget about the future, I am asking you to come back to the present moment and think about what you have control of in this moment.

So, what can we control at this moment?

• We can take a deep breath (or 10) and notice what is happening in our bodies.
• We can avoid social media and the news.
• We can avoid fighting with someone who might now have voted the same way you did.
• We can go out in nature and recharge.

At the end of the day, we are all connected finding more ways to be united instead of divided and build communities both local and online will be what serves us in the long run.

We are here for you.

You Are Loved!