Stirring Point

The news this week felt like a wet towel snapped against our national backside. Did you feel it? Stinging pain on the skin, followed by a healthy, growing welt on one of our cheeks? It was a week of cultural tremors: the attempted assassination of a former president; Houston residents left without power; unrelenting temperatures brought on by an angry sun. What about the crash of a global computer system that grounded flights and led to a decline in the stock market? Everyone’s anxious; everyone’s angry. We’re in one hell of a pickle and we’re in it together.

July is coming in hot, and with each day, it’s harder and harder to reach the cultural thermostat. How do we turn down the country’s temperature when many of the shots across the bow are filled with misinformation and ideological nonsense? We know part of the answer requires human collaboration and a dash of selflessness. And we know these two concepts, in today’s world, are about as easy to muster as crushing coal into diamonds with our bare hands.

When the world, or our perception of the world, tumbles sideways, it’s never a bad idea to revisit the basics of self-care. Before I cast aspersions upon the world’s deviants, I take my own temperature to see where it’s rising. The following quote from Jack Cornfield is a fine thermometer for the job at hand:

“Tend to the part of the garden you can touch.”

If you know me well, you’ve heard me say this as if it were my own. And I’ll keep at it because this quote functions as a guardrail around my own first principles. It reminds me that our emotions are fleeting. They arrive like a train pulling into a station and eventually they’ll pull out just the same. It makes no difference if they are brought on by outside stimuli or by internal beliefs. It just doesn’t. For years, people told me to “let things go.” Let go of your anger, your indignation and the attacks on your character. Let go of lost relationships, professional slights or failed expectations. And like a scared child clinging to his mother, I refused to let go. I couldn’t; I didn’t know how. 

“Let go” is bad advice, unless a person is ready to hear it. It’s like telling a smoker they should quit smoking and somehow expecting it to work. A smoker quits when they make the decision to let go of the habit for themselves. The same is true of our emotional clinging. “Letting go” requires an awareness of the mind’s behavior. We have to see the mind in action like a watchful observer before we can gain distance from the emotion. Without this distance—this awareness—we stay inside the emotion, hoping time will grant us salvation from the emotional pain. But when we see the mind’s behavior and its transient texture, we recognize the impermanence of our thoughts. Emotions, like thoughts, leap from place to place, and with some guidance, we can change our emotions, just like we can nudge our thoughts toward a positive direction. Think of your grandmother’s smile or the warmth of Christmas morning. Think of your child’s first steps. Do those thoughts shift your emotions? I certainly hope so. Seeing the ability to change an emotion is the gateway to letting go of it.

“Tend to the part of the garden you can touch” speaks to the world within your reach. More immediately, it speaks to the skin you occupy. Are you eating well and taking care of your body? Have you dialed down the booze? Do you spend too much time in front of screens? Are you getting Vitamin D and enjoying moderate exercise? Do you stand more than you sit? Have you cut back on junk food and sugary drinks? Are you working toward a future self that brings you a sense of joy?

“Tend to the part of the garden you can touch” speaks to the family and friends you depend on. Have you nurtured those relationships? Are you a good listener? Have you supported them through their version of this modern-day maelstrom?

The problems of the world will continue. Like death and taxes, change is guaranteed, and some change is tough to swallow. Reminiscing about the good old days forgets that those times were pock-marked with violence and hatred too. The weeks, months, or even years ahead may stay culturally hot and will likely get worse. What’s clear is that turning down the temperature on our collective thermostat requires that we lower our individual temperatures first. The world’s problems belong to us, and fixing them requires a look at the mess within our immediate reach. What can you touch today that needs your attention? What relationship needs mending? What friend needs support? What will you do for your mind to improve the content of your character? This is tending to what we can touch. And once these areas are tidied up, we can start pulling the weeds beyond our reach—and boy do we need to get started.