Your Fear and Worry May Be Understandable…

Here are the headlines from today’s New York Times (March 27, 2020). I share them for one reason only. After reading the headlines, notice the reaction you have: Do you feel the up-welling of nervousness or anxiety? Do your thoughts begin to accelerate? Does the content of your thinking trend toward all sorts of dark future possibilities? Does your body want to freeze in place or perhaps generate the urge to run, to get away, to move?

Unprepared for the Worst: World’s Most Vulnerable Brace for Virus
Where the U.S. Stands Now on Coronavirus Testing
‘The Other Option Is Death’: New York Starts Sharing of Ventilators
Seattle Is Living Your Coronavirus Future
Blood Plasma From Survivors Will Be Given to Coronavirus Patients

Okay. OKAY! Enough. This isn’t helping. What am I supposed to do? Where can I go?

…But Maybe Not Inevitable or Necessary?

As Pema Chodrom writes in The Habit of Escape, “This pattern of distracting ourselves, of not being fully present, of not contacting the immediacy of our experience is considered normal.” That may be, but is doesn’t make it helpful. When chaos appears to be everyone around us and worse, closing in upon us, where can we go to find Solace and Calm?

I am providing you with two sound tracks. The first features the sounds of nature in the day and the second the sounds of nature at night. Both are 2-4 minutes long. I encourage you to listen once during the day and once at dusk or bedtime. While listening, use your imagination and allow yourself to be carried away by the sounds. Allow your sense of time to expand, so that several minutes of listening can feel life 30-minutes or perhaps a few hours of serenity and rejuvenation and rest.

Then, when you return your attention to your immediate surroundings, notice the smile on your face, or the feeling of comfort in your body, or the absence of tension across your forehead. And allow yourself to take pleasure in your ability, even if just for a little while, to have successfully found solace and calm amidst the current chaos of our days.