Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World

Those shocks snap us out of our hermetic dream state, prompting us to look more deeply within ourselves and at the world around us. It may take something compelling to wake us up, to turn us away from that half-asleep state and away from the easy answers society offers us about how best to live: consume more, compete more, move faster, get ahead of

THIS ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF the need to truly touch our sadness, pain, and loss is where real change is born, where we begin to build resilience.

Equanimity is what frees us from these dynamics; we can learn to be present with emotions without falling into the extremes of overwhelm or denial. Equanimity is the state in which we can recognize an emotion like anger—and even feel its full intensity—but also pay attention to choosing how we will respond to a given feeling, thought, or circumstan

We don’t all share the same degree or type of pain, but we share the vulnerability of loss, of change. We can lie in bed feeling helpless and unseen.

I believe in a world where change might be hard but is always seen as possible, however stuck we might feel in any given moment.

As we respond to our own pain with more presence and compassion, the energy we have for responding to the pain of others increases dramatically, as does our sense of connection and care.

Accepting suffering doesn’t mean it will disappear. Instead, we can learn to feel discomfort in a far purer and more direct way, without the additional burden of feeling humiliated by it.

Sometimes it feels like we have to run a race. We have to beat the onslaught of hatred and divisiveness, the beleaguered planet, the economic and political disenfranchisement. They threaten to rush past us, as though the planetary metabolism were speeding up. But in truth, stopping and resting periodically helps us go farther.

Ironically, spending quality time by ourselves may help us undo the perception that we are all alone.

If we look carefully at our actions—what we say or do, what we refrain from saying or doing—we can sense within them an urge toward wholeness, toward happiness.