Weep. Breathe. Stand up. Carry on. Repeat.
Step by step we will find our way forward
It’s the day after the U.S. elections. Things didn’t turn out the way many of us had hoped. I turned off the television at 2 am, slept for an hour, and then tossed and turned until 6. Although my first appointment was not until noon, I knew I had to get up and meet the day. I showered, shaved, dressed, and made a pot of coffee. All in silence. No, not just silence—deep stillness. Ok, sometimes numbness. Yet just beneath the numbness I found presence. Strangely, I felt—I feel—incredibly present to this moment—to this new and frankly unimaginable reality. And deeply and profoundly sad. And touching deeper and deeper grief within me as the sun rises higher in the sky.
I wrote the words that are the title of this post during a meditation more than a month ago. With a note to myself then that this would be the title of my first post if we came to this outcome. I didn’t tell anyone about it. I just quietly put those words aside, hoping never to come back to them.
Yet here we are.
Dag Hammarskjold, Swedish diplomat, Nobel Prize laureate, and second Secretary-General of the United Nations, wrote:
The longest journey is the journey inward.
—Dag Hammarskjold, from Markings: Spiritual Poems and Meditations
Indeed, to me, we as a country are being called to take this longest journey to the heart of our being as a nation. And all of us as a global collective. To get to the heart of what it will take to create a world that works for all. Which means committing perhaps more than ever before to that journey inward for ourselves. Step by step. That is a lot of what this Transformational Presence Substack is about.
Yet that’s not our first step today. Today and tomorrow and perhaps the days to come are about finding balance and healing within ourselves starting from wherever we are right now. Being present with what is in front of us and letting it start to show itself—not from a place of judgment, but from a place of acknowledgment and acceptance. Not accepting it as in “It’s ok.” It’s not. But it’s what is. And if we don’t acknowledge and accept what is, we can’t work with it to create something else.
And so, the first step: Weep. Breathe. Stand up. Carry on. Repeat.
Weep
In other words, let yourself be wherever you are and feel whatever you feel. If you need to cry, then cry. If you are angry, let yourself be angry. Acknowledge whatever is happening inside of you and ask it what it needs—what you need—right now. Give yourself space and time to be present with whatever you feel and whatever you need. Be compassionate and patient with yourself.
Breathe
And then breathe. Breathe into your bones and let the grieving and healing process begin to do its work. Now is not the time for distractions—for busying yourself or hiding under the covers avoiding what you feel. Now is the time to be present with those feelings—to let them talk to you. To tap into your own greater wisdom to help you understand your feelings more fully, and to ask them what you need to be able to walk through them to the other side, whether that takes an hour or days or weeks. Lean into your spiritual or reflective practices. And if you don’t have a practice, start now. Stay present with whatever is in you right here, right now; breathe into it, and give it space to be.
Stand up
When you have done your work, at least for the moment, or walked some part of that path within, then stand up, step into your day—into a sense of normalcy, as much as that is possible. Do what needs to be done. Take care of the present moment. Go about your day with awareness, intention, and focus on staying present to each moment, each task, each engagement with another and with life. As Jon Kabat-Zinn reminds us, we take care of the future by taking care of the present now.
Carry on
And, as the British say, carry on. Consciously. With intention. Your life and what is happening in your country and in the world will keep unfolding and changing and deepening and maybe even shifting course. Stay anchored in who you know yourself to be—in your integrity—in your authentic presence. Sense into what is yours to do, and what is not. And honor that. For yourself and for others. The path through what is happening will not be the same for everyone.
Find what you can trust and lean into that. Pay attention to what each day, each encounter, each situation or circumstance, is asking of you. And say yes. Don’t get distracted by asking How? Trust that if you’re being asked for something, then some part of you knows how to be it and do it. So just start. You’ll find out “how” as you go.
Repeat
And then repeat as needed. Know that this is a cycle. You may find yourself weeping again—maybe many times. It’s ok. Honor that. Let the tears or the anger or the anxiety or frustration flow—in a healthy and constructive way as best you can—and breathe. Allow the moment to be what it needs to be to keep the energy moving—to keep a healing process (coming to wholeness) to keep moving forward. And as you feel yourself pulling together again, stand up and carry on.
The cycle will not necessarily always be linear. The weeping may come at any time, sometimes when you least expect it. This is normal and healthy in a grieving and healing process. So, allow yourself that.
Be intentional
On Monday, I shared words of Rev. Gretchen Haley about living at the edge of our own longing. I come back now to the last few lines:
a choice we [can] make:
to persist in kindness,
persevere in compassion
and prevail in a life that is bound
entirely to loveExcerpt from “On Claiming this Time for Renewal” by Rev. Gretchen Haley
The poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote:
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell.
As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.—Rainer Maria Rilke (from Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29, translated by Joanna Macy)
As this new reality unfolds, imagine it as a bell tower and us as the carillon bells. What batters us can become our strength, and together we can, day by day, step by step, ring a new era into reality. It won’t happen overnight. It may not happen in my lifetime or yours. Yet at least we can start—the beginnings of that new era can start today.
Weep. Breathe. Stand up. Carry on. Repeat.
The spark of the human spirit is strong and resilient. We can choose to live the Transformational Presence mantra right now, today and every day.
Stand tall.
Be Love.
Shine your Light.
And step by step, we will find our way forward.
Free Monday Meditations on Zoom
Mondays—November 11, 18, 25; December 2
10 am ET / 7 am PT / 16 CET for just 20 minutes
FREE —All are welcome.
Register to receive 2-day reminders and links to recordings after each session.
Resources:
Alan leads a half-hour contemplative meditation service, “Touching the Sacred Within” at First Religious Society, Unitarian Universalist, in Newburyport, Massachusetts at 8 am the first Sunday of each month. All are welcome.
Thank you. Weeping and breathing with you.
Thanks for helping us get through this, Alan.