Category: Sunday Letters

I looked at my list of tasks as my friend and I entered the store. Shopping for groceries was only our first stop of several. I was mentally planning our itinerary when my friend suddenly stopped one step into the produce section.

“Look,” she said waving her hand to encompass the whole scene. “Everything we need to live is here.”

Her comment shot me back into the moment. In the center of the floor stood several large tables brimming with colorful produce. On one, tomatoes and onions, shiny bell peppers, ruffled heads of lettuce and ears of sweet corn. On another, bunches of red and green grapes and peaches, apples and pears. Each table’s contents were arranged with artful care. On lighted shelves behind them relishes and cheeses, specialty items, salads and drinks beckoned.

“I love the way you notice things like that,” I told my friend. She has a real knack for appreciation, one of the choices for happiness we all can make.

The key is noticing what you value.

She notices how things are designed, how they work. She goes through the world with an appreciative heart, and points out the cleverness of a tool’s design, the quality of materials, the efficiency or kindness of someone’s act, and says so.

Happy people are like that. They look for things to value in the present moment. That’s a key: Looking for what’s valuable right now, in the immediate present. What’s good here? What’s true? What’s beautiful? What’s alive in me right now?

Embracing the Contrasts

One way to do this is to look at your life as if it’s a movie, and the present moment is the movie’s current scene.

It may not be a pleasant one; it might be a tragedy or drama. But you can still appreciate it as a scene in your unique life—being fully conscious of what’s occurring, fully aware of what you’re experiencing and embracing it as a part of the totality of your life.

Genuinely happy people don’t deny life’s sorrows and disappointments. They appreciate the reality of them and experience their meaning and depths. But they equally embrace life’s delights and moments of beauty and goodness.

They’re aware of the contrasts that make up life’s diversity, and of the way the contrasts contribute to life’s richness and mystery.

Because of their total immersion in their lives, happy people learn that no experience is wholly good or wholly bad. It’s all a mix. And all of it contains something to be appreciated once you choose to see it.

Sharing the Good Stuff

Happy people actively look for things to appreciate in others and they share their appreciation in words. They let others know when they see their good qualities in action—their humor, their kindness, their courage, their creativity.

Sometimes they appreciate how well someone deals with their struggles and fears. And because they share what they appreciate in others, they build stronger relationships—in their workplaces, with their children, with their partners, and with friends.

They even disarm their adversaries by expressing sincere appreciation of their strengths. “Well done!” “Good move!”

They brighten the day for strangers by mentioning something the other has done well. “That was so kind of you!” “You packed that so efficiently!”

You never know when a simple comment will entirely change someone’s day.

As poet Elizabeth Barret Browning said, “Earth’s crammed with heaven.” Turn up your sense of appreciation this week and prove for yourself the truth in her words. You might just find your world transformed.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Dhanesh Damodaran from Pixabay}

Remember when I invited you to measure your happiness quotient at the start of July?

How are you doing so far? Take a quick inventory and find out.

If you want to up your supply, one of the best things you can learn from genuinely happy people is to keep your options open.

You might think you’re limited by your age, responsibilities, circumstances, finances, or health, but the truth is you have countless options for expanding your happiness every single day.

The trick is to keep an eye out for them, and to risk grabbing the ones that wink at you as they appear.

One choice that happy people make is the choice to be free to try something new, even if it might make them look or feel silly, even if it violates their “shoulds,” even if it’s not “realistic” (and maybe especially if it’s not).

They ask themselves “What if?” and “Why not?”

They hone their curiosity.

They’re not locked in by plans, or by fears.

They’re flexible and daring.

They’re more driven by exploring life’s offerings and possibilities than by toeing the line in order to achieve an imagined security or success.

They trust life enough to let the conclusions take care of themselves.

Hunting for Happiness

Sometimes the something new starts with a new viewpoint, with asking, “How else can I look at this?” or “What opportunities are here?” or “How can I turn this into an adventure, or make it interesting or fun?”

Happy people cultivate a sense of play.

They teach themselves to see what they were viewing as a limitation as a challenge to their creativity instead.

For happy people, life is an art form, and they are the artists.

Dancer and choreographer Agnes de Mille said, “Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what’s next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.”

Happy people don’t expect all their choices to turn out well. But they expect to grow from each of them, to learn, to be enriched by all that they experience.

They know that the joy is in the journey, in taking the leaps.

Taking the Risk

Looking for options keeps us from living on auto-pilot.

It opens a view of possibilities, moment to moment to moment.

Asking “What are my choices?” keeps us aware and alive.

Refuse to accept the lie that you have no choice.

You always do.

Happy people teach themselves to look outside the box, to deviate from their routines.

They learn to risk letting go of preconceived notions and of caring what anyone else thinks about the choices they make for themselves.

I have a poster on my wall that says, “Trust Your Crazy Ideas.” I think that’s great advice.

Crazy ideas can turn out to be the start of learning a whole new skill, or of meeting new people and making new friends.

They can lead to the discovery of a talent you hadn’t known you possessed, of discovering treasures and wonders you had no idea were right around that next corner.

Happiness experts Foster and Hicks say “Every new day presents the potential for relationships, education, personal growth, professional development and just plain fun.”

What calls you? What crazy new idea could you try?

What if?

Why not?

Keep on the lookout for new options—moment after moment, day after day.

They’re in front of you right now.

Next week I’ll share with you one of my favorite keys to increased happiness, one of the most beautiful ones. Stay tuned!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay}

When I was 11 years old, my parents gave me the bad news.

After months of searching for the cause of my mother’s increasing difficulty in keeping her balance and her frequent falls, she was finally diagnosed with a rare, incurable disease that would slowly paralyze her entire body.

Mom’s hand held mine as Daddy assured me the doctors would do everything they could to slow this monster’s progress.

Mom would get a pair of special crutches next week and some medicines that might help her. She would still teach nurses and direct the medical staff at the hospital where she worked.

“And we’ll still be the same happy family that we are now,” my dad said, the glimmer of a tear in his eye.

It turned out he was right.

*              *              *

We all encounter tragedies. Loved ones die. Accidents and disasters smash into our lives. We lose jobs, friends, partners, houses, health. We get betrayed. We fail.

But we’re a persistent lot, we humans. We go on, whether we have a taste for going on or not.

Happiness researchers Hicks and Foster in their book, How We Choose to be Happy, say the ones who made a promise to themselves to rediscover happiness after major life disruptions all used the same process to go forward. The authors dubbed this process “recasting.” I think of it as giving the dice a fresh toss.

Recasting Your Lot

In their world-wide interviews with hundreds of famously happy people, Hicks and Foster encountered many who had endured deep and wide-ranging tragedies in their lives. And all of them described how they had resurfaced by going through the same two-stage course of action.

It starts with their decision, in the face of crisis, not to be a victim, but a fighter.

None of us gets through life without facing our share of painful, sometimes devastating circumstances. When they happen, we’re faced with a choice: to give up or to go on. Healthy people choose to go on, even when they can’t begin to see how going on is possible.

The healing wasn’t instant for the folks who overcame their tragedies. In some cases, it took months or years for people to reconnect with happiness again. But those who succeeded in rediscovering a sense of meaning and well-being all processed their tragedies the same way.

The Process

The first thing they did was to allow themselves to deeply and honestly feel the emotions surrounding their personal tragedy. They allowed themselves to feel their anger, their rage, their sorrow, their grief, their sense of irrecoverable loss.

I’m sure that every one of them felt that they were victims in the immediate wake of whatever circumstance disrupted their lives. But none of them allowed themselves to be defined by what had happened. Each of them set an intention to regain a meaningful and satisfying life.

And it was that intention that gave them the will to go on. They activated it by looking for meaning, for an understanding of how their new circumstances fit into their lives—the second step in the powerful, healing “recasting” process.

They asked themselves a lot of questions and looked for sincere answers.

First they explored the question, “What’s the essential core of my feelings?” They wanted to get to the very heart of their feelings, to let themselves understand. Sometimes they wrote letters to others involved—often with no intention to mail them—or they wrote about their feelings in a journal, or talked into a voice recorder, or to a caring friend.

The richer your understanding of your feelings, Hicks and Foster say, the richer the meaning you can derive from the event.

The second step of their healing was to ask themselves things like:

What am I learning about myself from this experience?

What am I learning about the others involved?
About my relationships with them?
About my relationships in general?

What story am I telling myself about this?
Is it true? From what other perspective could I see this?
What’s a different story I could tell?

What’s the gift in this?
What new opportunities for the future can I create from this experience? How can I take action on them?

The turning point comes when you look your emotions right in the face and decide, “I can cope. I can work through this pain.”

 It’s the willingness to face your pain that rescues you from the numbness of denial. It allows you to be authentic—honest with yourself—and in control. It reaffirms your centeredness and capability. And once you have those things, you’re more than half way to rebuilding a vibrant, satisfying, meaningful life.

Next week we’ll look at discovering new options for happiness, both now and when everything you once had seems to have disappeared.

Until then, I wish you a week free of trials and full of joy.

Warmly,
Susan

I^{mage by sippakorn yamkasikorn from Pixabay}

A few weeks back, I challenged you to rate your happiness level on a scale of 1-10. Remember?

Since then, we looked at the choices that genuinely happy people make and I invited you to make those choices, too.

The first one was to decide that yes, you truly wanted to live a life in which you felt contented, capable, and centered—our working definition of “happy.”

The second choice was to decide to dedicate yourself to being happy, to make it your intention, and to practice—before you got out of bed in the morning— imagining yourself being happy as you carried out the activities of the day ahead.

The third step was to accept that you and you alone are accountable for your happiness, that you have to give up blaming anyone or anything else for its lack in your life.

Then, last week, I invited you to identify what kinds of things contributed to your happiness, to create a personal “happy list” of things that brought you contentment, satisfaction, or joy.

Today we’re going to talk about “centralizing” your happiness. Grab your “happy list,” or, if you didn’t make one, have some fun: Take a few minutes to jot down everything you can think of that you enjoy, then come back.

Got your list? Good. Read it over and see if there’s anything else you’d like to add. Now go over the list and mark the things you already enjoy fairly often in your life. Those are the things you have already “centralized.” You’ve made them important enough to make time for them.

Now look at the things that you didn’t check, and ask yourself, “What’s keeping me from doing some of these more? How can I add a couple things?”

That’s an important question, by the way. What is keeping you from doing more of the things that let you feel happy? Is your answer the truth? Or is it an excuse you’re accepting from yourself?

What would you have to do in order to have more of those things you enjoy in your life? What if you did it? How could you start experiencing more of those things, or parts of them, in your life right now?

Give yourself some time to mull it over, to figure out a way to enrich your life with more of the things that bring you joy.

People figure out ways even when they thought they didn’t have the time, or health, or funds, or freedom.

Start by imagining tucking more happiness in your pockets. How would it feel? How much energy would it add to your life? Then keep imagining it, over and over, and over. Imagining it rewires you; it creates new possibilities; it unveils opportunities and ignites new ideas. Once the image becomes real to you, surprising doors open.

Happiness isn’t an accidental phenomenon. It blossoms when you nurture its seeds. Putting the things that you enjoy front and center in your life is the way you water those seeds and give them light.

If you think your circumstances are preventing you from making your life a thriving happiness garden, stay tuned. We’ll deal with ways to overcome the seemingly insurmountable obstacles next week.

In the meantime, go over your list again and pick a few things to centralize in your life right now. Make the time. Make the effort. You deserve it.

Wishing you a week of enrichment and fun!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Ian Lindsay from Pixabay}

Okay, I gotta be straight with you. The hard part of talking about how to bring more happiness into your life is that a bunch of you thinks happiness is some kind of frivolous, self-indulgent thing, irrelevant to life in the real, grown-up world. So maybe you’re just skipping over this little series of letters.

Don’t.

Happiness matters. Regardless of what you might think you want out of life, happiness is at the core of it. It’s what lets us feel at peace with the world, with ourselves, with each other. It gives us the energy to take care of ourselves and those we care about. And it helps tip the balance of the world in a positive direction. It opens us to greater creativity, better problem-solving, improved health, and more authentic communication. We contribute more when we’re happy.

And today I’m going to give you another key to unlocking your happiness. In addition to the time it takes to read the following instructions, it will only take you about five minutes to do—and if you’re like most people, you’ll be happier when you finish than when you began. Do take those five minutes, won’t you? Just for fun?

Here’s how it goes. First, do a little self-inventory. Ask yourself how you feel overall right now—on a scale of 1 to 10. Just do a quick scan of yourself and make a mental note of it.

Now you’re ready to begin. You’re going to make a list – one you can keep. So get a sheet of paper and a pen or open a blank page on your word processor, or make a new note on your notes app. (If all else fails, you can list items on your fingers, as if you’re counting things.) Then set a timer of some kind for five minutes.

As soon as you start the timer, begin listing everything you can think of that makes you happy. (Note: Only list things that genuinely do make you happy—not the things you think should make you happy or that somebody else thinks should make you happy. Your happiness is a one-of-a-kind, wholly original, unique-to-you thing.)

It helped me to imagine I was completing the sentence, “I feel happy when . . .” But you can simply ask yourself “What makes me happy?” The key is to list anything and everything that pops into your head. If you get stuck, ask yourself, “What else?”

More hints: Don’t neglect the small things. List things that give you comfort, things that make you laugh, things that delight your senses, things that help you relax, things that make you feel satisfied, things that make you feel connected, or accomplished, or energized.

Don’t feel rushed. Just let thoughts and memories come to you when you ask yourself to run a little inventory for you. Notice the things that arise and the feelings that come with them. Spend the whole five minutes letting the answers and images come—even if your pace slows to snail speed or you can’t think of a thing after the first minute. Just enjoy what arises and make a little note of it.

At the end of the five minutes, stop and note how you feel. As I mentioned, most people will feel happier. But some will feel frustrated or sad or stuck. That’s okay; we’ll deal with that in later letters. Save your list somewhere that you can find it so you can refer to it later.

That’s the whole exercise.

And even though the exercise is finished after five minutes, chances are your brain will keep pointing out more things to you as the day goes on. All week, for that matter, you may very well be noticing or remembering things that make you happy. Consider that a bonus, and feel free to add more things to your list. We’ll play with your list again in a later letter.

Remember, we’re doing this to make the world a better place. Your world. The world you share with everybody else. So grab yourself five minutes, and let’s get to rockin’ it!

Wishing you a week of delightful discoveries!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Rona Abdullah from Pixabay}

A while back, a friend of mine said, “I don’t know why you bother writing that stuff. Nobody does any of those things anyway.” That was, I knew, probably close to the truth of the matter. How many hundreds of books and articles had I read without taking action?

But I knew, too, that just because somebody doesn’t take action right now doesn’t mean they never will. Seeds grow roots and sprout in their own right time. Besides, learning about ways to live a happier, more satisfying life at least gives you hope that it’s possible.

One of my favorite quotes about making life-alterations is this one: “If you want to change your life, you have to change your life.” Think about that for a minute. It’s the very crux of the problem. We’re comfortable where we are, for better or for worse, and learning new patterns doesn’t come easily. It means having to let go of a familiar pattern to make room for the new one. The new pattern is scary; it’s the unknown, after all. It sets our nerves to tingling just a bit.

So to be honest, I don’t expect that many of you actually set an intention to be happier, or tried looking ahead at your day before you got out of bed, imagining what it would feel like to be happy as you did each thing you expected to do. And that’s okay. The seed is planted.

I have a bigger seed for you this week. It’s one with a tougher shell. It goes by the unpopular name “Accountability.” But hold on—this isn’t the kind of accountability where you’re held responsible by some stern external authority. It’s a whole lot more inviting than that, and it’s what powers your intention to be happier. Here’s how happiness researchers Foster and Hicks describe it:

“The brand of accountability that happy people talk about . . . is a feeling that we are in charge of our own lives and that no one else has power over us. It’s honoring our right to craft a life for ourselves that is rewarding, rich and exuberant. It’s the assumption that no matter what life presents we have the ability to move ahead—to do something good for ourselves, to make a difference, to have an effect.”

Here’s what it means. Even under the most difficult circumstances, you refuse to see yourself as a victim. YOU are in charge of your life. You give up blaming other people or circumstances or events—past or present. You give up complaining that they are the cause of your misery or discontent. Instead, you forge ahead, taking whatever actions you can to improve the quality of your life, here and now. And that can be as easy as remembering to smile.

The tough shell that encases this power seed is the necessity to become aware of when you’re blaming someone or something else for your lack of happiness, or of blaming something that happened in the past. What happened in the past is passed. It’s not here now, except in the form of a repeated story that you tell yourself (and probably tell others) as a ‘reason’ why you’re limited and miserable.

Blame serves no purpose, Foster and Hicks point out. It doesn’t ever get us what we truly desire.

One way to overcome blaming is to ask yourself, “What was my part in it? How can I change things? What can I learn from this experience?”

Key times to look for a tendency to blame is when you’re becoming defensive, or when you’re feeling envy, or jealousy, or resentment. Questioning the part you played in the situation gives you the power to move through it authentically instead of getting mired in needing other people to be different than they are. Catch yourself wanting to put all the blame outside yourself and then ask, “Is this how I want to be? Is this really the response that’s going to solve things?”

Accountability is honoring your right to make choices, choices that align with your intention to be the most contented, capable, authentic person you are capable of being, choices for happiness.

I wish you a week of willingness to let go of defensiveness and blame and to embrace control of your responses to life in their stead.

You’ll deserve some fun as a reward, so next week we’ll hunt for the things that delight you.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Frauke Riether from Pixabay}

Here, in this transitory moment,
is everything you need to know.
The whole story. All the answers.
Take it in. Let it find its home in you.
Taste its flavors. Feel its song.
Know its peace.

Ask yourself:

What would it be like to feel contented in my life?
What would it be like to feel capable of dealing with whatever comes along?
What would it be like to feel centered and at home with myself, where I felt free to choose whatever would bring me the greatest sense of well-being?

Two weeks ago I invited you to create dramatically heightened happiness for yourself. If you decided to play along, those are the questions you might have considered. (You can still choose to ask them of yourself now, if you like. The option to choose happiness never goes away.) They’re important questions to consider. They’re the ones that begin drawing you in the direction of a freer, more joyful life.

Once you roll those questions around and decide you want to taste more of this contented-capable-centered stuff, you’re ready to begin claiming it for yourself. And the first step to staking your claim is to set your intention to be happy.

To set an intention is different from wanting or wishing for something. It’s not the same as setting a goal. An intention is a decision you make, sincerely, about how you want to expand your experience of life to include more happiness. It’s a commitment, a ruling-out of all other options. It’s saying to yourself, “I’m choosing more happiness for myself, and I’m going to have it, by gum!” (“By gum,” if you haven’t heard that expression before, is something like “dagnabit.” It’s a from-your-gut statement of unmovable determination.”)

But the firmness of your intention doesn’t mean it should be a struggle. In fact, the intention to be happy is more like letting go of stress and struggle, of sinking into the ease of contentment. It’s a matter of allowing yourself to make little moment-by-moment adjustments, little choices for your well-being, as you go throughout your day.

Dr. Joe Dispenza, who teaches people how to create dramatic changes in their lives, explains that your intention has vigor when you combine it with the feelings you expect it to produce. So take some time to recall and savor how it felt when you were completely content, when you felt self-assured, when you felt grounded. It’s the emotion of happiness, this combination of contentment, capability, and centeredness, that carries your vision of happiness into your reality.

Here’s what you do: In the morning, before you open your eyes, think about what it would feel like to be happy as you go through the day ahead, at ease in it. Imagine how the activities you have planned for the day would be done by a contented, confident, centered person.

Happiness researchers Foster and Hicks suggest that one way you can do this is to think about the things you have planned for the day (finishing the report, doing the laundry, making the commute—whatever) and then say to yourself, “I intend to get the laundry done-and to be happy doing it.” Add the phrase “and to be happy doing it” after each activity you imagine yourself doing through the day.

You’re making a mental movie here in the moments before your day begins, a little video of the day ahead where you star in it as a confident, relaxed you, content to be doing whatever task is at hand, open and accepting of whatever comes your way. Imagine feeling completely at ease and centered. Feel the feeling of it.

Then, pay attention to the emotions that arise during the day—stress, irritation, frustration, disappointment—that anchor you to your old way of being and decide if they belong in your future. Remember what the feelings from your morning movie were like and see if you can let yourself sort of sink into them, the way that you would sink into a warm, welcoming pool.

Dr. Dispenza, in his YouTube video on Intention, says to notice what you’re thinking/feeling, and to practice maintaining your future feelings (the happiness you intend for yourself) continuously in order to build the new neural connections in your brain. “What you practice, you get good at,” the old saying goes. Your happier new life is something you move into by practicing it – both mentally and in your behaviors.

One way to turn things around when you find that you’ve slipped into a negative mood is to ask yourself what’s good about the moment and see how many things you can name.

Watch for little signs that you’re on the right path. They’ll pop up like surprising little notes of joy. Notice when you experience more happiness and how good it feels. Notice smiles as they spread across your face. Catch yourself laughing. Then, when you’re making the next morning’s “Movie of My Day,” incorporate those feelings into it and dare to turn it up a notch higher.

Make it an intention to keep practicing, to stay aware. Once you start getting those bright, little joy-flashes, you’ll never settle for humdrum again.

Wishing you a week of gentle, joyful smiles!

Next week, we’ll look at what it takes to stay on track.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay}

It almost seems quaint now, living in a house that’s crammed with actual books. But that’s me. They’re in every room but the kitchen, and sometimes you’ll find a couple of them there, too.

Every now and then, one of them that I haven’t read in a decade or so kind of yells at me from its place on the shelf: “Hey! Hey! Over here!” And I pull it out and see what it has to say.

This week the one that called to me was How We Choose to be Happy, by Rick Foster and Greg Hicks, two guys who decided to see how happy people got that way and set out on a world-wide search. They interviewed hundreds of people and then studied the results. They knew going in that people have a sort of inborn set-point; some have happier genes than others. But what they found was that regardless of their normal level of happiness, everybody who made nine specific choices raised their happiness level far above the level where they started.

I figured it might be fun to share the nine choices that lead to dramatically increased happiness with you over the next few weeks, just in case you’re kind of bored with cruising at the same old level. We can make a game out of it. First I’ll tell you how to gauge how happy you are now and you can rate yourself on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is “My life sucks” and 10 is “Loving my life totally.” We’ll call that scale your “Happiness Quotient.” Then in, oh, maybe the middle of September, we’ll have a Happiness Review so you can see how far you’ve come. Deal?

Okay. Here’s a way to look at your happiness level. You can’t measure it if you’re not clear about what it is, right? That’s what Foster and Hicks figured out, too. So they asked happy people how they defined happiness. “What we heard was that true happiness is a profound, enduring feeling of contentment, capability and centeredness—the 3 C’s.”

They say that happiness is “a rich sense of well-being that comes from knowing you can deal productively and creatively with all that life offers—both the good and the bad. It’s knowing your internal self and responding to your real needs, rather than the demands of others. And it’s a deep sense of engagement—living in the moment and enjoying life’s bounty.”

That’s a complex definition, but as clear a one as I’ve ever found. So to begin, think about those three C’s. How deep and enduring are your feelings of contentment? How capable do you feel you are in dealing with whatever life brings? How anchored are you in your own real wants and needs, instead of those of others? Then give yourself a rating 1-10. Maybe print out this page and write your number on it. Or copy it to a file and start a little Happiness Journal.

As we go along, I’ll suggest some exercises and practices you can do to expand and deepen your experience of happiness. This week’s suggestion is simply to play along. Take a measure of your current happiness level so you will know where you were when you began.

The reward for playing is that by mid-September, you’ll be well on your way to the happiest YOU that you’ve ever been. Cool, huh?

Here’s a teaser for you: Next week, we’ll look at the first choice you’ll be invited to make—the choice of intending to be happy. Look at those three C’s again and play with that idea. Ask yourself whether you’re willing to set an intention to be happier. We’ll look at the why’s and how’s, and then you can choose.

Meanwhile, I wish you a week of curious anticipation!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Sad Emoji; Smiley Emoji}

Sometimes when I hear a thought or phrase that I like, I jot it down on a scrap of paper. One day I made a collage with some of the scraps, pasting them onto a finger-painted background. Usually I walk past it without glancing at it; it’s been on my office wall for a fairly long while. But one day I heard a poll that stunned me and called one of the thoughts to mind.

The poll asked Americans how often they felt afraid. To my astonishment, a little over 50% of the respondents said they felt afraid at least once a day—even when they were in their own homes.

It wasn’t so much that people were feeling anxious that surprised me. We are, it seems, being pummeled by threatening events, both natural and man-made, these days. Every day it’s something new and dire—floods, fires, erupting volcanoes, rampant inflation, violent crime, looming diseases, domestic contention, international unrest. If you pay attention at all, feeling some level of uneasiness is a given, however slight it might be.

What surprised me about the survey was how many of us said they felt outright fear at least once a day, and that they felt it even when they were secure in their own homes. Frankly, that alarmed me. The “fear porn” craze that’s beaming at us from every form of media is having a greater impact than I imagined.

“News,” of course, from whatever source, has always featured the most alarming or tragic events. It’s drama that sells. But these days the news seems darker than ever, as if some thick, ominous cloud was enveloping the world. A lot of us feel a kind of tension in the air, as if a dangerous storm is looming. And maybe it is. Life on this planet comes with storms.

We’re also living in a time of rapidly accelerating change. We hardly have time to learn how to operate our daily systems and tools before they need an upgrade. We’re constantly adjusting to something different, and that can be nerve-wracking in itself.

But you know what? Even if this stretch of the road is a mess and we seem to be going too fast, we’re alive. We’re alive, and we’re human beings. And that’s a lot. Humans are remarkable beings, after all, capable of amazing feats. We’re resilient and creative. We’re prone to kindness and hope. We’re inventive and resourceful. We persevere and endure. We have spirit and reason and beating hearts and pumping lungs and voices. And more than that, down deep, we love each other.

When the world’s moving too fast, slow down. Take in your surroundings. Chances are the things around you are pretty much the same as the last time you noticed them. Same scene, same people, same sky. And here you are, alive and breathing in the midst of it, right this very minute. Let yourself notice that. Think about all that had to have happened, exactly as they did, for you to be here at all, experiencing being human in a complex, ever-changing world. Then decide to make the best of it—no matter how paltry your best, from time to time, might seem. You matter, you know.

Oh, and that quote on my bulletin board? It says, “Alertness and paranoia are not the same thing. Be aware and at peace.” Personally, I think that’s good counsel.

Wishing you a week of peace and smooth going.

Warmly,
Susan

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay