Making sense within chaos

At some point this week, did you imagine that you're bad at making sense within chaos right now? Did you imagine that you don't belong here? Or imagine that you don't know exactly who to trust or who you are? Or if you're in or near the U.S., did you maybe imagine that you weren't built for this entirely upside down, cruelty-centered, unelected-billionaires-own-the-federal-government-and-cowardly-people-bow-and-cheer-and-protect-them world? Or maybe did you worry that your life or identity or money or family or rights would be taken by the cowards being given access to all our private data now– to do with as their tiny, sad, and greedy little hearts please?

Same, friend. Same.

I know this feeling. It's the feeling of trying to single-handedly hold all the emotions and worries that attend being intentionally, and cruelly, thrown off balance by a handful of angry, vengeful, ridiculously wealthy people who apparently want ALL of us so far down and so shaken that we won't even bother trying to stand up to them anymore.

It's like they've never felt the embrace of well-loved and loving humans or seen what loving humans are capable of when we work together.

And, argh! I'm such a fool! It's like I forgot for a moment that I have. I forgot that I am utterly surrounded by well-loved and loving beings. Willing to work together to support and save everyone and everything we love.

So, yes, that was me this week. Believing the fools. Feeling their fears. Not the whole week. But enough of the week that I needed to take one full day on the couch doing absolutely nothing beyond reading a mystery, playing with the dog and cats, talking to my sweet partner, and crying. I had to talk through my fears with trusted others and surface the most outlandish ones to remember who, in fact, was running things. And then allow the tears to wash their fears away.

We run things. Us.

We, the people. We, the earthlings. We, the loving. We, the learning. We, the not-so-abused-and-abusing-that-we-have-to-be-groveling-and-greedy-and-cruel-with-everyone. We, the not alone.

And Mama Earth herself, of course. Nobody's happy if Mama's not happy.

I've had enough of their clueless, violent, fear-centered nonsense. And enough of my own.

The thing about human beings is– and maybe particularly human beings who've been loved and those who have struggled and worked for a living and those who have bravely stood up for both themselves and others countless times all while NOT having millions and billions of dollars handed to us across our whole lives– is that we're actually built for chaos.

We
are built
for chaos.

I've never been a one-daily-mantra kind of gal, because I love infinite variety, but I'm in love with this one this week.

We are built for chaos.

The more chaos you throw at loving beings, the closer we get to each other. And wow are we growing closer to a lot of other humans right now. Across the past 4 weeks alone– while feeling off balance and scared and often hopeless as an individual– I've joined one local support group, started another local creator's group, started following/supporting half a dozen organizations I love but wasn't fully present for before, and I've grown considerably closer to my immediate family members. I also held and supported my husband as he managed the tail end of a 3-month-long, medication-related health crisis. Oh, and I prioritized my own sanity and health and well-being too. If not first each day, then at least quickly second, in hindsight. All with zero guilt.

Boom. New level unlocked!

All sensitive human beings of earth are being released from our guilt and shame now. Can you feel it yet?

Released from the old ways of being silenced, separated, isolated, and abused. Ways we were born into. Ways we practiced even as we sought to escape them. That shit had to/has to go. And watching it go is, well, it's glorious. And horrifying. And glorious, too. In every moment you aren't weeping or helping neighbors running from ICE or raising funds for those in most need or rage calling your representatives or protesting in the streets or screaming at your screen or creating stronger, more open and honest and trusting communities and organizations and families, that is.

Have you noticed yet?
The call to be your real self?
The call to drop all remaining cultural BS that weighs you down?
The call to look around and notice that everyone else is doing the same now?
The call to lean on each other far more than we used to?

We were built for chaos

You'll need to gather context-sensitive tips from people as you move from place-to-place navigating chaos, both in person and online, because local people and conditions and levels of trust and community wisdom and flexibility and humor and feelings of personal safety vary widely. This has always been true. This is nothing new. You already do this.

And remember, anything is possible. Still. Maybe even more than ever. In fact, it's possible that you may actually be safer now than you ever have been, because more and more people are aware of how much we need each other, and how our differences actually make us stronger together, and what a bunch of colossal dickheads the billionaire class are– trying to play all of us like puppets and run a gorgeous planet full of always connected, always uppity, always creative humans from their ridiculous private jets, yachts, dumpster-fire trucks, and gold toilets.

Here are some general tips for making sense within chaos. Pick one today, try another one tomorrow, create and document your own as you can:

• Practice finding your center for the day. You have one item on your daily to-do list that matters most when you're feeling way off balance. Find your center for the day. Just for the day. Breathe from that center. Move from that center. Rest in that center. Return to that center before you go to sleep at night. On your worst days, you may need to recenter every few minutes or every hour. When you feel better or back on balance, continue.
• Practice noticing who and what you and your people care most about and then focusing there. It's never been your job to fix everything. It still isn't. Nothing has ever been fully fixed, or perfect, or run by total geniuses here before. It's definitely not fixed and far from perfect now. This likely feels much, much worse to you and to people you love right now– beyond our real losses– because the people receiving all the attention right now are so fully centered on abuse, on cruelty, on spreading fear, on stealing from good people, and on causing others to hurt as much as they're hurting, or more. And because they have a huge stage, it's sucking us all in. So, pay attention to your feelings. Practice separating their feelings from your feelings, then rest, and then move forward centered on your own feelings and the feelings of your people. Empathic folks across all cultures have a lot of experience at this one. When you're feeling love or kindness or generosity, you're spreading love, kindness, generosity. When you're feeling fear, you're spreading fear. Feeling rage, spreading rage. None of this is bad as long as you are aware of what you're spreading into the world at the moment, and why. And you're aware of whose choice it is to be spreading these feelings today. Whose ways of being are you focused on? Whose emotions are you spreading? This practice can help you find your center for the year. Or for the next 5 years, or the next decade, or for your lifetime, or for your people's lifetime on earth and beyond– you do you.
• Practice centering on one of the eternals– on the things that last across time and persist across human experience. For example, love, friendship, companionship, laughter, neighbors helping neighbors, women helping women, wonder, curiosity, surprise and delight, creativity, music making, playfulness, art making, cooking, gardening/farming/foraging, food preservation, self-reinvention, resting in the beauty of the natural world, storytelling, meaning making, and cats somehow always quietly ruling the town or the internet. Notice when you're centering on an eternal and shift toward doing more of this, with others, including strangers, every chance you get. Groups that focus on what lasts across time and human experience, last. Groups that focus on what doesn't last, don't last. Groups that focus on what lasts across time and human experience also tend to end up connected to others around the globe focusing on the same thing but from different angles and perspectives. Isn't that amazing? And hey, have you ever witnessed the last gasps of all the people still determined to focus on hatred and abuse and cruelly hurting others on planet earth? Yes, we have. This isn't their beginning. That's our fear talking. This is their end. There are fewer than 3,000 human beings left on Earth who can afford to fully focus on that. As we step toward, into, and through our fears together, the need for them (our fears and billionaires as a class above us) to protect us dissipates.
• Try letting go of what wasn't supposed to last. As the coolest of women and kids and elders and nonbinary folks always eventually say, or sing, let it go. Let go of what wasn't supposed to last. I am in no way saying that this is easy. This often totally fracking sucks and is scary as hell and it can feel like completely shattering or burning to ash in the process. I am saying that you/we can do really hard things, that totally fracking suck and are scary as hell, including letting go of what was not supposed to last forever. I spent the last 6 years building my grandmother's dream into small business I adore, for example. This year, it's clear to me that that's not where I'm needed most anymore. It's not where my bravest self even lives anymore. My bravest self is here. Right now. With you. So, for the benefit of everyone and everything I love, I have to let it go. Singing the Let it Go song helps quite a bit, too, I've found. Unless you're a parent so far beyond tired of singing the damn song on repeat that you can't see straight. ;-)
• Spend more time with people who naturally help you trust yourself and expand your trust in others while you naturally do the same for them. This can be people you naturally love and trust and people who stretch you without being cruel or expecting you to give up trusting yourself and your people entirely. If untrustworthy billionaires take over your government, I suspect one of the simplest ways to overcome them is to spread trust. Spend time with those you trust, spend time with those teaching you to trust yourself even more than your own people can, spread your trust to others, and watch and notice as families and communities and regions and countries and even strangers overlap to build and strengthen trust networks. In the U.S., when you have the time and energy, watch what people in other countries are doing right now to build and spread trust globally. It's beautiful. And so painful. But mostly beautiful.
• When people are panicking and they aren't helping you at all– either in person or online– try spending more time with beings remarkably unconcerned about what you're worried about right now. For example, spend time in city parks. Spend time with nearby trees and birds, with forests, rivers, lakes, and oceans. Touch moss or sand or sea water. Notice the eyelashes on that caterpillar. Spend time, in person, with kittens and puppies who've lived for just a few weeks, or with elders in memory care facilities, or with children too young to be online or watching news, or with hungry people who just need a meal and a safe place to sleep. Spend time in libraries, reading books, listening to music, watching old movies, admiring art, cooking family recipes, or shutting your eyes, opening your window, and listening to the sounds of the whole neighborhood. It's amazing what grounding and a deepening shift in our breathing can do.
• Extend the edges of yourself by moving your body more, demanding more stillness, or by helping your neighbors feel safer today. Here we've noticed that we're less anxious, worried, and/or depressed when we're out walking our dog or hiking or beachcombing together, when we're dancing and singing in the kitchen, when we're visiting my parents and helping within their community, and pretty much whenever we show up in person to spend time with neighbors whether that's a potluck or a movie night or a support group or a protest or a birthday party. We're also less worried and anxious when we don't move through our day as stressed-out individuals, day after day. When we park ourselves together on the couch– demanding more stillness– and talk about what we're feeling or play a game or even read books side by side. Reconnecting to larger selves. When you feel like the human world is throwing chaos at you faster than you can deal with it, or when you are a direct target of the billionaire class that's trying to shift blame away from themselves and their policies and onto you as a scapegoat, then moving your body at all– and risking being seen– can be, and feel, terrifying. When you're lucky enough to feel physically safe at the moment, try inviting someone who doesn't feel safe over for tea or lunch or a walk. Or bring them something to eat, or flowers. Do you know which of your neighbors feels unsafe today? Not just your people but your neighbors. If you do, and you help them feel safer, then you have taken back all the power you need to help stop every trick in the billionaire's People Are Puppets to be Controlled play book.
• Practice gratitude. I recently spent 16 months watching friends in Gaza survive daily horrors beyond all imagination. Worse than any reality I've witnessed or imagined or any horror movie– by a long shot– I've ever seen. They taught me, in ways my own people fully couldn't, what it means to be grateful for life. Grateful just to be living. Just to be breathing. Just to be near neighbors, strangers, anyone, doing the same. I've watched people certain they would be dead before morning turn on their phones, look into the camera, and say between tears: "Love your life. Love your life. That's all we want for you. Love your life." Witnessing that tender, horrifying moment humbled me and my people out at least 10 generations, I'm sure. Millions of us watched that. So. We can be grateful, loving, and generous right here, right now. If they can do it, friends– with hundreds of thousands of their people and children murdered and literally all their cities and 93% of their homes turned to rubble and dust and yet keep striving to make all children laugh and make the unjust world a better place– then so can we. I've been watching and learning from the best and brightest of Mama Earth, for decades now. So have you. And because we've looked straight at atrocities and called them what they are, we have also seen the joy, generosity, radiance, and resilience of the human spirit too. We are humble, we are grateful, and most days we cannot believe how lucky we are to get to live on this beautiful earth and among these wonderful people and at this painful, scary time when all our feelings of connection are overtaking and surrounding all our feelings of disconnection. Hang on. One day we will be grateful for this, too. Or our people will be.

In conclusion

Everything I just wrote was made possible this week by me simply sharing my fears and pain with the people I love. By leaning on family and community. Just four short days ago, in tears, I said to my partner when he woke up in the morning next to me: "I envy the dead. I envy their peace. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take." We cancelled plans and spent that entire day on the couch. Talking. Resting. Falling in love with the world again. And with each other again. Reenergizing. Remembering. Remembering just how grateful we are for where we are and who we're with.

We were built for chaos. We are earthlings who belong here.

We are held up and held together by mycelium in the soil and gut microbiomes within us and stars in the sky and by countless things we can't see or know and by everything we can see and know. We don't have to let violent, angry, and threatening men steal our focus or make us doubt our true nature anymore. Or doubt humanity's true nature, either. Because we are never alone here, and our true loving nature never leaves us.

We can remember that. Together we will remember, and together we will teach those who– even with all the money in the world and with all their cowering minions in tow– have never been able to feel, or believe, or know in their bodies that they are not alone in this world.

All violence coming from within stops the very moment people feel– know in their bodies– that they are seen and loved and not alone. It can happen within the blink of an eye. I've seen it. This works. Pass it on.