As I see people talking about mass meditations, and the importance of focusing the mind only toward that which we desire, I am once more cringing. This kind of manifestation-mind thinking can be so harmful. While it’s good to look within ourselves and make wise choices about where we focus our thoughts, pushing away anything other than “positive” thinking is ultimately escapist. Not only that, it also leads us *away* from this vulnerable shared human experience we are all living right now. When we push aside a whole swath of human experience ~ both our own, and that of others ~ we harden ourselves against the reality of suffering, and actually become *less compassionate and loving* than if we simply allowed the reality to be here, exactly as it is. People are suffering and dying from this sickness. People are losing loved ones, and not being able to have the kind of closure they would hope for. People are working like crazy to keep sick people alive, and to provide for the needs of the people, and risking their own health in the process. People are uncertain about how they will survive as their financial circumstances crumble. There is so much that can make us uncomfortable right now, and anything that takes us *away* from that reality is likely a fear response itself.
And so, my invitation to you is to sit in the discomfort, and let yourself feel it in your body. Feel the things that make you afraid without trying to push them aside. Let grief fill your heart. Be with the uncertainty. For these things are the actual reality of life, currently amplified to make us more aware. There is nothing to *do* with any of them. They are not wrong. They are the very life experiences that cultivate us into more compassionate, more kind, and more loving beings.
