Lately, the news has been a downer. But my goal has been simple: make a positive impact on people and society, and put my yoga into action. Even with all that’s troubling, there is still much to celebrate.
Just last week, I:
- Rallied at the Capitol for the Minnesota Equal Rights Amendment with my oldest kid and other Unitarian Universalists
- Marked another trip around the sun with family, friends, and colleagues
- Joined other UUs in frigid temperatures in The People’s March to the Capitol
- Drove in a car caravan to the Capitol (my 3rd time there in 7 days) with my youngest kid to fight for MLK’s dream
- Got the amazing news that my oldest child was accepted into a PhD program, with free tuition and a job for the whole program
Being around other people who stand on the side of love and hope helped uplift my spirit.
And yet, fear still creeps in.
Every year, Side with Love holds an event called “30 Days of Love.” This year’s theme is “Inhabiting Our Freedom Dreams,” and one phrase stood out: “We are the antidote to our fear.”
We all know fear isn’t helpful. But even in times of joy, we are often haunted by regrets from the past and worries about the future. It’s part of being human.
For me, yoga and meditation are the antidote. These practices help me connect with my heart and remember the joy that’s always there, beneath the surface.
It’s tempting to want to get rid of fear. We encounter a news story that tugs at the heart and try our best to forget about it. We distract ourselves by endlessly scrolling for more stories or indulging in nervous habits. We reach for food, alcohol, or whatever else numbs the pain.
But banishing fear is not the practice. Rather, we practice noticing fear and the stories we tell ourselves around it. We can consider the legitimacy of the facts that triggered fear. We take a centering breath and pause to notice how fear shows up in the physical body. Perhaps we draw on our meditation practice to find perspective. We make choices based on our yogic values like nonviolence and compassion for all beings.
The meditation teacher Ajahn Chah offers a simple question: “Is that so?” When we dig deeper, we realize that everything in life is impermanent—our thoughts, our feelings, our possessions, even our relationships. Everything, including fear, comes and goes.
So, as life changes, we can choose to be part of the movement for social, political, and environmental change. We can discover our Beautiful Solutions. We can choose hope. We can choose love. We can be the antidote to our fear.
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