Flooding at a shopping center in Chapel Hill on Sunday, July 6, 2025. (Photo by Joe Nanney via Chapelboro.com)

Wow. These days there are so many opportunities to practice coming home. I breathe and pay attention to what is happening right now. And somehow, I find myself at ease again.

Until another event or trigger comes along. And I am again feeling anxious and/or afraid. I am back on the wild frenetic part of the rollercoaster. 🎢I

And again, I find my breath. I sit with others and just breathe. Noting what is here.

This is weight lifting for the spirit. for the heart. for the mind. And I am doing it, it seems, all day, everyday.

On the one hand, I wouldn’t mind if I were living in less disruptive times. On the other, I am building a lot of resilience ! 😛 I can feel my expanding capacity to ride these rougher waves.

Here are some teachings from Pema Chodron (as shared In a recent talk given by David Chernikoff) that help me to find ballast during the challenging times we are living in. If you are feeling confused, anxious and/or sad on a regular basis, you are not alone.

Three intentions that can help keep our life rafts afloat.🛟

• cause no harm (to self or others) ♥️
  • take care of one another 💜
• embrace the world just as it is 🤓 (as water flowing – see Waterfalls blog post 8/20/25)

First, do no harm. This practice nourishes us no matter where we start. If we start by being kind to ourselves, it translates to kindness to others. When I practice thinking well of others, I find I am kinder to myself. It’s the same muscle. ♥️

Next, let’s take care of one another. We are all connected. Starting with our families and friends, out to our communities, larger and larger concentric circles, till we are at the outside circle including all of us. 💜

We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. — Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.

Finally, see things as they are. 🤓 This is where our mindfulness practice comes in. Radical acceptance. Allowing ourselves to really see what is happening, gaining more and more capacity to open our eyes and hearts to what is. And then choosing wise action based on our clear seeing.

Tropical storm Chantal

Chernikoff says that if we are feeling stymied or confused, we are not alone. We need not be overwhelmed or “go down a rabbit hole of despair or cynicism.” We can choose to see the world as “curriculum for spiritual awakening” and make use of guidelines like these.

“Life is water flowing through our hands.” explains David Chernikoff in a recent talk.

In this talk, Chernikoff talks about understanding life as a process. The experience of being alive is one of flow and constant change and transition.

One of the greatest sources of suffering is our resistance to change. Somehow the usual workings of our minds think of the world as static. Right now I am surrounded by trees, greens of all shades, and I can toggle between seeing this visual feast as a still photograph, a wall of unchanging green-ness OR a flowing, changing panorama of slow-medium-fast movements and change.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you SEE.” — Henry David Thoreau.

Chernikoff quotes the nature photographer, Eric Stensland:

“Life is a lot like standing under a waterfall. Each moment comes at us so quickly and then before we even realize it, it’s gone…We can’t stop, hold or control any of these drops that fall into our lives.

Perhaps maturity is learning to open our hands in welcome, choosing to relish the way each moment of life washes over us, at peace with the knowledge that what life brings is outside of our control. The only control we have is how we choose to respond to it.

Much like a waterfall, when we step back and look at the whole of it, we realize this fleeting life is exquisitely beautiful.”

Yes.

For me, having a living mindfulness practice helps me cultivate appreciation for this exquisite, sacred life. I have been in beautiful places where I have missed the experience because of a busy mind. I have been in situations where things are terribly difficult and my reactions make them worse.

Practicing mindfulness on a regular basis, and in community, creates the conditions for me to show up for life, and to connect and engage with kind compassion.