Episode 595 – Presence is enough

• When life is challenging, its our tendency to escape –
  • To hide in bed,
  • In front of the TV
  • Maybe with a drink
• Or we furiously try to work out solutions to our issues
• Yet there is a simpler answer that doesn’t waste so much effort and time
• Its called presence
• Happy Thursday my friends
• How are you?
• If you’re in California, you are probably spending most of your time inside these days
• in addition to an invisible virus flying around, already inhibiting our free movement, we now also have unhealthy air, which is equally invisible, but maybe not as dangerous
• The sky was eerily orange on Wednesday – a truly apocalyptic day
  • It didn’t just feel like it, it also looked like it
• Since then it has just been hazy and grey
  • Its not a foggy kind of grey
  • It has some graininess to it – even though you cant see the dust particles flying around, you sense they are there just by the way the air looks
• The mornings and evenings have cooled off significantly
  • Only the afternoons get muggy and stuffy
• The heat wave is luckily over, now we just need the layer of haze to move out of the way so we can get some fresh air
• Despite all of this mess, I have walked every day
• As soon as I can see the houses in the hills behind my house, even if just in an outline, I go for an easy walk – the most basic form of movement for me and I need to at least maintain that
• On the weekends I have escaped wherever the map showed green – meaning clean air
• This took me as far as Mendocino one weekend and Oregon over the Labor Day weekend
• But now even Oregon is on fire
• When I look at the map of air quality, the entire state of CA and southern Oregon are in Red
• I would need another 3-day weekend to make a 5 hour trip east financially feasible
• Long story short
  • I, and most of us here, are stuck
  • Trapped, almost
• Just like when the pandemic started
  • When we had a shelter in place order, which we still have, but which I have sort of pushed in the back of my mind
  • Partially, because I have gotten used to being at home Monday thru Friday
  • But also because I have been able to escape on weekends
  • In nature, especially the remote places I go to, the virus is almost forgotten
  • I cross paths with only few people, and there is plenty of room to keep distance
• But lately, since the bad air has limited our options even further, I have begun to wonder yet again:
  • Just like at the beginning of this pandemic
• What am I here to face?
• What is it I need to pay attention to?
  • Obviously – something needs looking at, otherwise we wouldn’t be in this situation
• What am I missing by escaping or pretending everything is normal?

• I will take the surprise away by telling you that I haven’t come to a clear answer
• But by turning over this question again and again –
  • On my many masked walks, which are endurable because the mask makes the bad air more breathable
  • Or on the quiet and solitary afternoons in my apartment, where I am lost in thoughts
• I have become aware to my tendency to either ignore or to control
• As an example –
  • With my work, I do both, depending on the day
  • There are days when I work my butt off, meetings, emails, sometimes way into the night – pretending that this job will go on forever, and ignoring the reality
  • And then there I days when I get really anxious
  • In fact, for the last 2 weeks, I have opened every job alert email I get
  • I have spent hours on job websites search and even applying for a couple of random positions
  • Because i know eventually my job will be done, and  so I want to control the uncertainty by CYA – cover my rear
  • e. not be stranded
• I don’t know what is hardest for you in this time right now
  • Maybe for you it’s the loneliness, not being able to see your friends whenever you want
  • Maybe you are struggling in your relationship, as many people do these days
  • Maybe home life has become stressful – trying to school your children while working at the same time
    • On Wednesday on my morning walk, it was so dark because of the smoke that people had their lights on and I got a peek into some people’s homes
    • There was one house I passed and the view stuck in my mind
      • In one room there was a little girl sitting at her desk staring into a large monitor in front of her
      • And in the room across from hers was her mom, also in front of a computer and working
    • What a world I thought
    • A picture that says so much –
      • isolation, but at the same time also – independence
    • for me, the hardest part is the uncertainty, not knowing whats next – for me, for the world, my plans, my dreams –
    • As someone who has only taken calculated and fairly safe risks throughout her life
      • The uncertainty of our definitely not V-Shaped economic recession
      • The speculations around the vaccine and the virus in general
      • The future overall – climate, political, social – the outcome, whether its in the short term or years from now – is up in the air in so many areas
    • And this is my toughest obstacle to date
    • Never in my life have so many areas been in limbo – all at the same time
      • Will Oakland continue to have a police force that protects us or will we all soon be standing all on street corners trying to talk robbers out of robbing us?
      • Ok, I am exaggerating
      • But I have asked myself similar questions and these kind of questions I have never asked before
      • I admit it
      • I have taken life, my safety, my freedom in this country for granted
      • I have always appreciated it
      • This is why I moved here, after all
        • Just today my mom complained to me about all the paperwork she had to fill out to get Wifi service in her house
        • And how it still wasn’t working and how the technician couldn’t locate something to fix it and how she had to go there in person to talk to him
        • It exhausted me just listening to it and this is one of the main reasons I don’t want to live in Germany
        • Simple things are made overly complicated there
      • But now more than ever before – there is so much uncertainty
      • So many things are different, on pause, ambiguous, for a variety of reasons
        • I haven’t seen the girl I mentor and love for months
        • I haven’t climbed since July
        • I haven’t meet with my dinner meetup group
        • I have not been to the gym and
        • I haven’t hugged people
        • I have very little structure to my days
        • I sleep more than I have ever before
        • And I don’t know where I am heading
        • I somehow lost the big dreams I had before of speaking to thousands and changing their lives
        • Of traveling to remote places
        • And so much more
        • All gone
        • All unclear
      • So – I have been asking myself – what is there to do?
      • In the midst of all of this uncertainty
      • With dreams and plans and people gone
      • What is left?
      • And I find an answer in the word Presence
      • With nowhere to go
      • Without the usual to-dos and time constraints
      • I am finding myself more present with myself and with others
      • Before, undoubtedly, I got more done in a day
        • I was showered, dressed, hair and basic make-up done in my car on the way to work by 7.30am in the morning
          • Now, I often don’t get out of bed until 7
          • I wash my hair only every other day and I style it only if I have an important meeting where I need to turn video on
          • And makeup – I have used a lipstick a couple of times since March only to realize later the futility of it as my lips are not visible behind a mask
            • Makes me wonder if lipstick sales are going to see a major decline
            • But I digress
          • By 5.30pm I was in the gym
          • By 7.30pm I sat down for a light dinner while working on this podcast
          • By 10pm I was in bed
        • I was productive
        • But was I really?
        • I never had time to read the books I productively ordered and picked up and then dropped off again unread at the library once a month
        • I never took time to call my mom and actually talk to her
          • I dialed the number every few weeks when I remembered and mostly listened
          • But I didn’t really pay attention because I was either in the car or standing in front of the gym just wanting to get it over with so I can move on with my day
          • And I never shared much about my life with her
        • I rarely had time to honor my friends’s requests to meet for a walk or coffee
        • The few plants in my apartment had to live with only random watering
          • The herbs I planted every spring so enthusiastically never made it past a month because I didn’t take the time to figure out what individual care each plant needed
        • I could go on
        • I may not see groups of people for dinner anymore
        • I may not meet a lot of new people either
        • But I have deepened the friendships I already have
        • I have become more present
          • With my friends
          • My plants
          • My apartment
          • My other interests
          • And myself overall
        • Certainly not with everything, but with many parts of my life that I have previously not paid much attention to and that also matter to me
        • What does this have to do with the uncertainty I am experiencing – you may wonder now
        • Everything – I realized, as I began to reflect
        • Because my presence with my herbs, my orchids, my yoga mat, my homemade yogurt, people I run into or schedule walks with,
        • This is the same presence needed with the parts of my life that are uncertain
        • Last week, I tested it out
        • I didn’t open a single job alert email
        • I didn’t surf job websites
        • I didn’t ignore the facts, I just let them simmer
        • I am not telling you that some magic answer suddenly came to me
        • But I have to say it felt good to let the uncertainty just be
        • Instead of just running around and blindly screaming for help
        • I sat still
        • This allowed me to observe and ask questions
          • What do I even want to do in the future?
          • Maybe I want to take a break for a while, go home see my mom or travel?
          • Maybe my current job morphs into something else – I don’t know that
          • Or maybe an opportunity pops up later that is much better than any job I so anxiously grasp for right now
        • What I am saying is that there is a middle path
        • Which doesn’t involve controlling and running for safety or ignoring and turning a blind eye
        • And that is presence
        • Simply sitting with the reality
          • Staying alert
          • Asking questions
          • Looking within to see what really matters to me
        • Presence doesn’t mean it has to be productive
        • It is being attentive
        • And waiting
        • Sometimes the ideas come to me right away
        • And other times, they take longer
        • But in between, rather than fretting – I had even moments of slight joy
        • What if this is good – I have asked myself a few times?
        • How many times have I said to my friends and my mom – my job is great, I love what I do, if I just didn’t have this commute?
          • For the last 6 months, I haven’t commuted
        • 6 months working from home
        • Before I was elated when I could work from home on a random Friday
        • My point is
        • There is good here, and there may be more good in the future
        • And maybe, by sitting with it
        • Even when its bad – we may see more of the good
        • We may understand the bad a bit better
        • We may get more clarity on how to move forward
        • Presence is enough right now, in this challenging time
        • Lets start with that

Much love