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Commit to Being Calm and Connected

August 28, 2020 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Can you feel it in the air? The fall is upon us as the light changes and the temperature shifts. Every year I welcome the change of season and the academic calendar as I’m a lifelong student at heart. It’s also a time of unrest and discord and I know many are feeling a bit jittery (and that may be an understatement). The uncertainty with the pandemic has passed the point of exhaustion. If you have brain fog, just know you are not alone. We can only cognitively process so much and be on alert so long before our bodies are shouting “Overload!”

I’ve been thinking about the time I spent writing The Kindness Cure back in 2016-2017, when I felt so frustrated with the world and concerned about the future my daughters might have as they approach adulthood. “What happened to kindness?” I asked. I could write that whole book over again only to change the introduction and switch the circumstances of the cultural moment: School mass shootings to violence against people of color; devastating hurricanes to the COVID19 pandemic. And all along the fires are still raging. Political unrest persists. What to do?!

So I find myself being even more committed to practicing calming skills and finding ways to ease the stress cortisol flooding my system. Every day I do Donna Eden’s Daily Energy Routine at least twice, try to take a walk outside, and find some time for a virtual yoga class outside of work hours. It is a commitment. I can’t always keep it. But when I do, I find myself better able to be present for others.

On a recent walk with a dear friend, she described the emotional pain of having to tell someone that they could no longer be friends. They have opposing political views. But that was not the crux of the issue. It was that this friend was shockingly rude and disrespectful, resorting to blaming and name calling, mostly on social media or text. Tried as she might to engage in compassionate listening and find any common ground, it was for naught. I could feel the grief in her quavering voice. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is to set a personal boundary. Being clear is being kind, as Brené Brown would say. Yet, context matters. Most of us have lived long enough to know how painful it can be to walk away from a relationship. It doesn’t mean giving up a good fight for one’s beliefs, but it’s an invitation to redirect your attention and energy in more productive ways.

We can’t help getting tribal. We are wired for it. It’s how humans have survived hardships. Bonding together was protection from the elements, predators, and invaders. Yet now, with so many shared spaces, especially online, we find ourselves fighting over everything. (It’s harder to be mean when face-to-face.) Scientists who study social behaviors, suggest that one way of bridging divides is to engage in moral reframing. This is what my friend tried to some extent. That means trying to understand the other person’s values first. Greater Good Science Center offer a nice Bridging Differences Playbook, drawn from evidence-based strategies. A favorite of mine is Non-Violent Communication (NVC), a method from the late Marshall Rosenberg, which I describe in a chapter called Radical Acceptance (see excerpt). There is also a lovely book, Say What You Mean, A Mindful Approach to Non-Violent Communication, by Oren Jay Sofer. Gosh, with the election coming up followed by Thanksgiving, who won’t be confronted with having hard conversations. We could all learn these skills. For example, starting with an affirmation, building trust, and using phrases like, “The way I see it is [this].” And connecting through your own story or experience. This A-B-C method stands for Affirm, Bridge, Connect. It’s a handy acronym.

In a year of disruption, may you find some measure of ease and kindness. Start with being kind to yourself and then practice the A-B-Cs and NVC. There’s plenty of opportunities!

#VOTEKINDNESS and sign a People’s Pledge: Check out cool t-shirts, face masks and yard signs.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Little Wake Up Calls Everywhere

June 26, 2020 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

If there is anything I am learning to practice in a pandemic it is patience. For weeks I have been waiting to get my copy of Ruth King’s book, Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out. I was glad it was back-ordered. People are paying attention to racial issues and want to learn more. I realize that I made a mistake, though. I regret that I bought the book through Amazon. I had not yet posted a link of independently-owned black owned bookstores (which you can find here). The book was a thoughtful yet impulsive purchase, meaning it had been on my wish list for at least a year and popped up due to algorithms beneath my awareness. I had listened to Ruth King’s meditations and wanted to learn more.

And now it was time to order it with a click on a touchpad. The automaticity of it all. Mind you I have been reading other works, Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, Waking Up White by Debby Irving and I listened to White Fragility by Robin DeAngelo. Not that I’m scoring points here, just that it takes time to self-educate. This reading endeavor is part of a concerted effort on my own and inspired by my mindfulness teachers. The effort is also being addressed where I work: at an Ivy league counseling center that remains predominantly white, while the student body is blessedly diverse. This persistent imbalance at most institutions is uncomfortable. As mental providers we are (and have been) grappling with systemic racism and are committed to change. It takes time. Too much time. After George Floyd’s murder, a black colleague whose practice is overburdened with students of color experiencing recent traumatic stressors said, “I’m just so tired. I have no words.”

It’s hard to know what to say sometimes. Yet, her white colleagues need to step up and speak up as a group to affect group change. The systems must change. It’s been too long. Yet, people are coming out of hiding and into the streets. It’s a start.

Collective silence of white people is often used, knowingly or unknowingly to maintain privileges in an unacknowledged but understood culture club. In such instances, silence is a way in which white privilege is exercised.
Ruth King

There are other small reminders of the automaticity of thoughts and reactions which the dual pandemics illuminate on a daily basis. Admittedly, I can be victim to the neural wiring of a human brain to make fast easy choices and overreact to innocuous things or be unaware of biases. While sheltering in place my family regularly eats meals together now that we’re no longer over-scheduled with striving, athletics and achievement. At dinner one evening my husband said, “Tara, you aren’t going to like this.”

“What?” I asked

“Anthropologie,” he answered, passing the ketchup.

“It’s closing down? Bankrupt?” I had the horrified look one might get when their drug dealer skips town.

“Well, we know where your priorities are,” he quipped.

“Mom, Anthropologie is on this list of retailers pegged with racial profiling,” reported Sophie.

I paused for a long moment. I had to digest this information. I’m not glued to Instagram like my girls. Finally I said, “That is so disappointing.”

There are two times of the year, my birthday and Christmas, which are evenly spread apart, when the only material thing I ask for is a gift card to this particular women’s clothing and home goods store. The sale rack is my favorite indulgence. I haven’t stepped into the store in six months and I don’t shop online because the therapeutic fix is trying on the willowing pants or soft wraps or handling a sweet vase or dish for tea candles. The fragrances and bobbles are a delight. It’s always a sensorial, embodied experience. A simple yet potent pleasure dousing my brain with dopamine. Sometimes I even fantasize about being a window dressing intern if I didn’t actually have to earn a living; and I imagine taking up space in the magical displays with their impeccable designs. The catalogues are always a visual feast. When I’m overworked or feeling down I just like to visit the home section, sit on a chartreuse velvet sofa and meditate for 5 minutes. Breathing in peace, breathing out calm. I know. Crazy. Crazy privileged white lady.

Common to all of us is the fact that we don’t see the world as it is but how we have been conditioned to see it. The delusion we carry is that everyone sees—or should see—the world as we do. What we see and don’t see has consequences. In general, white people do not see race unless they feel threatened or until someone brings it to their attention.
Ruth King

This retailer news got my attention. A feeling of fatigue arose as if waking up after a hangover. I eventually sighed to my family, “It seems that there are teachable moments for all of us these days.” Teachable moments for white people about accepting racial group identity, white privilege and the system that supports white supremacy.

Little wake up calls everywhere.

Moment after moment. Some heavy, some light. Some grave, some affirming. I hope this retail corporation steps up and addresses their values and responsibility — and until they do I will no longer shop there. And just like that my Anthro craving evaporated. Poof.

May I remain peaceful and let go of fixation.
May I see my limits with compassion, just as I see the limits of others.
May I be free from preference and prejudice.
May I bear witness to things just as they are.
May I see the world with patient eyes.
Ruth King

Then something delightful happened. In my email inbox I received a note from a person named Kyle: “I just launched FiveFifths , the largest list of black-owned restaurants and online businesses on the internet.” The tagline: All Things Black Business. There is a series of Black Lists: Clothing. Restaurants. Beauty. Hair.

Goodbye Anthro.

Kyle must have googled for anyone posting black owned this-and-that and landed on a web page I created called Share the Love 2020. So I clicked on his link and went right to the About Us. There are three young entrepreneurs: two black college grads and one white guy. We are all Five Fifths: equal humans, equal respect, equal opportunities.

I fell in love at first sight with these co-founders and their mission. “Of course I will add this to my growing list of resources,” I replied (as if I have some big following, jeez louise.)

Last night after finding my Mindful of Race book on my doorstep I stayed up until 2am reading Ruth King’s pointed yet patient and kind teaching about structural racism. I found myself underlining and making stars here and there. I thought about Kyle and karma. I was annoyed that I purchased King’s book from a behemoth corporation taking over global consumerism instead of a black mom and pop shop. Yet, I’m glad her book sales have gone up. She is a wise teacher who calls us to attention.

Ruth King calls racism a heart disease (and it is curable). Her invitation to me and you is this:

Some of us do not acknowledge that we are racial beings within the human race, nor do we recognize how or understand why our instinct as members of racial groups is to fear, hurt, or harm other races, including our own. And we don’t know how to face into and own what we have co-created as humans. But each of us can and must ask ourselves two questions:
Why are matters of race still of concern across the nation and throughout the world?
And what does this have to do with me?

Learn more about Ruth King and her workshops, Mindful of Race: https://ruthking.net/

Check out the black business listings by Kyle Umemba, Andre Joseph and Cam Woodsum at FiveFifths.co, who state: “The reality of our history means that certain groups and people have been overlooked, overshadowed, forgotten and restrained because of factors out of their control. Our objective at Five Fifths is to uplift those very people and to highlight the many great things being done by members of those communities today.”

Unblocked: Seeing Clearly Our Structural Racism

June 5, 2020 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

A reflection

In a world with two pandemics raging side by side and which are inescapably intertwined, we can’t help but see the social, racial, and health disparities. In our neighborhoods we see circles of compassion beginning to widen.

June 5, 2020. Journal entry.

It’s hard to know what rush hour is these days when the world has slowed down. Around 5:45pm on a Thursday we parked the old cracked silver Prius on the corner of Ferncroft and Norman, just west of Blue Hill Avenue, where we were headed. My husband Steve and I were carrying the cardboard signs our daughters had created and used on the prior Tuesday at another peaceful protest at Franklin Park. That night I held my breath for several hours as my own implicit biases and fears ignited about the danger of being in large crowds. Sophie and Josie shared their location by cell phone without my not even asking. In fact, I have never tracked my kids like other parents often do. Now they are young women and quite clear about the dangers in the world. It may be too many episodes of Crime Junkies or My Favorite Murder, but nevertheless, I appreciated the gesture.

On this June evening, it was just white mom and dad with face masks and posters congregating peacefully with others on the Blue Hill Parkway meridian connecting Milton and Mattapan, suburb of the city. As we walked through a neighborhood, people were piling into the streets, with their children in strollers, and middle schoolers on bikes as if this were a Fourth of July parade or an opening scene out of some romantic comedy.

A parent we know from the former track team days was a community captain with her bike in hand, wearing a black shirt, shorts, and a helmet. She explained to those of us on this patch of earth that at 6:15pm people at the Canton Avenue end would take a knee and others would then follow suit. “Like a human wave?” I asked. She nodded and diligently headed on to the next socially distanced cluster. Across the street stood a group of three Asian American teens in midriff tees and cell phones as their grandmother observed from the front porch with folded arms. Their signs: Defund the Police | Black Lives Matter |Do Justice, Love Kindness, Walk Humbly with God #BLM.

Cars in both directions were making their way, honking their horns, holding out their phones videoing the scene. There are many black people in this neighborhood, as were those passing through this stretch in their cars. This diversity has always made me grateful in raising my kids, even though it frustrated me to no end that the blacks kids walked to the high school, while many white kids drove in with their cars at the other side of the campus.

One car passed by with two girls sitting on the sun roof holding a sign, Different Name, Same Crime. I saw a blue Amazon Prime delivery van make a right out of a side street. The driver, a young black woman with sunglasses and braids, did not know what she was getting into. Surprised, she slowly raised her hand to her mouth and started to cry. I saw her about 3 minutes later come from the other direction talking excitedly into her phone to someone describing the scene with her one hand on the steering wheel. Next to us was a man and his daughter, about 4 years old. She was holding up a rainbow lettered sign, My Life Matters.

After some time the crowds began to drop to their knees and all became quiet except for the cars with the unsuspecting drivers who honked as they passed on either side. 8 minutes 46 seconds. George Floyd’s last minutes.

One man driving along peered out his window, looking us in the eye as he slowed down. He kept nodding to people and saying Thank you Thank you. My mask hid my tears. When the long minutes of silence were over people slowly got up and dusted themselves off. The beeps continued. As we turned to walk back across the street there was the Amazon driver making another round, still talking to someone and wiping tears from a cheek.

Now I know these vigils are but meager efforts in the work that needs to be done to eradicate 400 years of structural racism. Meager in the face of our day-to-day lives and forcing many of us to notice who is delivering our packages, bagging the groceries, applying for unemployment, and dying in unequal numbers every day. Yet there is something happening in our neighborhoods and that feels different.

I have more hope. I watched an interview with Reverend Bernice King, Martin Luther King’s daughter. She was asked in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder if anything has really changed in 50 years and about her understanding of the current protests: Is this moment any different? She paused:

“I do think it’s different…There are more circles of people now, in the white community, who are looking at white supremacy… This is a moment of opportunity… People are crying out and this cry is being heard all over this land and all over this world.”
Rev. Bernice King

Awareness, of course is not enough, but it is an essential step in making change. Rev. Bernice King declared that the moment is here to call on white people to challenge other white people. She said white people’s hearts and souls are opening. And there is much work to be done.

I know somewhere in this crowd of neighbors was a spiritual teacher and friend, who creates singing circles to bring people together. I belong to one of them. She was there with her mixed race kids but I couldn’t find her. The evening before I was among a zoom circle of women, a gathering to care for our hearts and souls by singing. She brought in the work of Joanna Macy, the great spiritual ecologist and founder of the Work That Reconnects (WTR). Macy describes The Great Turning, an awakening to the dis-ease on our planet; and one of the assumptions of the work is our deep connection to one another.

Our experience of moral pain for our world springs from our interconnectedness with all beings, including humans of all cultures, from which also arise our powers to act on their behalf. When we deny or repress our pain for the world, or view it as a private pathology, our power to take part in the healing of our world is diminished. Our capacity to respond to our own and others’ suffering — that is, the feedback loops that weave us into life — can be unblocked.
The Work That Reconnects

Important realities are getting “unblocked” for white people. Finally. Circles of compassion are widening. Block after block we are standing on lawns, sidewalks, street meridians, in parks and streets all over. There is no more turning away — only a turning toward to what has been there all along. Seeing clearly.

Compassion When It’s Not Easy, a meditation (Insight Timer)

#VoteKindness Project. Check it out

On Being Podcast with Krista Tippet, a conversation with Rev. Lucas Johnson: Living the questions when no questions seem big enough

Resources on becoming an anti-racist ally are listed here.

No Time Like The Present

May 8, 2020 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

The shimmering plastic threads hung in full length of the doorway to my home office, the one room I have spent far too much time in while a pandemic looms far and wide. Translucent with pink, lemon and pearly threads, it’s a cheap rendition of 1960s beaded curtains with the sound of kumbaya in the ether. The girls must have escaped to Target I thought as I turned the corner and saw the decor. Tendrils of white light, a wispy prism. I laughed. Then my heart lurched a beat in sweet sorrow. 2020. What a GD year.

When I was 10 years old and got better at arithmetic I would count by fives. How old would I be, say, in 1980? 1995? Or, woah, 2000? I’d be 35. That seemed impossible to imagine then. Just ancient. Now I divide by 11 and wonder about the five-year-old girl with the missing teeth. In those days, birthday parties were simple. An egg on a spoon, red rover red rover, hide and seek.

A quarantine has invited in simplicity and reduced time.

I like the chintzy doorway tinsel. I’ll keep them up for a while. They are a reminder that my daughters, Josie and Sophie, are delightful spirits here to both tease and teach me. “Come And Experience The New You,” is what they said about the fringe curtain. “Your clients will love it.”

Every day is a quiet milestone it seems.

Just yesterday Josie spotted a shrew out the kitchen window skirting under the porch. You mean a mole, I corrected.

No. It is a shrew and it needs a name. And the baby bunny, too.

We’ve all regressed in this quarantine. Josie left some celery for the critters.

Josie just turned 20 years old in silence. Mostly. Her friends did a coordinated drive around the bend, tooting their horns before returning to their online classes. She left her adolescence behind with the sound of tires on gravel. Anticlimactic. I felt for her. Josie is a Taurus like me. Insistent. Persistent. Passionate. Protective. (My mother called me ornery. Whatever that meant to a small child. I’m still not sure why she landed on that particular word but it was so odd I will never forget it. In kindsight, I figure she read it from a German-English translation dictionary in trying to describe me, störrisch.)

How about Pete? I asked.

Yup, Josie could go with Pete for the shrew. She named the bunny Tulip on my behalf. She’s been capturing the fleeting moments when I swoon over the 100 tulips I planted in November. The cool spring has made them last. Pale pink, soft yellow, royal purple, bold red, and the exuberant orange ones with black happy masks when in full bloom. Bright, confident, proud blooms. Worth the wait.

These flowers are my antidote to a month filled with death, departure, disruption, loss and grief. Celebrations, graduations, and memorials put on pause. The faux thread curtain is a reminder that the past seeps into the present and the present informs the future. Yet only what is alive exists in the moment. It’s all temporary. Nothing lasts. Nada.

So I told my girls they are my joy and delight. They are living proof that my choices were very good indeed. Look at their dad! Karma or luck or genes aside, my choices were about putting love, calm, consistency, care and compassion in the center of our household. It’s a damn corny thing to write, especially because I can be impatient and stubborn as my mother noted on many occasions. Except. Except for the fact of my daughters’ presence in the world. They are evidence that choosing to practice these values matter. It’s not stubbornness. It’s commitment.

Sophie was born the year the first Harry Potter book came out and that’s all thats counts for her. Her first tattoo is a horcrux. Josie was born in a zero year: 2000. A big year in and of itself. A turn of a century soul. She counts big birthdays by tens, allowing her two big ones so far. This is not as fun as being born in a year ending in a 5, which requires a bit more numerical effort. But it is a joyful effort, like adopting my new shiny entryway fringe, which I could never have imagined way back when.

A Tribute to My Mother

Spread the Love 2020

Meditations to Calm

Tulip Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Calling on Kindred Spirits for Healing

April 19, 2020 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Sometimes I feel like I was a tree nymph in a different existence. Not that I know much about trees except that I love them. I love them like friends. My most peaceful moments as a child were wandering in the woods, building forts, climbing a grand weeping beech with its voluptuous growths. I could nestle in its limbs for hours reading as if in a mother’s lap. My friend Heidi and I mapped out mystical lands with secret underground caverns as we huddled under her canopy bed with color pencils. Once her mother reprimanded us after we stole tomatoes from a neighbor’s garden to stock supplies for one of our woodland forts along Old West Mountain Road.

I read once that our brains are primed to the color green, an instinctual signal of vitality, growth and life. Children’s cognitive skills are enhanced when exposed to nature. We wonder. We are kinder and more creative. In hospitals and nursing homes, patients fare better and experience less pain when a plant is on the windowsill. There is a psychophysiological effect in the presence of verdant foliage. It doesn’t matter if it is a small patch of weeds, an Ansel Adams poster, a city park, or a Sunday drive through the countryside.

Even if you are a city dweller, you can find some place, perhaps a park or a golf course, where you can observe the mysterious migration of the birds, and the changing seasons.
And with your child you can ponder the mystery of a growing seed, even if it be only one planted in a pot of earth in the kitchen window.
Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

Inner and outer dwellings

One of my most formative experiences was traversing the forests on Mt. Kenya when I was 20 years old when I had to get as far away from home as possible. So I was captivated when I read in my inbox about a short documentary: The Church Forests of Ethiopia by Jeremy Seifert. The words in the subject line grabbed me: A church forest.

I clicked the link. In a short nine minutes I was transported to an ephemeral world, captured by the intimacy of a handheld camera. Old trees, hazy light, monkeys…. and a native orthodox priest. The film zoomed out, an expansive Google map or drone view, over a brambly swatch of old growth forest encased by desolate, overused land. A green oasis in the midst of cattle-eaten countryside.

It was a conservation effort. And as it happens there are many of these small forests spread far and wide, as many as 20,000. They are tended by spiritual gatekeepers who protect these endangered enclaves of biodiversity, like woodland angels. As the story unfolds, there is a foreign conservationist, a local ecologist, and a forest priest. They convened about what to do. At a gathering with the priests, the spiritual leaders came up with an idea of their own: to build a wall. A wall to keep the cattle from eating the seedlings, so that the forest could reseed itself. “The church is within the forest. The forest is inside the church,” explains the priest. The widening walls would protect both.

And it’s working.

In a remarkably short time in one forest, the sounds of birds can be heard, monkeys sway in the canopies, and children come to clamber up the trees to find refuge in the cooler air. It turns out that only the native forests inhabited by priests and hermits are the ones surviving, but barely. The walls, yellow and dusty, are carefully stacked with the stones churned up from the surrounding fields. They are wide enough for children to skip along. The walls are helping in more ways than one. Now efforts are being made to connect these forests, like emerald strands across a bare neckline.

Walls for mending and tending

Walls serve many purposes. The American poet Robert Frost famously wrote about mending walls, questioning whether they make good neighbors. Of course, it’s complicated. There are border walls that separate children from families and bar people from safe havens. Chain link and wireless fences can keep anything in or out. There are those that eventually fall I once sat upon the Berlin wall with traveling companions on a study abroad. I think of the virtual walls we are creating now by sheltering in place, standing in lines six feet apart, flattening the curve as it were. A wall with invisible boundaries.

Separate yet connected

Walls. It all depends on the intention. Is a wall erected out of fear? Or, is a wall erected out of love? And even intentions go awry and can pave the way to hell. We see how the walls of nursing homes, hospitals and prisons can ensnare a novel corona virus, a prolific microscopic invader. Yet, the virus, like the cattle in Ethiopia (and every living organism), seeks to survive. And walls, let’s face it, are porous.

I’m hopeful. The Church Forests of Ethiopia demonstrate what deep listening and caretaking can do. These forest walls arose from a divine partnership: part spirit, part nature, part human. There is no separation. The simple conservation effort brings into view something mysterious, magical, practical (as you will see if you watch the 10 minute film). Now I sit in my home walled off from the world thinking about our intentions. I believe our behavior, our quiet caretaking, matters even more. Compassionate action even with inaction. A paradox that goes against our natural instincts. Most of us are not hermits.

Just like the Ethiopian forest priests tend to the fragile seeds, we are kindred spirits spread far and wide tending to ourselves and each other. It is in our nature to tend and befriend, a beloved term coined by psychologist Shelley Taylor about our survival instinct through affiliation. We are saving ourselves.

It will take time to recover and heal from this pandemic. Let’s take refuge in the dwellings in which we reside.

We all need a kind and wise companion looking after us. I invite you to call on a kindred spirit. The one that lives within you. Here is a meditation to connect with one.

More Matters in Kind:

I am now obsessed with these church forests. Learn more about Dr. Alemayehu Wassie, a forest ecologist and Dr. Margaret “Meg” Lowman, an American ecologist and canopy biologist. Read an exquisite essay in Emergence Magazine about the church forests of Ethiopia by Fred Bahnson, who himself was transformed on his visit. “Less than three percent of primary forest remains. And nearly all of that three percent, Alemayehu discovered, was only found in forests protected by the church.”
The Global Oneness Project offers amazing stories and study guides about the earth we tread upon and our connection to the natural world. Its sister project, Emergence Magazine (Ecology, Culture, and Spirituality) is a new favorite of mine.
Watch the beautiful animation The Man Who Planted Trees, directed by Frédéric Back (1988 Academy Award winner), and based on the French story by Jean Giono about a shepherd’s lone journey to re-forest a barren valley after a devastating world war.
The Sense of Wonder: A Celebration of Nature for Parents and Children by Rachel Carson, “The patron saint of the environmental movement.”

Pinecone Photo by Anika Huizinga on Unsplash

Roadside Wisdom in the Time of COVID

April 13, 2020 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

We’re nearing Week No. 4 of staying in place and I can tell you that most everyone I know has just about had it! Even though most of us understand that we are toeing the line to reduce the spread of COVID, to allow resources to become available for others in need, and to ease the burden for those on the front lines, it is still hard.

It’s hard!

Moreover, we are more connected to each other than we ever realized—even when we are staying away. The news of a grocery worker’s passing or the grim toll in assisted living and nursing homes are daily reminders why we must practice being present to whatever arises—boredom, impatience, frustration, grief, guilt, loneliness, joy, hope. It all belongs, as my meditation teacher Tara Brach would say. We are witnesses to it all.

On the rare occasion when I have gone out in the last 20 days (like the two times when I waited over an hour in line at the supermarket), I’ve been filled with immense appreciation and pride for my good neighbors. Almost everyone is donning some sort of face mask and I find this amazing. The first time I was so taken back, I felt like crying. We all look like we might be ready to rob a bank and yet we are all in the same posse.

One outcome is that no one gives a $#!+ about appearance. And people may complain, but it’s not for too long. COVID19 is a formidable teacher.

So when I drove past a church sign one day I took a u-turn, literally and metaphorically. I got out of my car and snapped the photo above. The world may be shutting down. My daughter’s graduation may be cancelled. But love is not.

May you and your loved ones be safe and healthy.

More Matters in Kind

Listen to my Insight Timer meditations here or on the app
Check out my pick of resources on SpreadtheLove2020
You may like my video collection CPR for Mental Wellbeing

Sheltering in Place with Compassion

March 27, 2020 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Sheltering in place has been an interesting experience with my college daughters at home. One evening my youngest suggested we watch the movie Contagion as if we were embarking on some great new adventure as a family. No thanks, I said. (Maybe it was a stressful day. My inner voice was squealing, Are you f***ing kidding me?) Oh, the naiveté of youth. I’m sure such movies are making a comeback in households everywhere.

But the last thing I needed was to keep firing up my brain with unnecessary anxiety. She then suggested the movie Avatar. Ok, a hybrid animation I could tolerate. You know, this is the James Cameron epic about a lush moon called Pandora and the peaceful Na’vi inhabitants, who mesmerizingly demonstrate for us mere movie goers what it means to feel connected to nature and be stewards of the environment. Of course, there is an invasion by greedy humans who aim to pillage all the natural resources on this fictional moon and a great battle ensues.

I was glad to watch it again, if anything, for the timeless teachings about fear and love, destruction and life.

On Pandora there is a sacred place called “The Tree of Souls,” which is a kind of vortex and a connection to Eway (similar to our notion of Mother Earth or Gaia). The Tree of Souls interacts with its world through the seeds of a great tree. Perhaps this was inspired by the quaking aspen groves in Utah, called The Trembling Giant, which is a singular organism of thousands of roots. One tree, many sprouts. (Last summer I read The Overstory by Richard Powers and I keep thinking about the aspens.)

In essence the Tree of Souls allows the Na’vi people to unite as one with the natural world. In the movie there is this telling scene where the main character, Jake Sully, a human who transforms into one of the Na’vi people, finds himself praying to the Tree of Souls to help stave off the impending destruction and loss of life by the humans and their military arsenal.

As he prays aloud, Ney-tiri, the tribal princess (and love interest, of course) implores him:

Our great mother does not take sides.
She protects only the balance of life.

I’ve been thinking about this line all week. Maybe because I’m a part of a university healthcare system counseling students stuck at home, or I am a parent with my own college kids stuck at home, or just plain vulnerable like the rest of us as we face an invisible invasion called COVID-19. I’m not directly on the front lines, but I am on phone lines.

Our great mother does not take sides.
She protects only the balance of life.

There is a sense that there’s something really big playing out in the world with this pandemic, and that somehow our Earth will return to some state of balance, even in the wake of great human suffering and loss. I think of the early settlers in Massachusetts (where I live) who unknowingly wiped out two-thirds of the indigenous peoples with smallpox in the early 1600s.

The fear is real. But it doesn’t need to infect us with unnecessary anxiety and suffering. It’s enough to just practice the CDC’s basic measures and learn to cope with day-to-day living and pay the bills. And so I’d like to offer you a mindfulness skill called RAIN, which I’ve written about before.

RAIN is widely taught by one of my meditation teachers, Tara Brach, who some of you may be familiar with. In the spirit of oral traditions being handed down, I will share the RAIN skill with you as a way to transform fear into compassion and courage. RAIN is an acronym:

Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture.

The practice can serve as a way of “turning towards” what is difficult, uncertain, or frightening with emotional courage. It can be a way of transforming fear, distress, or empathy fatigue into compassion for yourself and for others. The RAIN practice can be a way of finding balance, calm and connection among us, like the root system of the quaking aspens.

The invitation of this RAIN practice is to hold the following reflection questions:

What is it like being you right now?
What does compassion mean for you?

Let’s begin. Sit or stand in a way that allows you to be relaxed and alert, with the sense of a strong back and an open heart, with solid roots and flexible branches.

And take a few moments to scan through your recent experiences. What it is like to be a helper? What is it like to confront this current health crisis in whatever ways you find yourself living?

There may be moments of inspiration and agency, and there might be moments of helplessness, exhaustion, impatience, or being on autopilot, or experiencing fear for yourself or your loved ones.

Bring to mind any sensations, images, thoughts, or emotions that arise.

What is it like being you right now?
What does compassion mean for you?

As a human being living within the boundaries of our physical bodies it is natural to find ourselves with strong reactions. After all, the body has a tendency to resonate with the energies in the environment. People, places, and things all hold energy. Like the Tree of Souls.

Reality check

We ARE experiencing extraordinary circumstances. The threat is real. The brain reacts and the body responds. Fight. Flight. Faint. Freeze. And your caring intentions can get camouflaged by anxiety — or from the negative reactivity from the people around you, or from the news. This can cause disconnection and discomfort. You’re human.

The acronym RAIN is a helpful mindfulness tool for just such moments of resistance or difficulty.

Let’s go through each step.

R. The R in RAIN stands for recognize — recognize what’s going on as you reflect on what it’s like being you right now. Notice what arises in the body, and consciously notice the strong emotions in any given moment, or any thoughts or sensations that arise.

Recognizing can be as simple as a silent nod, or a mental whisper, noticing that a reaction is occurring.

It can be helpful to name the experience such as: “This is anger” or “I’m feeling frustrated” or “I’m just so tired” or “This is boredom.”

A. The A in RAIN stands for allow — allowing means letting the thoughts, emotions or sensations simply be there… applying loving attention to your experience; and doing so in a way without judgment or trying to fix or change anything.

It simply means that we can honestly acknowledge the uncomfortable or painful feelings in the moment. Instead of trying to suppress the experience, or resist or avoid it — which is the body’s natural way to deal with pain — we can soften into it and not get caught up in the thoughts or the emotions. It’s asking, “Can I be with this?” or “Can I let this be?”

Sometimes I say, A is giving “airtime” to whatever reactivity arises with an attitude of acceptance.

I. The I in RAIN stands for investigate — to investigate your experience with kindness and care.

Once we recognize and allow what is arising we can become curious, and call on our natural ability to inquire.

Ask yourself : “What most wants my attention right now?”

You may become aware of the part of you that feels afraid or worried. You might ask this aspect of yourself the following: “How do you want me to be with you?” (Yes, you are conversing with yourself.)

Discover how your feelings and thoughts might be expressing themselves in your body, and notice where those feelings are the strongest.

Ask: “How am I experiencing this reaction in my body?”

Or, “What is my critical, anxious or scared voice telling me, or trying to warn me about? Am I believing it? Is it true?”

Take your time to fully enter and feel the part of you that is most in need of care. You can reflect: “How can I bring kindness to this moment?”

Perhaps you say to yourself:

“Yes, this is what’s happening right now.” “It’s OK to be me.” “This is a hard time.”

It is essential to take a non-judgmental attitude and move away from trying to interpret or overthink or catastrophize.

Instead, bring your awareness to the felt sense in the body and allow a direct experience or connection in the moment. The body is an exquisite emotional radar system with important information and clues. You may notice over time that there is an incredibly wise and quiet, or strong, voice inside.

An attitude of care helps to cultivate a sense of safety and understanding. You begin to befriend yourself as you would toward a dear friend in need.

N. The last letter in RAIN is N — to nurture or nourish. We can intentionally care for the vulnerable and afraid places inside. Call on your wisest, most loving self and how might you offer what is most needed. You can dig a bit deeper: What does this place deep inside need most? Calm? Friendship? Inspiration? Love? Patience? Reassurance?

Or is there a touch, like a hand on your heart, or message, or a benevolent image that helps the distressed part receive what it needs in the moment?

Take a few moments to bring a sense of nurturing to this part and sense how this part experiences the compassion that you are offering.

N can also be what is the “Next best step” I need to take. It may be an invitation to be proactive and prescribing positivity for yourself — like making a cup of tea, calling a friend, or getting some fresh air.

In the original version, the N in RAIN, stands for what some meditation teachers call non-attachment or non-identification. This is also useful. This means cultivating an ability to take a step back and having some distance from the reactivity. This means not getting hijacked by difficult emotions (which is the brain’s flight or fight reaction) or being harassed by mind’s incessant commentary (which is business as usual).

Instead, you create some distance. In this way you’re not fused with or defined by the reactivity. Instead, you adopt a sense of care, ease, and compassion. You can be a benevolent caretaker of your own mind just as you might care for a small child. The teacher Tara Brach refers to this process as “After the Rain,” when integration takes place, just like water gets absorbed in the ground after a storm.

RAIN can help to cultivate an enduring inner strength of compassion and courage, and as a way of connection… like the root system in the aspen groves.

The RAIN technique can be a salve for those times when you are caught under a spell of reactivity or negativity, which can happen naturally whenever you feel overwhelmed or overly critical, or when you may be consumed with anxiety, fear or uncertainty. Our times call for this caring attention. We are part of a common humanity, vulnerable and strong, anxious and calm.

May you be safe and protected.
May you be well.
May you find comfort and courage during this unusual time.

Take gentle care.

This is an adaptation of a reflection I offered to healthcare workers through the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion, Cambridge Health Alliance on March 24, 2020.

See my growing list of resources: SpreadTheLove2020

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Kindness Changes Everything

March 20, 2020 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Mister Fred Rogers, who was born on this day in 1928, is famous for reminding us that in times of crisis to look for the helpers among us. And there are many. As the response to the COVID-19 epidemic changes on an hourly basis, the bottom line is that we still must follow the same precautions recommended by the CDC, such as washing hands, staying put, social distancing, and helping from afar. My heart has been warmed on a daily basis with the generosity and goodwill of so many people. In our state (MA) the National Guard has been called in to help with the medical response in setting up hospitals and dispensing food.

As I wrote last week on my blog, as we take this great collective pause, remember that whatever we insert into our social networks (offline or online) will spread. That’s the Three Degrees of Influence Rule coined by social scientists Christakis and Fowler, who have mathematically mapped this out. I summarize this in my book, The Kindness Cure, because it is so amazing (Chapter 28: Networks of Generosity):

This [rule] shows that if you demonstrate a kindness even when it is at a cost to you, that generous behavior spreads to your friend (one degree), your friend’s friend (two degrees), and your friend’s friend’s friend (three degrees)—reaching people you don’t even know. Similarly, that third-degree friend you don’t know can influence you too, just by being in a network of shared social contacts. Christakis suggests that we assemble ourselves as ‘super organisms,’ meaning we are organically connected to one another with emotions, beliefs, and memories. Our networks, he believes, are a kind of social capital.
The upside is that acts of kindness, generosity, and cooperation can spread with only a few people. Of course, the opposite can also happen: networks can spread harmful ideologies and behaviors.
Tara Cousineau, The Kindness Cure

We have more influence than we imagine. This human capacity gives us a social responsibility and a choice. Anxiety and fear are natural reactions and can hijack our brains. Yet, we can also notice and respond in ways that are beneficial to ourselves and therefore beneficial to others. It’s like that airline metaphor: Put the oxygen mask on yourself first before helping the person next to you.

In a time when our emotional lives may be triggered by fear and anxiety, I find solace once again in the spirit of Mister Rogers, who taught on a very basic level that our feelings are mentionable and manageable.

The values we care about the deepest, and the movements within society that support those values, command our love. When those things that we care about so deeply become endangered, we become enraged. And what a healthy thing that is! Without it we would never stand up and speak out for what we believe.
Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

Of course, one of those shared human values is kindness.

In the online realm, many thought leaders, teachers and publishers are offering online courses and teachings for free. I wanted to share some with you. As more resources cross my radar I will be posting on my special resource page, SpreadTheLove2020. And a final nod to Mister Rogers:

Deep within us–no matter who we are–there lives a feeling of wanting to be lovable, of wanting to be the kind of person that others like to be with. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.
Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash