In this period of perseverance, we should be solid — genuinely, yet intellectually, inwardly, and profoundly. I’ve gathered my considerations on how we can check the viewpoints and activities that hamper our solidarity, with the expectations that it helps the part of us, together, rise above the disorder.

Endurance & Empowerment

At the end of the day, all of these tips are about empowerment. They’re about believing in yourself, flaws and all, as someone who can take the hardship and not only overcome it but use it as the friction force that helps us evolve.

Everything starts in the mind. As within, so without. Surviving the chaos (I am learning as much as you), starts with the belief that we can. Then comes the willingness to try. And then maybe practicing a few of these tips, as they resonate.

Be selective about your input.

You may not be able to control the world around you, but you can control what you let through the filter of your attention.

We’ve grown pretty reckless about our attention these days – I blame social media but there are plenty of offenders. Every single thing that goes through the filter of our attention matters. It’s no different than food. Just like every bite has some sort of caloric value (minus celery), every bit of media influences our mind.

Be selective about what you let in, as your mind (just like your body) will crave what you feed it most. Another suggestion is to find a technique or practice that helps keep your mind fresh and un-moldable. Yoga, meditation, and mindful practices of any variety do exactly that.

Anything meditative teaches us about what we truly are — beyond our identity and circumstance.

Remember: your body is your temple.

Ancient wisdom with the timeless application. For as stressful as current events are, we need a body that can sustain. It’s barely a suggestion at this point, but more a function of survival. This means getting the nutrients, hydration, exercise, and sleep that help us show up as our best selves. We all know what it feels like to have a gnarly head cold and have to work anyway — everything is a struggle. So it goes with any imbalance we may have in the body. In this pandemic era, the health of our vehicles has never been more important.

Stop assuming that things will go back to normal.

They won’t because normal never existed. And we wouldn’t want it to, anyway. Normal is harmful if you look at what was under the surface of “normal life” just six months ago. Normal is complacency. Normal is the stunting of growth and evolution which can only end in a massive course correction far more uncomfortable than admitting “normal” was never a thing.

We don’t have normal, but we have the present moment. As we surrender our expectations in the present moment, we are gifted with adaptability and endurance.

Study resilience.

Again, life is now an endurance exercise. We are in an era where the ugly is being illuminated — and it could be the case that we’ve only just begun.

Resilience is the skill we have been asked to learn. The kind of current events going on right now — the cruelty, control, oppression — may never lose their shock value and we don’t want it to. We don’t want to normalize atrocity. But if we don’t figure out how to be resilient in the face of inhumanity, our wellbeing and sanity are at constant high risk. We have to learn how to take the punches, by realizing ultimately we are un-punchable

Welcome discomfort as a signpost.

It’s time for us to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. The problem is: we like the sounds of that intellectually, but absolutely turtle when it comes around for real.

The point of being uncomfortable is that you probably didn’t see it coming. Being willing to be uncomfortable means you should want to crawl out of your skin from time to time. We want to get to the place of unimaginable discomfort — because that’s the indisputable indication that we’re growing. Comfortable means we’re inching closer to the illusion of normalcy, which only calls in greater destruction.