Wabi Sabi is the ancient Japanese aesthetic of seeking to discover beauty and perfection in imperfection. It seeks to find the beauty in things that are old, worn, imperfect or impermanent.
When we are in a situation beyond our control, and are finding ourselves highly annoyed or frustrated with someone’s behavior, that is the time to practice Wabi Sabi Love: this is about having a shift in perception and making up a new and empowering story about whatever you are perceiving as broken, wrong, or just not right.
For those of us that are stressed out, frustrated or are experiencing extreme cabin fever from the quarantine, finding the beauty and perfection in the imperfection can be a challenge.
I could make a long list of all the things I don’t like about being quarantined, but now that we are in week seven, I think for me, the good things are beginning to outweigh the bad.
By digging deep into my spiritual toolkit I have been practicing things I’ve often talked about but never really had to deal with….like turning fear into love and transforming judgement into compassion. The latter being the most difficult.
As I have watched many people filling social media with wild conspiracy theories, I find myself pinging back and forth between outrage and wanting to fix them.
For me and many of the people I’ve spoken to who are part of the stay-at-home population, it feels like one day is rolling right into the next with not that much changing in any given 24-hour period.
Of course, if we’re working from home or home-schooling our children or are caregivers for our loved ones, the details of each day are numerous and ever-changing.
But it’s the general tone of the day that I’m speaking about...
I’m wondering about that question mark that’s hanging over the planet.
What is this shaking up of the world as we know it ushering in?
What will our personal and collective lives look like in a few months…
And in a few years?
Though there have been a few other pandemics over the last hundred years or so, never before have we experienced the repercussions of a pandemic like the one enfolding the whole of the planet today.
“My father was a very strong man. It was his way or the highway.”
“My mother is a very strong person. She is the matriarch of the family and controls everyone. I never see her cry.”
These descriptions of strength do not fall under my definition of ‘strong.’
Strength is reaching a place in your growth where you have the courage to feel and lovingly manage your painful core feelings of sorrow, loneliness, heartache, heartbreak, grief and helplessness over others—rather than avoiding them with various addictions and controlling behavior.
Weakness is when you are too afraid to feel and learn from your feelings, so you avoid them with substance and process addictions, and with controlling behavior toward others to get them to take responsibility for your feelings. Given these definitions, the above statements made by my clients about their parents are describing weakness, not strength.
Strong people are able to cry—to be moved by things and to cry as a way to release the energy of that strong emotion. Unfortunately, many people were programmed as children to not cry, since their parents didn’t know how to handle painful feelings – their own and their children’s. Many people were even teased, at home or at school, for crying, further programming them to avoid tears.
Creating authentic power requires distinguishing love from fear in yourself and choosing love no matter what is happening inside you or what is happening outside. Our evolution now requires us to create authentic power. The coronavirus is teaching us how to do that. The reality of the coronavirus is often lost in the fear of it (including denial). The reality of the coronavirus is that no one is immune to it, and it is extremely contagious. The mortality rate of the coronavirus is much lower than small pox or bubonic plague, yet it is a deadly threat. That reality demands that we bring our fears into our awareness so that we can choose responsibly between our fears on the one hand and love on the other. This is important because not only your health depends upon your choices, but also the health of others.
In other words, the coronavirus is the perfect teacher of responsibility. The coronavirus is contagious days before its symptoms appear in you. You do not know when you become infected! During that time you can infect others without knowing it and without them knowing it (because they do not know when they become infected, either), and they can (will) very quickly infect others and on and on and on and on. These are the things that make the coronavirus very dangerous. It is extremely contagious, everyone can unknowingly infect anyone else, and it can kill you. In other words, if you mindlessly endanger yourself, you mindlessly endanger others. If others recklessly endanger themselves, they recklessly endanger you. To echo Lakota wisdom, the health of one is the health of all, and the illness of one is the illness of all.
Beliefs are tricky, especially in times of uncertainty. They can be a source of inspiration or a heavy chain around your neck. They can uplift you into possibility or weigh you down, keeping you from open-hearted expansion. Historically, beliefs have been the cause of cycles of planetary polarization: renaissances and wars, connection and separation, coming together and tearing apart, hope and despair. Humans have yet to reach the evolutionary tipping point of being present in experience without filters of any kind. Maybe now is the time to let go and see everything as light, including ourselves and our beliefs.
“Leslie and I are very attracted to each other and really enjoy each other’s company. But something happens after we’ve been together over a weekend. We have a great time and then during the week I’m miserable for a few days. After a few days, I feel okay again, and then we get together and it starts all over. I don’t want our relationship to end, but I can’t stand what happens after we are together. Maybe we are not supposed to be together.”
Are we really so separate?
The Practice:
Love the world.
Why?
To simplify and summarize, our brain has three primary motivational systems – Avoiding harms, Approaching rewards, and Attaching to “us” – that draw on many neural networks to accomplish their goals.
Lately, I’ve started to realize that a fourth fundamental human motivational system could be emerging as well.
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors depended upon their habitats for food and shelter. Today, over 7 billion of us are pressing hard up against the limits of Lifeboat Earth. To survive and to flourish, cultural and perhaps biological evolution are calling us to love the world.
The world is near to hand in the food you eat, the air you breathe, and the weather and climate in which you spend your days. And then in widening circles, the world extends out to include complex webs of life and the physical characteristics of the land, the sea, and the sky.
When you love the world, you both appreciate it and care for it. Each of these actions makes you feel good, plus they help you preserve and improve everything you depend on for your health, livelihood, security, pleasure, and community.
During most of the last several million years, our human and hominid ancestors did not have much capacity for harming the world. Nor did they have much understanding of their effects on the whole planet.
But now, humanity has great power for good and ill. And we have inescapable knowledge (no matter how much some try to deny it) of what we are doing to our own home. As the earth heats up, as many species go extinct, and as resources such as fresh water decline, it is critically important that a fourth major motivation guide our thoughts, words, and above all, deeds:
Love the world.
The other day, I found myself thinking and reflecting on life as I took an evening walk through my neighborhood.
“When this is all over, what will I remember?” I pondered to myself. “What thoughts and images will be seared into my brain? Who will I be when I am no longer told to stay at home?”
Will I go back to the same schedule I had before? Will my work and voice in The Sunday Paper be needed now more than ever, or not at all? Will my work at NBC News be the same, or will it change now that every show has been cut back? Will I go back to being on a plane all the time, rushing from coast to coast?
Will my work at The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement survive in a post-pandemic world? Will people still want to fund research into women’s brains when millions of Americans are struggling to eat and pay their rents or mortgages? Will people want to be educated about brain health and Alzheimer’s prevention when one of their most pressing concerns is protecting themselves from the coronavirus? I wonder.
“Each relationship serves a different function and purpose in your life. Ultimately, every single relationship you are in is for your growth, evolution and learning.”
Some Questions I Ask:
People often say that love hurts so much. It’s not love that hurts, it’s the expectations of our love.
When you hold back what’s natural, loving those around you, it blocks the flow of your heart, the flow of your creativity, of your Aliveness and life force.
You are love.
Love because it’s your nature.
To love is great freedom.
It’s the most natural impulse of your being.
Love because you are love your self.
Years ago, Erika and I discovered the healing power of mothering, and we wrote about it in “Healing Your Aloneness.” What we discovered has now been verified over and over. In his excellent book, “In An Unspoken Voice,” author Peter Levine tells a heartwarming story. When National Guard soldiers were ordered to remove Elian Gonzales – the young boy who became a pawn in a political battle in Florida – from the hands of his Cuban exile cousins living in Miami, they trained a female federal agent to caringly take the boy from the cousins and angry onlookers. Knowing he would be extremely frightened, and not wanting to further traumatize him…
“The agent held him firmly enough to not be ripped away by the angry mob, yet gently enough for her embrace to match the words she calmly recited in Spanish,”Elian, this may seem scary right now, but it soon will be better. We’re taking you to your papa…You will not be taken back to Cuba [which was true for the time being]…You will not be put on a boat again [he had been brought to Miami on a treacherous boat ride]…You are with people who care for you and are going to take care of you.’” p.265
As she rocked him gently and spoke soothingly to him, he relaxed.
Levine goes on to describe another dramatic mothering scene that occurred during the East Timor conflict. As dazed and disoriented refugees wandered into a refugee camp, a group of Portuguese nuns greeted and gently held and rocked the children and the most shocked adults, whispering soothing words to them, thawing them out of shock with their love.
I was catching up with a friend by phone the other day when she said to me: “I need you more than ever right now.”
“Same here!” I replied, without skipping a beat.
The truth is, we all need each other more than ever right now. We need each other in so many ways, both big and small. We need to rely on one another. Lean on one another. Trust one another. Be compassionate, understanding, and patient with one another. We need to basically focus on being there for one another the best we can.
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about just how tied we are to one another. This historic moment is showing us how interconnected we are. It is showing us how we all have similar needs. And yet, as we live through this big, collective moment together, we are also going through it in very individual ways.
When things don’t go the way we want them to, our tendency is to turn negative on the spot. It’s as if something in us throws a switch and, the next moment -- like being caught in the surge of a tidal wave -- resistance carries us away. But this unconscious resistance to reality never shows itself for what it is; it can’t, or the show would be over! After all, who sides with something that is perpetually against life?
Resistance is the unseen father of all lingering negative states. It derives its power to trick us into embracing its painful presence by a kind of misdirection. It hides behind a host of associated images that always appear with it -- certain thoughts and feelings that promise either to protect us or to provide us with plans to escape our situation. But we must learn to see that the true nature of anything -- whether a newly opened leaf or a fearful thought or feeling -- is inseparable from what it serves. So, regardless of how it may appear, any disquieting state in us that “says” it wants to lead us away from a fear is leading us toward one instead.
Rebecca Winn is an artist with words and her new book, new book One Hundred Daffodils; Finding Beauty, Grace, and Meaning When Things Fall Apart, proves the underestimated power of beauty to 
heal our deepest wounds.
Using her garden, nature, and a delightful smattering of wild creatures, she weaves her midlife catastrophe into a beautifully written story of raw vulnerability, courage, and transformation.
I was totally captivated and entranced.
Today she is guest blogging to share her thoughts on love during this time of crisis:
“We are all connected.” A phrase so common, it has become a meaningless spiritual cliche. Or has it?
Four months ago we could watch the news unfolding in China with a detachment that distance and depersonalization afforded us. Today, we are sheltering in place, surrounded by fear so palpable even the skeptics are panic buying, and the most committed introverts confess that they only want to be alone when it’s their choice.
And yet, only a few days into self-quarantine, something magical has also happened. Musicians are sharing their music for free during social media Live events. Authors whose book tours have been cancelled (including my own) are reading from their books online. People are reaching out to help one another in ways heretofore unimagined. Some property owners are telling restaurants to pay their employees instead of their rent.
Amidst the recent worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19), we are in uncertain times.
Worry, fear, and panic have swept across the planet, as the virus has threatened our health, well-being, economy, societal norms, and sense of safety.
Many people are quarantined at home, and social distancing has become a temporary norm.
During this time of such intense stress, sex is likely the farthest thing from many people’s minds. How can we make love when the world seems to be falling apart? Shouldn’t we spend our time watching the news and figuring out how to navigate these challenging times?
As a Sacred Sexuality Teacher with over 20 years of experience supporting clients, my #1 recommendation during this global pandemic is to make time for pleasure and sex.
Sex is not a luxury for when things are good in the world. Sex is a necessity. It is vital to our health, well-being, and sanity. Sex is important at all times, especially in times of stress and difficulty, like this current pandemic.
If you have a partner, set any differences aside, and get into the sheets for some essential self-care and stress relief. If you are stuck at home without a partner, no worries. You can self-pleasure and bring yourself the same benefits.
Please be very kind and gentle with yourself. It’s very important to not allow your wounded self to scare you, because our main line of defense against the Coronavirus is our immune system, and stress erodes the immune system.
Start by acknowledging to yourself that this is a very challenging time. Imagine that your intention is to soothe a scared child, rather than further scaring the child. This is the time to stay open to your higher guidance and bring comfort and compassion to your inner child, especially if you feel anxious. It’s also a time to reach out to friends with whom you can connect – on the phone, or via Skype or Zoom. While it’s important to stay home and not be around people, it’s also important to stay connected with the people whom you can support and who can support you, especially if you are alone.
So here we are, a time like no other we have ever experienced. Humanity is living out the key choice point of our lifetimes: love or fear. Do we succumb to escalating apprehension about a global virus and slam the doors to our hearts? Or do we stand firm in the belief that love and trust are the defining energies of life on Earth and that keeping our hearts open is the most important choice we can make in our lives? Seems to me that is why we were born, why we all incarnated at this time in the history of our planet. To make that choice and live it completely. To come into full awareness of ourselves as love at our core.
Are you hard on yourself?
The Practice:
Don’t beat yourself up.
Why?
A previous JOT – admit fault and move on – was about our relationship with other people. This JOT applies the same practice to ourselves.
Most people know their less than wonderful qualities, such as too much ambition (or too little), a weakness for wine or cookies, something of a temper, or an annoying tendency to rattle on about pet interests. We usually know when we make mistakes, get the facts wrong, could be more skillful, or deserve to feel remorseful.
Some people err on the side of denying or defending these faults (a word I use broadly here). But most people go to the other extreme, repeatedly criticizing themselves in the foreground of awareness, or having a background sense of guilt, unworthiness, and low confidence.
Here is a list of three false beliefs that betray our hearts and poison our relationships. The more aware we can become of these long-conditioned false beliefs and how they compromise our ability to have fulfilling relationships, the more freedom we will win from them:
False belief # 1: Our value as a person is determined by how others see us.
If we believe our individual worth depends on how others see us, we live with the fear of being judged by them, where trying to win their approval causes us to compromise ourselves again and again. People sense this kind of weakness in us, causing them to resist us, which in turn, makes us feel even “needier.” The cycle deepens, things get worse. Here’s the solution. Seeing its truth sets us free: we are not in this world to “win” what we believe we must to feel “good” about ourselves, but rather to realize that who we are – our True Self – is already whole, happy, and complete.
Join Panache Desai each weekday morning for support in reconnecting to the wellspring of calm and peace that lives within you and that has the power to counterbalance all of the fear, panic, and uncertainty that currently engulfs the world.
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