What is stable during change? Where are our anchors?

We woke up to a new world. A pandemic that has swept all our inside furniture. With fear on the surface, overthinking, over-planning, and excess control are uprising and over flooding. A sense of direction is missing and time has stopped. And we try, and continue to try to gain control. Do we really have control? Health is unstable, finances are unpredictable, jobs are at stake, mobility is restricted and to add to all that, relationships are being threatened.

But we are here. We haven’t planned to get here. And yet, we need to be able to move forward. Because life is about living and evolving. Life is about the courage to try and fail.

And in order to survive the change, we need the stable, the resource, that one anchor that gives us the sense of control as we continue to witness lack of control in the world.

Our humanity. It is the anchor. It is the stable ground that we are familiar with and that which we retreat to when things get too loud and too chaotic. It is the silence in our sitting. It is the wisdom in our living.

Our human identity. Our values. Our deep engines. The reason why we humans, are here. We check in and explore, our compassion to self and others, our empathy, to self and others, our kindness, our patience and our hope. Our stable and strong relationships. Our circles of love and support that have gotten us through the long journey till now.

As we turn inwards, we meet our diversity and abundance. Are we the same inside? Do the heart, mind and body work the same or work in synchrony? Yes, we are diverse in harmony. And what about our abundance? The cells survive in abundance of oxygen and the muscles move in abundance of energy. And it’s all orchestrating in abundance to continue to offer us life. The mind produces in abundance of thinking and feeling. How can we fear lack of abundance when we have it within us?

Albert Einstein says, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” So how do we now craft our thinking to find our belonging in the diversity? If we are already diverse, why do we keep on searching for sameness? Why do we cling to an old pattern that got us here, maybe? Isn’t there a wisdom to explore?

In many ways, the old process has reached this outcome. If we want to change the outcome, we need to craft a new process. And what is stable in the new process? Our humanity. It’s the essence and the center. It is our deep attachment that inspires us and grounds us, as the world becomes more hesitant, more confusing and less predictable. Our humanity is stable, and it is our inner safe space.

Terry Pratchett sends the mind on this curious exploration. “Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” 

Coming back, is never the same. And time, is a factor of everything. Letting the time roll as we strengthen our anchors and nurture the seeds of humanity. Surrounding ourselves with abundance of humanity, connecting to like minds and thinking wisely. Opening our minds to the stability in our human diversity.

I will leave you with this.