Refuge in the Eye of the Storm

Over the last few weeks, I have been waking up with an increasingly intense sense of heartache.

As my personal life is peaceful right now, I felt puzzled. While wondering if something was wrong with me, I felt lonely and embarrassed about this strange feeling of painful contraction in my chest.

Then I made a discovery. As I was beginning to lead a 7:30 a.m. meditation session, I inquired if anyone else was experiencing similar feelings. Hands shot up. One person messaged, “I wake up like that several times during the night,” another replied, “I feel anxious often during the day.” Since then, I have been inquiring in all classes I teach and have received similar responses.

I realized that we, as current culture, may be suffering from collective existential dread. Research tells me that “existential dread or anxiety is a feeling of unease and even despair that can occur when a person contemplates fundamental questions, such as the meaning of life, mortality, and purpose.” I asked myself, “Why would so many of us ponder the meaning of life at this time?”

Elections and extreme polarization loom in the foreground of culture. There is also an increasing confusion about what is true and real, and about the blame being placed on immigrants and other vulnerable groups. Many citizens worry about the undermining of human rights. In the background we, as a culture, are increasingly aware of the brewing of a global crisis with climate change, and a related population displacement and refugee problem. Awareness of the widening of serious wars burrows their way into our daily consciousness. Much is at stake. Previous generations may have been more insulated compared to the bombardment we receive daily through news and social media channels. Gradually, awareness of all this can foster a sense of helplessness and despair, especially in the face of problems that feel too big for any one person to solve.

However, having grown up in post-war Germany, I remember times of existential dread in the aftermath of World War II. Old beliefs and value systems had been overthrown. Immeasurable suffering was inflicted on groups of people. Cities, even whole stretches of land, were scorched. What had led up to this disaster was a time before WWII,  when who was seen as good and who was seen as evil depended on what group of people you belonged to and what propaganda newspaper you had been fed to read. Truth was lost. Trust within families, between friends and neighbors, and among peoples and their governments was broken.

Our time reminds me of the existential crisis in Europe in the 1960s and ’70s. From these experiences we know that we need to be aware, that we need to feel our grief and pain, and that we need to ask what is truly valuable and meaningful in life.

I don’t pretend this is easy and all too often I get caught up in the hamster wheel of rumination and dread. Honest and courageous community gives me support in asking important questions. And having the discipline of a meditation practice allows me to recognize and rest into a dependable, solid ground and the wider perspective I need. This kind of inner security has somehow become more accessible over the years, and it allows me to stay present, informed, and open-hearted in our beautiful but wounded world.

I find it important to construct my meditations in a way that can hold a great level of uncertainty and angst. It helps to create a wide enough space for feelings, worrying thoughts, and hopes for the future to be held. I experience awareness as spacious, lucid, and as allowing as possible for wisdom and ease to arise.

This space of awareness is also called the field of care, as it holds the qualities of warmth, benevolence, and open heartedness. Often, wisdom is emphasized more than warmth in meditation. In this time, we need to bring the experience of warmth forward, as we need it so urgently right now.

In psychology, especially attachment theory, it was the mother’s or a therapist’s ongoing care that would provide the greatest benefit and healing from old wounds. Some of us may have had this kind of care; others have not. If we are held with kindness, understanding, and a compassion that arises from a quality of being that is always already there, it is easier to be present with what is painful.

Those of us who grew up with unpredictability, unkindness, lack of care, or trauma may be triggered by a polarized, and hostile cultural atmosphere. When that occurs, we need a safe place, a place where we feel deep security in something that is more profound than our human drama. We need something that can be experienced like the sky behind the clouds.

We can teach you how to tap, step by step, into that experience, how to feel the warmth of the field of care, and how to become that field of care for others. These practices are presented without dogma; they are both secular and sacred.

Refuge in the Eye of the Storm

As a refuge before the storm of election day on November 5, we will have a Field of Care class with guided meditation on Sunday,  November 4, from 2-4 p.m. in the Garden Room at the Empathy Center, 1964 Las Canoas Road. Please join us for this afternoon of meditation. If you want to join online, visit mindfulheartprograms.org and click on the Shared Zoom Room link. There is no charge. Donations will be gratefully accepted at the door or via the website donation bowl link. All are welcome!

 Helpful in these weeks around the election is also our week-day 7:30 a.m. (it goes till 8 a.m.) guided meditation class, also accessible through mindfulheartprograms.org, as well as our Deep Resilience/ self-care 2.0 class with Michael Kearney, MD on Sundays at 10 a.m.

Take good care of yourself in these turbulent times, find a refuge or community and inner ease.