MY WEEKLY BLOG<\/p>\n
No More Doom and Gloom. Please.<\/p>\n
I remember a time when an overcast sky or a rainy day felt\u00a0cozy. I\u2019d put on my comfiest sweats, curl up with a good book and journey into\u00a0another world. I didn’t focus on illness or contagion. I enjoyed a good debate\u00a0about politics. I watched the news to educate myself, I ate in restaurants, I\u00a0went to gatherings and although I\u2019m mostly a home body, I occasionally visited\u00a0my sister in Northern California and friends who had a spa in the desert.<\/p>\n
These days, I\u2019m a lot more moody. An overcast sky only seems
to exaggerate my sadness. I spend a lot of time by myself. My emotions feel so\u00a0fragile, when I try to watch the news, I start thinking about taking Xanax and\u00a0when someone coughs or sneezes, I go into protective mode and get as far away\u00a0from them as I can. It seems like looking forward to an event has turned into \u201cgetting\u00a0through a day.\u201d And if I hear someone predicting political devastation, my
stomach drops and I feel depressed.<\/p>\n
I know I\u2019m not alone in my feelings. A few weeks ago, I was eating
in an outdoor restaurant grotto, newly built for Covid, when someone at my\u00a0table predicted that we were in for big trouble three years from now. I felt aggravated,\u00a0not only by what he was saying, but by the way that he was saying it. He sounded\u00a0excited and almost hysterical and I saw other people become agitated as his tone\u00a0got higher and louder. He seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice as he cut\u00a0off anyone who had an opinion that was different from his. I tried to speak a\u00a0few times but when I realized there was no way to divert the conversation into\u00a0something palatable, I excused myself early and went home.<\/p>\n
I sat on my bed and thought about what had just happened. People
who are committed to gloom and doom are loud and harsh and hard to ignore. But\u00a0there are plenty of quieter people out there who are committed to living good\u00a0lives and helping other people do the same. People who see a world with hope\u00a0and compassion. That\u2019s the sentiment I want to embrace. I\u2019m not a Pollyanna. I\u00a0don’t have my head in the sand. I\u2019m not blissed out and I\u2019m not a reality\u00a0denier. I know what\u2019s happening in this world and I understand that many things\u00a0are not kind or right. But I believe that we can focus on what is right, uplift\u00a0our friends, and change our moods by how we listen, how we act and how we\u00a0express ourselves. No one knows what\u2019s coming next, good or bad, so why forecast\u00a0misfortune and despair when we can imagine a kinder world just as easily?<\/p>\n
Back in the eighties, a friend was in the hospital with\u00a0AIDS. When people visited him with bad news and fear, he didn\u2019t want the added
burden of trying to take care of them. He knew he was dying, he couldn’t turn\u00a0that around, and he told everyone, \u201cI\u2019m only interested in two things: What did\u00a0they eat? What did they wear?\u201d That was all he was willing to talk about.\u00a0Anything else was depressing and upsetting and he wanted his last days to be good\u00a0ones.<\/p>\n
I was in a workshop with spiritual leader, Stephen Levine,\u00a0when a participant said that he was gay and his father, a pastor, told him he
was living in a sinful reality. He felt guilty, he wanted to create a different\u00a0reality, but he didn’t know how. Did Stephen have any advice for him? Mr.\u00a0Levine said, \u201cThat\u2019s a tricky one. For starters. we don’t know what it really means\u00a0to create and we don\u2019t know what reality actually is. There are so many belief\u00a0systems floating around out there. Why not choose one that makes you feel\u00a0good?\u201d<\/p>\n
It can be that simple. We don\u2019t have to jump on the\u00a0bandwagon of fear and negativity. I love the Mark Twain quote, \u201cI\u2019ve had a lot\u00a0of worries in my life, most of which have never happened.\u201d I can live in dread\u00a0about something that may never happen and make myself sick or I can imagine a\u00a0good outcome and stick with that. I\u2019m not into pretending that things are not\u00a0what they are, but I can make my life better instead of collapsing into a black\u00a0hole of misery and trash talking. I can find a different groove, one that is\u00a0welcoming rather than foreboding. One that is hopeful instead of morose.<\/p>\n
There is a slew of painful information out there that we can\u00a0latch onto and suffer. We can go online and tax our nervous systems with lies,\u00a0gossip and false facts, but that isn’t worthy of our time and we don’t have to\u00a0get beaten down by it. When I come across predictions of doom and gloom, if\u00a0there\u2019s something I can do, I do it. If there\u2019s nothing I can do, I drop into\u00a0the present moment and focus on my breath. It takes inner strength and\u00a0practice, but the alternative is so toxic and such a waste of time, I\u2019d rather\u00a0do the work and make my world a place that nurtures me and offers me with hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MY WEEKLY BLOG No More Doom and Gloom. Please. I remember a time when an overcast sky or a rainy day felt\u00a0cozy. I\u2019d put on my comfiest sweats, curl up with a good book and journey into\u00a0another world. I didn’t focus on illness or contagion. I enjoyed a good debate\u00a0about politics. I watched the news […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}