A Meditation For This Moment
There are so many self-help influencers, coaches, therapists, and highly influential people talking about inner peace, mindfulness, finding your purpose, building the life you’ve always wanted, and reaching your goals for a more fulfilling life. While those aspirations are something a coach is trained to do, I feel like it doesn’t quite meet the moment. This moment.
We are living through times that feel overwhelming, scary, and destabilizing. Right now, it’s normal to dissociate, doom scroll, or numb out. And I believe this moment is calling for something else. It’s calling for us to feel.
If you’ve worked with me, you know my practice centers on feeling—coming into the body, sitting with discomfort, and letting emotions move instead of bypassing them. But maybe we don’t need more advice about what to do. Maybe we need guidance on how to be with what’s here.
There is so much suffering happening right now, and I don’t believe we’re going back to how things were. As Glennon Doyle says, “First the fall, then the rising.” We are in the falling—and we need to feel the impact.
Here is one simple practice that has helped me more than anything else in recent weeks. My suffering isn’t gone, but the energy is moving.
Pema Chodron calls this practice Tonglen or “taking and receiving.” It reverses our instinct to avoid pain. In Tonglen, we breathe in the suffering of others and breathe out light and relief into the world. In other traditions its called “taking and receiving”. This practice intends to reverse our logic of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure.
To practice:
Sit comfortably with your spine upright.
Take a few slow, deep breaths, lengthening the exhale.
Inhale what feels painful—for yourself or others.
Exhale light, warmth, and care.
Let your exhale expand to include yourself, others, and even those you struggle to hold compassion for.
t's normal to want to look away when we see others suffering. Their pain triggers our fear, anger, sadness, confusion, and worry. Instead of criticizing ourselves for this, we can use our own “stuckness” to better understand what others are experiencing. Although it may feel like ingesting poison at first, you're actually injecting medicine. I believe empathy, compassion, deep feeling, and love is what the world needs so badly right now. It’s natural to want to look away from suffering. But when we stay, our own discomfort becomes a doorway to empathy and compassion.
I’ve been practicing Tonglen for 20 minutes a day, and I’m finally crying, grieving, and feeling again. It’s the most powerful tool I’ve found for moving out of overwhelm and dissociation.
I hope it helps you, too.