Thanks to the virus
It’s easy to see the positive environmental effects that staying at home has had. Pollution is decreasing, air quality is improving, animals are seemingly coming out of hiding. All of that stuff is fucking AWESOME, but it might be hard to fully appreciate when your own life has been severely disrupted amidst all of the economic uncertainty. It’s hard for us to see/care about the bigger picture when we feel our basic needs aren’t being met. To that I offer this: if you are alive today, breathing, and have a device upon which to read this article, you’re doing better than you might realize. Uncertainty can be fucking scary, but uncertainty in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. Rather it’s our aversion and fear of uncertainty that causes us suffering.
“Yeah blah blah blah Miguel, but how am I going to pay my bills?”
I don’t know. I do know this though: sitting around worrying, is blocking you from the answers you seek. In Raja Yoga we have a guideline called Ishvara Pranidhana which is sometimes translated as total surrender to God. That language doesn’t work for me, and it might not work for you either, so allow me to reframe it. Ishvara can also be translated to perfection, or the idea of something perfect. It’s a hard thing to put into a single word, so God is often used, but that word is heavily loaded and has a lot of connotations that are far from what I believe Ishvara is referring to. I like to look at it this way: there is a lot of perfection in the present moment (arguably the only real moment) and by surrendering our ego (which includes our fear and other dramas) we can connect to that perfection. Let go of fear, connect to gratitude.
It’s easy for us to get sucked up into fear and drama and what ifs, but that’s all an illusion. Are you breathing right now? You’re doing great. You still have life. There is still beauty, and potential for beauty and all you have to do is practice seeing the good rather than the fearful. Being afraid is addictive and detrimental to your health, happiness and wellbeing. Being afraid keeps you from being creative and successful. Being grateful is the fucking antidote. So today, I’d like for you to consider what you have to be grateful for, as a direct result of this pandemic. If you think you have nothing to be grateful for, you’re not looking. Open your damn eyes. I’ll start.
Here are some things that have happened as a direct result of staying home because of the virus.
Thanks to the virus:
My already good relationship with my wife, has somehow gotten even stronger. Being home for this much of her pregnancy has helped me deepen my appreciation for what it is that mothers do. We’re spending more time playing board games together, watching movies and reading together. Most importantly we’re talking so openly and honestly. We’re learning to respect each others wants, needs and boundaries on a deeper level. We learned how to make tortillas and pasta.
I have never spent so much time with my daughter Olivia. I’ve always had a good relationship with her, but even when I’m home from tour, she would usually go to daycare for 6 hours a day. Now she’s been home all day every day with us and while that certainly presents some challenges (understatement) our bond is growing. We spend so much time playing, listening to music, dancing and drawing together. It’s the best.
My dogs have never been better behaved. After a couple of years of working closely with my dear friend Brad and Bevill Dog Behavior, my boys seem to be finally living up to their potential. They’re more balanced, I’m happy. We go on a lot of walks, they get extra time on the treadmill, and we’ve been doing family bike rides. Because of the stay at home orders, we finally pulled the trigger on a bike trailer we’d been meaning to get. Olivia rides in the trailer with Cape, while Stuffing runs alongside my bike. It’s a nice way for the entire family to get some fresh air. Best bike rides of my life.
I’ve deepened my appreciation for my band and bandmates. I LOVE what I do for a living, and while not being able to play music and travel has been incredibly painful, it’s brought me to a heightened level of appreciation for the fact that I get to play in my favorite band, with my best friends and travel around the world. I love my dudes so much. I have a tendency on tour to get kind of grumpy, especially handling tour managing duties on top of playing in the band. This time apart has knocked that straight out of my system. It’s an honor and joy to get to TM, to take care of the dumb details so my brothers don’t have to worry. It’s an honor and a joy to spend time with them, my other family. Next tour, whenever that might be, is going to be the best tour we’ve ever done.
Uncertainty around money/work has forced me to face my fears and stress around money/work. I’ve been able to reevaluate the what and why of my work, while lessening my attachment to the how and when. This has brought me back to seeking intrinsic value to my work, enjoying creating for the sake of creating. I wrote a kids book!! How fucking cool is that?! I’ve made myself less busy, and prioritized working on the things that bring me the most joy.
I’ve reached out to at least one friend every day since this began, and it’s allowed me to reconnect with a lot of really awesome people. Real connections, not just reading a timeline. To that same end I’ve decluttered my phone, making my homepage have only music, a camera and my book app. I have to dig for social media and news, and as a result, I’ve consumed a lot less of those two things. It’s been fantastic for my mental health. Connecting, rather than the illusion of connecting, has been very powerful.
I’ve reconnected with, and deepened my spiritual practice. I’m spending more time in meditation, contemplative prayer, writing pages and actively practicing kindness and gratitude. My connection inward and outward has honestly never been stronger. I am happy. I can see that it doesn’t matter what happens or doesn’t happen tomorrow, because today is so beautiful and perfect that it requires my entire presence to even begin to appreciate it. Gratitude in the present moment is the closest thing to Ishvara or God, or Universal oneness I can describe. Pure, connected, free. I am happy. You, my brothers and sisters, can be happy too.
For today I offer two very simple exercises to help you connect, so that you may suffer less, and be happier. Spirituality and self-help don’t need to be big complicated processes. So try not to overthink. Overthinking adds to the problem, contrary to popular belief there is a time to practice non-thinking just as there is a time to practice thinking.
Practice one: a simple gratitude journal. Every day for the next week, write down 5 things that you are genuinely grateful for.
Practice two: simple, contemplative prayer. It doesn’t matter who/what you are connecting to, it might just be your inner self. It can be God/nature/Universal oneness/the source/your inner Self/love/beauty, whatever speaks to you. That part is of little consequence. What matters is that you spend a little bit of time simply being in the presence of whatever it is you are connecting to. Practice silence, practice non-thinking and for 5 minutes/day allow yourself to simply sit, breathe and be in the presence of “it.”
That’s it. Write down 5 things you’re grateful for, and spend 5 minutes being in the presence of whatever your idea of perfection is. Leave your ego, fear, drama and other bullshit aside for those 5 minutes. It can wait.
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