Welcoming This Scary Moment

This year it feels like there are real live goblins in the streets. 
So maybe it’s an odd time to put out the welcome mat.

But to me, it feels like there’s no other choice. If we notice our internal goblins - 
fear, anxiety, and concern or notice the goblins in others, and turn away, 
we’re missing the chance to care.



If we welcome whatever we see and hear, however scary it is,
then maybe there’s a chance that no matter what happens next, 
we’ll survive, because we care.
 
Go to the places that scare you, say all of our teachers.

Well, here we are. 
What can we do but make ourselves and each other welcome?

Transcript

Hey,

Everyone.

It's Judy Cohen.

This is Wake Up Call 464.

Happy Halloween.

I feel like it's Halloween in a lot of different ways right now.

So how are you feeling?

I feel like I'm in this place of settling and then feeling scared and then settling and then feeling anxious.

And repeat.

Doing what I can in these final days before the election,

Making calls,

Talking to people,

Trying not to read too much,

But reading some,

Listening to music,

Not listening to so much NPR,

Gathering with friends on Tuesday.

Even if we won't know much on Tuesday,

Maybe we will,

Maybe we won't.

I think I've mentioned here that I'm also part of another community in addition to the Mindful Lawyering community,

And it's called the JAM community,

And it's a different kind of community from a lot of communities.

It's very open,

Very welcoming in a way that feels very precious and rare right now.

And one of the tools in the JAM community is a particular kind of welcome,

And I'm guessing the JAM welcome didn't originate at the JAM and it's much older,

But that's where I learned it.

And it's this welcome in this very big sense of the word,

And it's really not so different from our practice,

Our mindfulness practice,

Because,

I mean,

It isn't welcoming kind of at the heart of our practice.

You know,

We invite ourselves to be in the moment and to be with each moment,

No matter what's here.

And,

You know,

We reference Rumi's poem,

This being human is a guest house every morning,

A new arrival,

A joy,

A depression,

A meanness,

Welcome and entertain them all,

You know.

So our invitation in our practice is,

Is to welcome each moment.

And for me,

This is,

It's sometimes easier,

It's sometimes harder.

I'm still learning to welcome my whole self,

The whole truth of each moment,

Even all these years along.

And still there are plenty of moments I don't welcome or not automatically,

You know,

Plenty of moments which if I notice them,

I notice because I'm about to turn away or I already have,

Or I notice because I'm about to try to push something away or I already have,

Or trying to slide by something and then ignore the skid marks that it's leaving on my heart.

And what I'm learning slowly,

You know,

Sometimes excruciatingly slowly,

Sometimes painfully,

Is it's just better to follow Rumi's advice.

So,

For example,

When anxiety arises,

For me,

It's best to pat the seat next to me and say,

Have a seat,

Welcome.

Pay attention to how anxiety feels in the body,

You know.

Welcoming my anxiety feels like honoring it and honoring it feels like making space for it.

And when anxiety has space,

When it has room to breathe,

Then so do I.

And I can see that it's not solid,

It's transient,

It's coming and going,

It's arising and passing away.

The Tibetans talk about this as changing the pasture for the horse,

Meaning giving a wild horse or the wild horse of the mind,

If you will,

You know,

More space,

A bigger pasture to kick around in.

And this works for me.

When fear comes,

It's best for me to lay down and let it kind of course through me and notice without wishing things were different,

Notice the jitteriness and the agitation that accompanies it.

And welcoming fear,

It feels like welcoming anxiety,

It feels like I'm honoring fear,

Giving it room to breathe,

A bigger pasture.

Also reminds me that fear,

Just like anxiety,

Isn't solid,

It's transient.

It's coming and going.

With thoughts,

It's the same thoughts about the election or anything else difficult for me,

It's best to lay them out like a collage and see that they're just thoughts.

And also when I do that,

See how much space there is between the thoughts,

You know,

And this kind of welcoming,

This kind of honoring,

It takes the sting out of the thoughts and it reminds me to check in with myself before I start wandering down the road,

Weaving stories with the thoughts.

When sorrow arises.

When sorrow arises,

It's best for me to go outdoors if I can and find a good place to cry.

And it's even better with anxiety,

With fear,

With sorrow,

With other difficult thoughts and emotions to be grateful.

Suzuki Roshi wrote,

You should be grateful for the weeds you have in your mind because eventually they will enrich your practice.

And I feel that I do feel richer when I'm aware of and grateful for the things that I'm aware of and grateful for,

The comings and goings in this wild mind,

This wild heart.

You know,

Partly because it reminds me of the complexity of this human heart.

And partly because it reminds me that Suzuki Roshi was talking to everyone at once,

Right,

Meaning we all have wild thoughts and emotions.

And it's easy for everybody to forget to notice and welcome and make space for them and to realize that they're transient,

They're just thoughts,

They're just emotions.

And when forgetting happens,

It's easy for all of us to weave them into stories,

Sometimes catastrophic stories.

So this is what I was thinking,

And this will be a different kind of meditation.

Let's see how this kind of intentional welcome could feel.

We'll do a welcoming meditation and we'll be welcoming ourselves and also each other and whatever is here.

And I just invite you to see how it goes.

And if it's a little uncomfortable and you're in your stretch zone,

Maybe stay with it.

And if it's too uncomfortable and you're feeling agitated or panicky,

Then shift into simply following the breath or attending to the sensations of the body.

Everything is welcome.

And either way,

Whatever you find useful from this meditation,

Just invite you to take it with you into the next several days and maybe weeks and take a moment here and there in your day and welcome whatever is arising and passing away.

So finding posture that's comfortable and supportive.

This meditation is a little bit like a loving kindness meditation,

You can sit back and relax.

Could even lay down.

Take a couple of intentional breaths and connect to the earth.

Connect to your family or friends or community.

Connect to yourself.

And then welcome,

Welcome to this moment.

Welcome to whatever thoughts and emotions are arising in this moment,

In yourself,

In all of us.

Welcome to concern.

Welcome to anxiety.

Welcome to fear.

Welcome to curiosity.

To confusion.

To not knowing.

Welcome to thoughts of victory.

Thoughts of catastrophe.

Welcome to all thoughts,

All emotions in this moment.

Welcome to whatever is happening in this moment to evoke those thoughts and emotions.

Because it's the truth of what's happening.

Welcome to the remembered past,

The humans,

The events,

The times,

Your history,

The history in each of us in all of its intricacies and contradictions and convolutions and clarity.

And the ways that remembered past is causing or has created the conditions for the ways we feel and think right now.

Welcome to the deeper past,

To our roots on the earth,

The places we're from long ago,

Our ancestors,

The conditions under which they lived and celebrated and struggled and died.

And to the ways that deeper past is causing or has created the conditions for the ways we feel and think right now.

Welcome to our ethnic and racial backgrounds and languages and dialects.

And to the ways those define and shape us and don't.

To the ways we're connected with them and aren't.

And to the ways they've caused or created conditions for how we feel and think right now.

Welcome to our gender expressions and the ways that we express our sexuality and our love and to how those inform the ways we feel and think right now.

And welcome to our abilities,

Whether greater or fewer,

And to our physical and mental health and well-being,

Whether robust or frail.

And to the ways those inform how we feel and think right now.

Welcome to our religions,

Our faiths,

Our spiritual beliefs and traditions,

And also any old or ancient practices or traditions we may identify with,

Even if lost.

And to the ways those inform how we feel and think right now.

Welcome to our relationships to money,

Wealth,

Property,

Power,

And other markers of status,

And to how those relationships inform how we feel and think right now.

Welcome to our relationships to justice,

To conflict,

And to peace.

To the ways those terms and concepts do and don't resonate,

And to the ways they inform how we feel and think right now.

Welcome to our relationships to the visible and invisible structures of society,

Our relationships to capitalism,

To democracy,

To the patriarchy,

To white supremacism,

To racism,

To gender bias,

And nationalism,

And ableism,

And bias against neurodivergence,

And bias towards and against the global north,

And to all kinds of racism and bias.

And welcome to our relationships to all other societal structures,

Both seen and unseen,

And to how they inform how we feel and think right now.

Welcome to the work we do,

Both visible and invisible,

And the meaning that work has for us,

And the ways that work does and doesn't support us,

And enliven us,

And define us,

And the ways it informs how we feel and think right now.

Welcome to our relationships to the natural world,

The other beings with whom we share the land,

And the water,

And the sky,

Besides the human beings.

And the ways those relationships inform how we think and feel right now.

Welcome to the ways in which the number of trips we've taken around the sun informs how we feel and think right.

Welcome to our relationship to mindfulness,

And to the ways that informs how we feel and think right now.

Welcome to our courage,

Our love,

Our wisdom,

Our curiosity,

Our generosity,

Our hopefulness,

And our anger,

Our rage,

Our sorrow,

Our fear,

Confusion,

And hopelessness,

To the ways we show and choose not to show those feelings,

And to the way they inform how we feel and think right now.

Thank you,

Everyone,

For being on the wake-up call today.

Take care.

Be safe out there.

See you all next Thursday.