Sometimes your heart fills with grief and you want to sink. In fact, you’re probably sinking right now. You can feel it. On the way down you sense the grief of others, too, which combines with yours, and you sink some more. Grief is heavy and there’s so much of it you could burst. Pockets full of rocks, you can’t come up for air.
Advice from a forgettable self-help book springs to mind: Focus on what is instead of what isn’t.
You repeat this silently to yourself.
Occasionally, you consider equanimity. Oxford defines it as mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation. Sounds like balance. Sounds like ease of spirit in hard times. You’d like some equanimity.
When asked, meditation expert Sharon Salzburg describes equanimity as spaciousness. It’s having enough spaciousness, she says, to hold all the pleasure and pain of the world at once. Light and dark. Cultivating enough room in your heart and mind for both.
She adds that no matter how much work you’ve done, no matter how much you’ve prayed or meditated or gone to therapy, sometimes pain, shame, anxiety, and fear will still come knocking. They always do. The Buddhists call them hinderances, and for good reason. Salzburg recommends asking them in for tea.
Yes. For tea.
Over tea, you can tell your guilt and anxiety that you no longer need to live that way. Salzburg says the exchange need not be angry, nor resentful. It’s gentle. It’s like telling your neighbor you don’t need them to get your mail anymore. After all, you’re having tea.
You can say anything over tea. You take the good with the bad over tea. You could tell your father he hurt you over tea. You could ask your brother why he doesn’t want to be in your life over tea. Thanks to tea, you’re even-tempered. You discover unknown superpowers of the heart.
We love a reframing in this family, and why not? Now you can see shame is just an old friend who wants some tea. You tell her you’ve moved on, but you’re rather kind about the whole thing. It’s no big deal. No one slams doors. It’s just tea!
Focus on what is instead of what isn’t. Focus on the people who do call instead of the ones who don’t.
This refrain is always helpful, but perhaps especially so over the holidays, which can be difficult, full of grief. Maybe it’s even more helpful over the holidays during a pandemic. Whew.
Just think: Next year at this time you might be hugging again. Hugging, dancing, singing.
As much as that makes you want to dump the rocks out of your pockets and jump for joy, you decide not to wish away what’s happening now. You savor all the awkward air hugs from friends. You enjoy real hugs from the person who puts her mask on first because she can’t resist. You notice how moving it is, so many people trying their best. You relish long days beside your dog.
“One day you’ll be too busy to do this, and you’ll miss it,” your husband says sometimes, ominously, when you tell him you can’t wait another minute — not even a second! — to know where your lives are heading next. You remember the agony of time gone by and realize he’s right. You’ll miss this — not the economic destruction and death, not the fear, anxiety, or loss, but the simplicity and quietness of each day.
Nothing is all bad, and even though this period is loaded with grief, you recognize what isn’t.
You were in a writing group this fall, led by a brilliant, generous woman, and in one prompt, she invited everyone to make a gratitude list. Write down five things you’re grateful for today, she said, and if that language turns you off, just write five things that pleased you today. You liked that turn of phrase.
“What did you find pleasing this week?,” you occasionally ask your husband when there’s nothing left to say. You’ve spent ten months together and topics are running thin. He rattles a few things off. They seem inconsequential, small. But they make you smile.
You focus on what is instead of what isn’t. This pleases you.
And that’s the tea on joy.
Between you and me—
Thank you so much for exploring joy with me this year. First, we examined the topic with Ross Gay and Zadie Smith. Then we looked at reader responses to The Pandemic Joy Project, eavesdropped on a conversation about joy in dark times between two close friends, and followed the joyful licorice trail to discover that cultivating joy is work that must be done as diligently as all the rest.
As always, I’m glad you’re here.
WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE is written by Lauren Maxwell. Want to support this newsletter? You can become a sponsor, click the heart, share online, or forward to a friend. It all helps!
Thank you, Lauren! I love this piece. Reminds me of advice I once heard to "Make room for your friend Anxiety on the couch to hang out with."
Such a beautiful message. I have a number of things that I need to address and doing it over tea, with myself, is a great way to start. Thanks so much for sharing! I love reading your pieces!