what is warm
“You are Love” by Charnell LeSar
Driving with my friend Derek aka Sunny D who was visiting this past week, I told him I was heartbroken about Ukraine. He said, “But what can you do about it?” I crumbled and said, “not much.” Inhale, long exhale, “But I can pray, be peaceful in my heart, and donate to humanitarian organizations.” It’s something even though it doesn’t feel like much at the moment.
One night recently when I couldn’t sleep, I picked up my phone which I know is a big no no in the world of sleep hygiene and mindlessly scrolled through instagram. I came across a post from Marianne Williamson talking about sending love to all of the people in a room before you even walk into it. She talked about how powerful this practice is and how it can positively impact one’s nervous system.
It reminded me of a story I heard from a wonderful writing teacher named Laurie Wagner about a professor who would tell her students, “I love you already.” When you write from a place of already being loved, there is nothing to lose and nothing to prove. When you live as if you are already loved, same thing.
This love isn’t passive. It’s a commitment. It’s a practice of loving ourselves unconditionally so we can go out into the world and love others with the same integrity. We react less, respond more, practice patience, forgiveness, and peacefulness.
Over the weekend, I went to a music festival that I was feeling ambivalent about going to not because it’s not awesome every single year (thank you GMF organizers and musicians) but because I had a cold last week, there is a war in Ukraine, and a dear friend’s sweet mom just passed away. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to say the least. And I’ve struggled with this predicament since I was a little girl - how come I get to dance and laugh while others are suffering and some are literally fighting for the right to exist?
I don’t know. I don’t have an answer.
But I do know that my moping doesn’t help anyone. I do know it’s a crazy paradox we live in as human beings - that we must keep choosing to live even in the face of death and destruction. I have learned and often times the hard way that we can’t numb, escape, hide and compartmentalize our way through life. We feel it all - the sorrow and the scary stuff. We sit in the discomfort and we breathe.
And smiling and reaching out feels like hope. Like spreading rays of sunshine. It feels like light stomping out the darkness and igniting more light.
It’s like life coach extraordinaire Martha Beck instructs us to do when faced with a choice - “go with what feels warm”. Or the quote I love but I don’t know where it came from, “Stay close to the people that feel like sunshine.”
About three weeks ago, I sat with two girlfriends outside by the fountain in Hyde Park talking about how crazy, busy, and heavy life feels as the moment. Some of us are taking care of ailing parents and kids at the same time. “It’s never a dull moment and when it rains it pours”, my mom used to say. And at the same time my coffee tasted deliciously sweet and creamy. I smiled as I watched a baby girl crawling all over the ground. She came right over to our table on a mission with determined little hands and feet, raised her head up to look at us, and beamed. Pure sunshine. It felt like a miracle, a small, sweet kind of miracle. Despite all that is going on we took the time to be together in the sun.
Today, I stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and the Russians who don't want this war. And I stand with all of you whether you are in the hospital, home, feeling lonely, isolated or freaked out. I’m with you. You are already loved. And you have so much love to offer.
***AND if you aren’t following Suleika Jaouad on Instagram or subscribed to her newsletter, the Isolation Journals, please check it out. Talk about sunshine and her book, Between Two Kingdoms is out now in paperback.***