There is a lot on my mind lately. I suspect there is a lot on yours as well. Frankly, I suspect there is too much on all of our minds right now.
This newsletter focuses on my 30-year perspective. Right now, I am questioning the viability of a lot of things in the next one to three years. It is difficult to maintain focus on the longer term when the shorter term is just so chaotic (noisy? in flux? what is the right word here?).
Here is what I have been doing to keep myself grounded, fwiw. Hopefully you can find some value in these too.
I meditate almost every day. Meditation has always been a struggle for me because my brain tends to raceracerace at a furious pacepacepace. Finding a way to slow it down and focus on my breath requires significant effort. But it does help.
In addition to meditation, I am using a wonderful sound therapy app called Endel. You can try it for free here.
Spending more time doing nothing, especially with my family. The sanctity of being in the moment with the people I love, even if the little one is throwing a tantrum, is a magnificent gift.
Regulating my intake of news. Doomscrolling is going to go down in history as one of the most insidious and chronic ailments of our time. Stop it. Just stop it. Set aside time each day to read the news, catch up with friends, shop, browse, and be idle. But don’t allow yourself to endlessly scroll searching for some insight or finding opinion after opinion with which you agree or disagree.
Exercise! Move your body in any way you can as often as you can. Maintain your physical health to help maintain your mental health. I am dedicating myself to doing something every day. Some days, like today, it was a hard spin session. Other days it is strength training. Lately there has been some heavy-duty snow shoveling.
Minimizing altered states. I have switched to non-alcoholic beer almost exclusively (Heineken 0.0 is impressive!). Cut way back on wine and cocktails. Just a few weeks of going dry changed my relationship with drinking overall, allowing me to make better choices about when I want to feel the effects.
Wearing rose-colored glasses. Yes, I am deliberately looking at things with a positive slant. I am not denying the reality of the world, and certainly not turning a blind eye to injustice, but given the choice of how I interpret a situation, I start with the positive. I literally count my blessing more often right now.
None of us are immune to real challenges of the world at the moment. And none of us should look away from the things happening. However, we are all human and our capacity is finite. Taking care of our mental, emotional, and physical health is key to survival. Survival is key to ultimately being able to triumph.