When I get discouraged about the world-

When I pull up a newsfeed of angry words and angry fists and angry faces; feel my mind fill and clatter with all the vast chatter that makes me want to fix everything all at once (even as I know I can’t fix any of it); feel my energy leak from me in small blue pools of tears, and translucent sighs of sad, and a frenzied spinning mind that won’t get off the insatiable merry-go-round of anxious desperation-

When I get like this, I am reminded it is time to lay it down, turn it off, let it go-

Breathe. Look up. Shift.

Shift my focus to all that is right, and all that is joy, and all that is the distance I’ve come: my repository of recollections and collections of good becoming my lighthouses of hope in the huge sweep of life’s storm.

They light my way with words of grace:

“Keep walking, you haven’t quit yet, don’t start now.

Keep on with joy, there is much to be found.

Cry when you need and laugh like you must, for laughter will always be the true magnetic compass that leads you out of the lost forest of despair.

Breathe my dear one, breathe. We are nothing without breath.

Stop looking to the world to set your tone- you were never meant to be well adjusted to a maladjusted system. Instead bring it back to the only world you can control- the space in your heart.

Be still, be you, be peace, be real.”

And let the energy of Love flow from there.