I bumped into my friend Judith and her white-as-snow 12 year old mutt Buddy on my usual Saturday afternoon walk to coffee. Well into her seventies and dressed to the nines with her matching mask, as we made casual chit chat of the 2020-variety, she mentioned she was thinking about posterity.
“What will future generations say about how we met this time in our history?” was her question.
That query stuck with me. Not just because of its seriousness, but because it posed a challenge to me and all of us, really.
It led to my curiosity about what we as a species learned this year.
And because of the fractal nature of the universe (where each piece is a perfect reflection of the whole) it seemed time to ask what I had learned this year.
So, besides new additions to my vocabulary like Blursday and doomscrolling, what did I learn in this incredibly challenging year?
Here are three things I learned in 2020
Think of my learnings as rich morsels to chew on, like a piece of sticky holiday fudge. If you want even more, check out the questions for reflection and journaling at the end.
Our needs are simple.
When I was a kid and felt anxious or scared (which was pretty much all the time), the feeling of my father’s substantial hand on the middle of my small back was a signal that everything was ok. Feeling the weight, pressure and warmth of that hand on the back of my heart told me I was supported, not alone and that I didn’t have to hold all those big emotions by myself.
He didn’t have to take me to Disneyland or buy me a new Atari (look it up). All he had to do was this simple gesture, and my nervous system would calm down and settle.
Even today, having a trusted friend or my honey put a hand on that spot for me tells a deep part in my animal brain that things are alright.
This year, when so many of the more modern paths to wellness - trips to the Amalfi Coast and in person yoga classes - were stripped away, I became more aware of how simple our needs really are.
We need food, shelter, warmth. We need a sense of belonging and connection. We need a warm fuzzy blanket and bowl of steel cut oats.
Most importantly, we need to know that we matter.
Simplicity, alas, is where it’s at.
Here are some questions for self-reflection that might help you explore how you can create more simplicity in your life.
What are my basic needs?
What are my wants?
How big is the gap between my wants and needs? (Notice that the bigger the gap is, the greater the suffering)
What can I do to narrow that gap? (Hint: Explore reassessing what is a need and what is a want).
What is one thing I learned about simplifying my life this year?
2. Systems are complex and interdependence is real.
Whether it was an ICU nurse holding an iPad for his isolated patient to say goodbye to her family members, families in close quarters jostling with competing Zoom calls and online school, or a murder in Minneapolis sparking off a wave of racial awakening, 2020 has shown us how interdependent we truly are to one another.
On a spiritual level, I’ve known for a long-time that we are all fundamentally connected in what the Buddhists call a web of kindness. What this year did for me was make that reality all the more vital and important to acknowledge.
I saw how many of the folks working with me for psychedelic integration work, for example, began to see the urgent necessity of embodying experiences of unitive consciousness more deeply. It’s wonderful to get a glimpse in a session of what Dr. King described this way:
“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
What determines the quality of our lives though is how we act on that knowledge.
Insight without inspired action doesn’t change our lives.
Or the world.
To be sure, leading companies are talking about what it takes for platform integration to be seamless. But the kind of interdependence I’m talking about here goes far beyond what it takes to make a buck or “unleash innovation” as if it’s some kind of panacea.
What we each need to watch for and begin really noticing is how our interdependence calls us in and up to both be better people and to fulfill our human potential for each other.
For our benefit and for the benefit of all living beings.
Here are some questions for you to reflect on:
What did I learn about interdependence in 2020?
How am I being impacted by the systems around me?
How am I impacting those systems?
Where have my actions and my values diverged?
Where have my actions and values been aligned?
(Bonus if you’ve never really explored this one, now’s the perfect time to do so: What are my deepest values?)
3. Our survival depends on expanding our sense of community.
One thing I’ve heard this past year from my clients, friends and colleagues is about the epidemic of loneliness. Again and again I heard people shyly talk about, and experienced myself, the gap between how much connection we want and how much we actually have. The bigger the gap, the greater the dissatisfaction.
So what can we do?
My teacher - great-grandmother, activist, and yogi Nikki Myers - talks about how in 2020 she discovered her Whole Foods sangha (spiritual community).
Each week as she sheltered in place, and protected herself and her loved ones from the coronavirus, she found herself seeing the same faces at the grocery store, both behind the counter and in front of it.
Rather than ignoring those rare opportunities for social connection, she started to think of these folks as being part of her spiritual community. Instead of seeing strangers and obstacles in her way to the checkout counter, she began to cherish and cultivate those micro interactions.
When I lived in Europe, I always felt warm inside when the guy at the periptero (kiosk) near my apartment in Athens said hi and acknowledged me by name. Or when folks got onto the elevator or on the street and nodded with a “Bonjour!” when I was in Paris.
In many parts of the U.S. I’ve found that unfortunately far less common.
This is important because these micro-social interactions not only feel good - they actually help to regulate our nervous systems and decrease stress.
Spontaneous social engagement, like the kind that happens when you’re walking your dog and see a neighbor doing the same route or when you’re in line for a latte, actually helps to activate the ventral part of the nervous system. To radically simplify, when we have a well developed social engagement system of spontaneous interactions, our tendency to go into the survival responses of fight-flight-freeze is mitigated.
In other words, saying hi to your neighbors isn’t just the civil thing to do.
It’s actually protective against the long-term cumulative effects of stress by creating all kinds of hormones and chemicals that are connected to a sense of wellbeing. A true win-win.
Reflect on these questions about community:
Who is in my inner circle?
Who is in my outer circle?
Who is beyond my outer circle?
How can I expand my inner and outer circles to increase my sense of connection?
Now I’d love to hear from you: What did you learn in 2020?
Let me know in the comments below.