A Recipe for Keeping Your Heart Tender
Get Granular
Hello ♡,
I organized my jewelry drawer before I wrote this week’s newsletter. And it wasn’t because it needed to be done, it was more because I needed to do it. I needed to be granular. I had so many different things I wanted to write swirling around, and needed to hear what I wanted to say. Doing small tasks can help us get still and listen.
I found the earrings my mom bought me when we took a trip to Disney, just the two of us, my sophomore year in college. I held the Christmas ball earrings I wear once a year. I picked up my earrings from my wedding day, I swear they were bigger? And put on a ring that was my first “grown up” ring in middle school - complete with my birthstone. It was all so small. And it was all so significant to me.
I went for a walk last weekend. There was a singular leaf on the ground that was the most brilliant red, stunning yellow, and perfectly shaped. I stared at it, and stopped, I wanted to take a picture. I also wanted to jump into the smallness and beauty of it as my head and heart swirled grieving the interview I’d heard with a mom about her son held hostage by Hamas, I heard my own love for my son in her despair. I grieved the growing number of innocent lives, and so very many children, killed in Gaza. I felt like I couldn’t process through it all, couldn’t possibly be breathing this safe air with all these realities happening. And there was this leaf. Focusing on the smallness and fascination of it helped me feel more grounded to the actual earth I was standing on as I looked at it.
I’ve been thinking about getting small, granular even, ever since as a way to move through this time.
There’s an understandable temptation that the small things don’t matter when the big things are happening. But I wonder if perhaps they couldn’t matter more?
Getting small is not ignoring big realities, it’s a way to move past the freezing helpless response that can come with reading about numbers of humans that have died, are missing, or injured.
Getting small, in the details of a meal, or my child’s story from school, or a meaningless but pleasurable task (like organizing for me), is not indifference, it’s grounding in the reality of how small, and significant, each of our lives are. It grounds you in the present moment to be in the smallness of it.
It’s also a way to care and pay attention, not to the terrifyingly numbing numbers, but to the terrible reality that the number of children dying are each one little beautiful life loved by one mommy who will never smell their hair after a bath again, or make them a snack, or get onto them for eating too many sweets. The mom of a kidnapped son I anguished with as I listened is not a number, and has no idea if her son is alive. I wonder how she is right now.
The singularity of each story - each child, each leaf, keeps your heart tender, and out of the numbness that the overwhelm of headlines and numbers cause.
I drove in the car this week and put on some songs to help myself feel my feelings (this can help engage the parts of your brain where emotion, rather than task and logic, are held). And I wondered about how to hold all of this together. And as I prayed and thought, I felt the reality of how very small I actually am. Creaturely in fact. We are all just creatures, not in charge, and the reality of that helped realign my insides as I contemplated how to process all of this. We are under an illusion often about our largeness in the world - with our ability with the click of a button to order dinner, groceries, or flashlights - or book a flight to another continent. And it’s misleading. Like all other creatures we are quite small, yet incredibly significant.
And so I am focusing on the smallest of things, not to the indifference of the tragedies raging, but as an intentional practice to not lose my humanity, or the humanity of anyone else, as I bear witness to all of this.
A recipe for keeping your heart tender (in the face of our tendency to freeze and numb when we feel helpless):
Stay human. Numbers are people, but we often freeze in the face of them in a panic of overwhelm. Read and listen to stories of individuals, there are unfortunately many to choose from. Listen to people more than pontificators.
The smallest thing matters. Don’t believe the implication that tragedy eliminates the importance of the small things. Get as small as you can in your daily life - buy the flowers, cuddle the child, listen to the song, text the friend, all the small things are actually who we are. And they are who everyone is. They matter. Honor each of our humanity by staying tender in the smallness.
Recognize your order in the place of things. We hold news of the whole world literally in the palm of our hands, but this is not the same thing as holding power in our hands. This doesn’t mean you should not act, but it does mean you are allowed to accept your limitations each day as you bear witness to things you wish you could fix. You can accept your limitations and rest. This doesn’t mean you don’t care, it means you are limited.
Ground yourself in the present small moment. Feel the weight of your body in your chair. Taste the food you are eating. Take the walk. Listen to your favorite song. Move your body if you are able. Be quiet when you are able. Put down the constant stream of information to be grounded in the present moment.
We honor the humanity of each other by honoring and celebrating the small things that make each of us human. Small is significant. Granular is grounding. It keeps you anchored in the present moment, when you may feel overwhelmed, and it recognizes the grief and significance of each singular life. It keeps you tender when you feel helpless and want to numb.
I once read an article by a woman dying of cancer, and her mandate to the readers was to buy fresh flowers for her. She advised, asked even, that we honor her life by living. And so every time I buy flowers I think, this is for you Charlie.
With you,
Monica
Wow !!! yes, we are really such small creatures...but the small is also beautiful and powerful. Thank you!!!