Feel like some non-election-related content?
Head on over to my writer’s Substack and podcast, Leslie’s OnlyFam!
I’ve just podcasted a vintage essay of mine over there called “How I Became a Writer,” and it’s a lot of fun.
Announcements: Free election-themed IM Community Practice
I’m hosting two election-themed 30-minute group IM sessions this upcoming Friday, November 15, from 12-12:30 p.m. EST and 7:30-8 p.m. EST. The practice is open to everyone, though—use it how you feel like using it.
Here is the Zoom link.
I’m also reviving IM Community Practice. Feel free to check that out.
And now, on to the essay.
So, let me tell what we’re not gonna do here.
We’re not gonna analyze why the election went the way it did, whose fault it was, or what could’ve been done differently.
And we’re not gonna pep-talk it out with speak of not giving up or holding on to hope or how maybe we’ve lost the battle but not the war.
Fine options, all, and necessary options, too.
And they will all flow so much more smoothly to us when we start by first being where we are.
And I promise that however desolate you truly feel: that is good news.
For your being with that feeling, with where you are: that is the key to your regaining your bearings, your sense of, “Okay. I know the next right thing to do.”
Only, you won’t be regaining your bearings so much as you’ll be growing your wings, otherwise known as your bodily sixth sense, and your bodily seventh and eighth and ninth senses and beyond—for it is our bodies that will yield us the ground and grounding we are seeking and do need. It is our bodies, exactly as they are right now, that will grant us our bearings.
That is what we’re going to talk about here.
So strap in, good boys and girls and nonbinary folk, and bad boys and girls and nonbinary folk too:).
I’m gonna keep it super fucking real, as I typically do.
And because this is indeed the good Gospel of Pleasure, the super fucking realness, as it typically is—as it always is, actually—is indeed Good News.
So, let’s start by just saying it.
This is all low-key fucking terrifying. High-key, too.
We all knew it could happen. The polls had been priming us for months that it would be close.
But I don’t think any of us were prepared for the vehemence with which it happened, the swift waterfall.
So, there’s that blow.
And then there’s the reality of what is coming.
No, we don’t know exactly what it will look like, what it will actually be.
But we do know what, and with whom, we’re dealing.
And we know that that ain’t good. Our bodies know that that ain’t good.
That’s why our bodies are recoiling so wisely in fear, anxiety, panic, dread, dissociation.
Ah, but this recoiling, and any fear, anxiety, panic, dread, dissociation: this is good news, fair reader, it we will work with it.
Keep reading.
The fabric of Inquiry Meditation is made of what I call Nondoing. (If you want a deep dive into nondoing as I define it, go to my “About” page here on Substack or go to my website and put the term “nondoing” in the search bar, and several blog posts will come up.)
The concept of nondoing is quite old and, as far as I know, has Buddhist and/or Taoist ties.
It doesn’t mean we we don’t do anything. Quite the opposite, actually.
What nondoing means is that instead of acting reactively out of our pain—analyzing the past and/or reaching for hope—escaping to the future…we pause.
And we turn toward our pain.
And we be with our pain.
But what’s the point of that?
Normally, when we think of being with our pain, it seems like a useless act. What the fuck is being with our helplessness, our fear, our downright horror, gonna solve? And what if, like now, it feels like it’s too big to be with? This situation, this election, it’s so much bigger than us. Our fear, our pain, could swallow us whole. It’s happened before, and it fucking sucked, and that’s putting it mildly.
So, best to keep that stuff at bay, best to keep it over there. Just—don’t think about it. Obsess about it, yeah, but don’t, you know, think about it because then it’ll all be too much.
What’s described above is rolling around in our pain. Otherwise known as identifying with it.
It’s such a learned behavior to identify and be identified with our pain that we think that’s just what we do when we’re upset.
Being with our pain is quite opposite from identifying with it.
Only, being with our pain isn’t opposite from identifying with it because beingness doesn’t have an opposite. Being simply is. Being, or beingness, points to oneness.
And so, beingness is in a dimension that is infinitely powerful than our doing, than our rolling around. Beingness is in, is of, the dimension of nature. Of Nature. Of life itself. Or herself, as I like to say, but life doesn’t mind what pronoun we use.
And so, when we be with our pain—our terror, our anxiety, our panic, our grief—when we non-do: we return ourselves to the flow of Life.
When we be with whatever’s in front of us—happy stuff, too, because happiness can be hard to be with, too—we return ourselves to the flow of Life.
And when we return ourselves to the flow of Life, then we’re dealing with, we’re dealing in, higher-level intelligence. The intelligence behind oceans and horses and stars and the night sky that holds them and laughter and babies and creation. And onesies. ‘Cause I love a good onesie.
When we return ourselves to the flow of Life, then Life, that intelligence that is so kind and sure and knowing and, oh, I don’t know, fucking creates everything, can speak to us.
Life always is speaking to us, though.
It’s more that when we be with our pain, then we can hear her (Life) speaking.
And we can hear her because we’re in her flow.
Analyzing what’s happened (going to the past) and talking about continuing the good fight (going to the future): these are ways to not feel our current-moment pain. Ultimately, they are distractions.
And they are innocent, of course.
We fear, quite understandably, that feeling our pain will drown us.
What I am saying, though, is that we can be with our pain. Being with our pain is a very helpful way to feel it.
For if we will be with it, then we will be befriending ourselves. Our bodies.
We will have softened. And thus, so will our pain.
The grief, the terror, the anxiety: it will give way to ground. And grounding.
We will begin firing on more cylinders.
What we need to do next: it will become clear.
And it will become clear that all we need to know is the next right thing. We will feel deeply satisfied in our bellies with this knowing.
We will be able to see exactly what is, as it is.
And we will be able to act accordingly, with calm and rather smoothly, rather seamlessly.
We will be in flow.
Which means, we won’t be running around harried and crazy.
No.
Life will be acting through us. We will have made it possible for Life to act through us.
And we will find the next right thing coming to us.
And we will find ourselves able to be truly helpful to ourselves and others.
It’s not really that our grief, our terror, our anxiety, give way to ground and grounding, though.
It is that they will reveal themselves as our grounding, our bodily wisdom, our somatic knowingwhattodonextness. This alchemy, this miracle, happens every time we be with, when we will see, our pain.
In other words, our pain is our answer. Our answer, all our answers, lie in our pain.
Our pain is our answer. Our pain is all our answers.
All we have to do is be with it.
So, how do we be with our pain?
Here is what I did on Wednesday.
I went to sleep on Tuesday feeling pretty sure that Kamala would win. I didn’t watch any news that evening.
I slept fitfully.
I awoke on Wednesday. I got online.
And literally, I cried out when I saw the news. The horror raced like sewage through my organs.
My thoughts began racing. All the thoughts we all have been thinking.
Immediately, I closed my eyes. I didn’t try to stop the thoughts from racing, though. And I didn’t try to quell the horror.
Instead, I said, “You can race, thoughts. I will be here with you as you race. I won’t leave you alone as you race. I will watch you. I’m here, little friends. And I won’t leave you.”
I said the same to the horror.
I spoke with as much slowness, softness, sweetness, and gentleness as I could muster. I had about $.06 worth. In terms of IM currency, though, that translates to approximately $3,476,932.89.
And here is the crucial bit—here is the key to Inquiry Meditation, here is what makes the practice a meditation: I paused. And I checked to make sure the thoughts and the horror heard me.
The thoughts and the horror, they were strong as stallions. But I could feel they’d heard me. If we will check to make sure our insides are hearing us, we will find that they are.
This checking, and the resulting exchange with our insides, is how we put ourselves in a state of nondoing. Beingwithness. True power.
This checking in granted me another $2 billion in IM currency.
And when you know you’re rich, you can afford ever so much more slowness, softness, sweetness, and gentleness.
Once I knew the thoughts and the horror had heard me, I had capacity to be gracious. I asked them if I could get them blankets. Tea? Running shoes?
Our insides are always moved when we are nice to them.
They calmed. I did, too.
And so, they calmed more. I did, too. By now, I was up to $10 trillion. IM will make you a rich bitch, quick.
I told the thoughts and the horror that I couldn’t be with them fully just now, couldn’t sit with them like I wanted to, like I needed to, because I had to get Arden off to school.
“But,” I said to them, “you have my full permission to race and race and race. I will be the space for you to do that, my darlings. I’m in deep agreement with your decision to race. It’s wise and it’s brilliant, and I encourage you do it, and I do love you very much.”
They went on racing for their lives, tearing up earth. But they did pause to say, “We love you, too, Leslie.”
This felt love between myself and my terror, my grief, my panic, my anxiety, made ground for me out of groundlessness. Enough ground that I could get up and get Arden off to school with full knowing that the act of getting my kid off to school was the very best thing I could do for myself, for humanity, in that moment. It was good ground.
And that is what true grounding is made of, is our being with our groundlessness.
If we will be with our pain during this very strange and extraordinary moment: then we will know what to do.
We will be able to act with evermore decisiveness, insight, and authority.
We will be able to make tough calls.
We will be wise, and we will not add to the world’s suffering.
Instead, we will be a boon.
This capacity is what is needed now.
Because decisive, insightful, and authoritative action, and tough calls, and wisdom indeed are needed now.
And if we will be with our pain during this very strange and extraordinary moment: then the now moment will turn to us, drop like a great dragon before us, urge us to climb on, and there we’ll be, flown through the air by a winged creature, through the limits of seeming time, and finding we have just enough.
Our timing will be perfect, and we will find we have have the exact right energy and resources to do what needs to be done, and there will be good cheer in our bodies.
For we will feel life’s light touch at our elbow, at the small of our back, telling us to go not this way but that, to do not this but that. Even if it doesn’t quite make sense, we will feel the elegance inherent in the instruction, and we will find ourselves able to act in very strange and extraordinary ways.
And we will know that we are not only seen, but we are met, and we are not only met, but as Scott Peck says at the end of his masterpiece The Road Less Traveled, we are welcomed.
And we will know that we need figure out no thing. We will know we need only to listen, we need only avail ourselves of this intelligence that’s so goddamn fucking cool, it doesn’t even need a capital “I”. It’s like a rock star wearing a perfect thrift store T-shirt.
And if we will say yes, we will be guided.
And quite simply, we will find ourselves able to do whatever needs to be done.
Let us close with Dr. Peck’s words, which I come back to again and again and again.
“When my patients lose sight of their significance and are disheartened by the effort of the work we are doing, I sometimes tell them that the human race is in the midst of making an evolutionary leap. ‘Whether or not we succeed in that leap,’ I say to them, ‘is your personal responsibility.’ And it is mine.
The universe, this stepping stone, has been laid down to prepare a way for us. But we ourselves must step across it, one by one. Through grace, we are helped not to stumble, and through grace, we know that we are being welcomed.
What more can we ask?”
Thank you so much for reading/listening/watching.
Feel like reading more? Check out my writer’s Substack and podcast, Leslie’s OnlyFam, to read or listen to“How I Became a Writer”.
Want to practice what I’ve just preached? Awesome. Here again is the Zoom link for the free election-themed Community Practice I’m hosting this upcoming Friday, November 15, from 12-12:30 p.m. EST and 7:30-8 p.m. EST. All are welcome.
I’m reviving Inquiry Meditation Community Practice! It’s a great way to learn and practice IM in a pretty low-stakes manner. All info here.
Last but not least, here is your post-essay chaser. (You might have to be on Substack to actually see it.) Listen even just for 60 seconds, and know in your body that you are indeed being welcomed. A single minute can make all the difference in your day, friends.
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