Author: Selena

How might we accept impermanence with equanimity?

I remember feeling awed and terrified as a young child by the infinity of the universe… and the finiteness of death.

I still have an intense feeling of dread, whenever I allow myself to really think about it. Of existential terror.

After reading a book here, listening to a podcast there over the years, I decided that it was finally time to face it head on. I found the perfect opportunity with the start of a new Working Out Loud circle earlier this year, exploring week after week what death can teach us about living fully.

One of the exercises involves writing down 50 facts about yourself. I surprised myself – and my circle members even more – when I shared the fact that I had never been to a funeral. “Perhaps that explains my obsession with death”, I mused. “It’s theoretical.”

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“Are you pregnant?”, the quarantine official asked as part of his health screening routine, as we arrived at the next mandatory checkpoint in the airport after having travelled halfway across the world.

“No”, my husband answered, taking my hand.

“Have you been hospitalised in the past 30 days?”

This time I replied.

“I was pregnant, then I wasn’t, and I went to hospital.”

A pause. A look of surprise. And then unfabricated sorrow.

“I’m so sorry.”

It was one of the most pure, empathetic and touching responses I’ve received since my pregnancy loss.

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I’ve been ambivalent since childhood about having my own biological children. When we learnt together with my husband that it would be extremely unlikely, we decided to accept the situation, closing that door and opening another. So it took me a while to realise, and then to believe, that I might actually be pregnant. We were both overjoyed, and at the same time fully aware of the probability that this mini-version of us might not quite make it all the way.

After a first positive ultrasound, though, we started to hope. We kept reminding each other that the likelihood of a healthy birth was exceedingly low, but we started to dream that it wasn’t impossible.

The gynaecologist had asked us to come back for a second ultrasound one week later, just to be sure.

I knew as soon as I saw the image on the screen.

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Death is no longer theoretical.

I’ve carried it inside me.

How might I accept one day, with equanimity, the impermanence of this new life that we created through our love?

By acknowledging the loss.

By embracing the grief, along with the joy.

And by remembering.

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PS: The title comes from this extraordinary work by The Bengsons. Thank you Meg.

In the culture that my parents grew up in, reaching your first birthday is a crucial milestone to celebrate.

And since my parents’ culture is also part of my culture, I wanted to honour that by posting today, on Being Meta-stable’s one-year anniversary, and after a five-month conscious hiatus.

One of the rituals is to place a bunch of different objects in front of the one-year old and see which it picks first. This is followed by plenty of creative interpreting about its future!

I’ll offer instead a list of questions in no particular order, any of which I would love Being Meta-stable to explore as s.he grows:

What are we uniquely placed to do in this moment?

What is the most important thing for us to do right now?

How might we reinvent the economy to value what we value?

How might we proactively influence ourselves and others to care more about people we don’t know?

How can we better effect behavioural change – in ourselves and in others – to make the world a better place?

How can we show up consistently in a way that will bring out the best in others?

What do we appreciate most about…?

What are we assuming?

If we knew that what we are assuming weren’t true, what would we think?

What would a generous contribution look like?

How are each of us making sense of this?

How might we better discern the right meta-stable state between being and doing, accepting and changing, challenging and inspiring, pushing and letting go, self-care and other-care, trusting in our insights and recognising how little we know, … ?

How might we accept impermanence with equanimity?

What questions will guide you through 2021?

Almost 3 months ago, a new friend reached out and nudged me into signing up for Acumen’s online course based on Jacqueline Novogratz’s book, Manifesto for a Moral Revolution.

I’m so glad she did.

The book itself is inspiring and full of lived wisdom from Jacqueline’s decades of pioneering and then spreading the model of patient capital to solve poverty.

Working through the book with individual exercises and sharing those reflections week after week with a small but diverse team of extraordinary women, though, somehow fulfilled – and concretised – a need that I hadn’t until then fully realised that I had. And it reminded me of how grateful I am to Seth Godin for his Akimbo model of building thoughtful, generous communities of practice, for sharing the model with others (including Acumen), and for teaching and nudging us to step up and build our own.

The final exercise in the course was to write our own manifesto.

After sharing our versions in the safe and trusted space of our team, one of us asked if we were planning to put our manifestos up somewhere. To inspire and motivate us in the beautiful struggle of the moral revolution that each of us is drawn towards, yes, and also simply to remind ourselves of how much we grew throughout the course, knowing full well that growth up close rarely looks linear, nor one-way.

So here’s mine. It’s a statement of intention of my future self. But I find it helpful to think of it less as an end-state to be achieved, and rather as a daily practice, a way of being. It’s a commitment to myself: to practise being this way consistently, acting my way into the person I want to become.

It starts with consistently growing into a better version of myself and using that to make the world a better place for all, present and future.

That better version is always asking: what is the right meta-stable state – for me, for the situation, for the system – to be in, in this moment, on this spectrum? It advances confidently towards its Southern Cross and deliberately crafts a space for as-yet-unheard voices to offer different points of view.

It is a version that makes others feel seen and that they matter, simply because they are. It awakens possibilities, inviting them to develop into a better version of themselves. If they accept, it accompanies them: boarding their bus, trusting in their wisdom, letting go of the outcome, dancing lightly and staying curious.

It steps boldly into the role of cheville ouvrière, facilitator, or mediator;
it takes on the responsibility of moving complex, uncertain and ambiguous situations towards outcomes that it believes in;
it leads with love, integrity, hope and fierce intellect;
because it sees that that is what is needed, and because it can.

Who are you practising becoming?

How do we hold on to the insights and worldview shifts that the past months have sparked in many of us? How do we stay committed to “building back better”, to resist being seduced into the comfort of what was before?

In an online event I participated in earlier this week, someone responded by sharing a phrase that lingered on in my mind long after:

Remain in a state of blessed unrest.

An internet search revealed the source – Martha Graham, as recounted in her biography by fellow choreographer Agnes de Mille on the creative artist never being satisfied:

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. […]

No artist is pleased […] There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

I had to dig a little to find this, and I love that the first result that popped up was actually environmentalist Paul Hawken’s 2007 book Blessed Unrest: how the largest social movement in history is restoring grace, justice and beauty to the world. He explains in a short video – worth watching in its entirety – why he chose it as his title, weaving a thread from the abolitionists through to today’s social and environmental justice activists, all committed to “acting in such a way that allows others to be free”:

It seemed to me “blessed unrest” was a term that had arms big enough to hold the diversity and the depth and the heart of this movement.

I’ve always been in a state of unrest, often searching, rarely satisfied for long. I used to worry that something was wrong with me, until my sister a few years back said in one of our protracted intercontinental conversations: “it’s what makes you who you are”.

And now I can put a name to it.

What are you doing to remain in a state of blessed unrest?

I’ve been faced in recent weeks with deciding which meta-stable states to hang out in as the lockdown here in France has been progressively lifted.  

Between the two extremes of social isolation and joining in the summer festivities – and I have people in my network pulling me in both directions – are a myriad of possible balanced approaches.

To help clear my mental fog before taking a decision on how to act – whether that be voicing my discomfort in a group at the lack of physical distancing, wearing a mask when noone else is, or visiting older family and friends – I’m asking myself these questions:

What are the facts?

What stories have I been listening to, what emotions have they surfaced, and how might these affect my risk perception in this moment?

What other blind spots do I need to consider, especially the power of social norms?

What is the risk of not acting to myself and others? What is the benefit?

What is the risk of acting to myself and others? What is the benefit?

What is the level of risk that I’m currently willing to accept, knowing that there is no zero risk?

What is my inner compass telling me to do?

Am I ready to let go of the outcome?

What questions are helping you navigate through risk and uncertainty?