How can we be at peace with the current state of our culture?

I have been watching over the past several days as protests have occurred throughout the country, where groups of people are gathering in anger and frustration at the thought of staying indoors due to shelter-in-place orders. I have watched news clips with people flocking onto the Florida beaches after mere weeks of being inside their homes.

This has left me feeling a mixture of unsettled feelings, including anger, frustration, sadness, and an existential pain around the general state of human consciousness within our culture. Our society appears to have such focus on immediate gratification, lack of inner muscle to sit with discomfort, and inability to cultivate harmony with what is so.

While I understand the economic hardship the pandemic has put millions of people in, I cannot understand why some people cannot make a temporary peace with the new circumstances of their lives. Medical science has recommended social distancing in an effort to protect not only ourselves, but also those more vulnerable around us.

I feel deeply concerned — while simultaneously a sense of compassion toward what inner conflict must stir — that so many people appear to find it troubling to pivot their external focus inward.  

Embracing What Is Out of Our Control

In this life, we often find ourselves in situations that we did not choose.

Facing hardships beyond our control is one of the mainstays of our humanity. It was here before the pandemic and will be here long after.

As a psychotherapist, I have personally and professionally come to understand that facing the reality we are given is the quickest way to come to peace with what is. It is not necessarily what we choose life should be; it is what we choose to make out of the ingredients of life we are presented with.

On the other side of resisting what is so can be found a rich landscape of raw materials in which we can create something even better than often we set out to do.

At this stage in my life, I have given up the illusion that I have much control over what is to be other than what I choose to act on based on what is presented.

Resisting the nature of things is futile. Living in tandem with what is given in each moment can cause us to reach flow states of harmony with life as it is; thus, suffering will cease. 

Using “Artist Dates” to Achieve Self-Intimacy

Each Saturday, after a week of homeschooling and working from my home, my children and I set out on a drive to my father’s farm and a small plot of land I own near it. I call this our family’s weekly “artist date.”

Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist’s Way, defines an artist date as:

“A block of time set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist.”

Typically, an artist date is something done by yourself. But I find time to enter into my own creative space while my children are playing with cobs of last year’s corn or discovering the habits of baby chickens. That is when I am able to spend time with my inner artist.

This opening of time to connect myself to my own creativity has produced many news ideas for my life, my family, and my work. I have found the stillness of being at home and our weekly excursions to the farm to be deeply healing and connecting.

As Julia writes, “Your inner artist needs to be taken out, pampered, and listened to.”

I have found often throughout my life that it can feel like work to spend time with myself, and I prioritize outward activities. Now, in the face of the pandemic, without the constant pull to engage in so many outside activities, I am welcoming this precious time to go within. There are no more reasons not to.

This type of self-intimacy is integral to having a true relationship with yourself. 

Going Deeper

To learn more about how to create your own artist date, I encourage you to get Julia’s book, The Artist’s Way, or visit her website.

There is no better time — or better circumstance — to find meaning in the stillness of your relationship with yourself.