Pivot Again (In Which I Quote Myself as a Reminder)

One of the benefits of writing a weekly essay (see the one from last week), is that when I feel stuck, I can go back and read messages from another me.

In recent weeks, I’ve been feeling scattered and uncertain about where I’m putting my time as an activist, a teacher and a human. I’m moving in directions than I never expected and I regularly wonder if I’m making the right choices in a time that feels fraught with urgency and crisis.

I surprised myself when I came across a short essay I wrote in October, 2021 called Nourish the Pivot. The parallels between what was happening for me during the pandemic to what is happening now are uncanny...and insightful.

I wrote in 2021,

just a few weeks into the pandemic, the word I kept hearing was ‘pivot’ [in regards to keeping small businesses like mine from going under].

In late November 2024, I had the idea to start Keep Going Together (KGT), a local group of pro-democracy people dedicated to reducing suffering and harm in Charlottesville. Then, the word I kept hearing was “agility.” As in, local communities and activists have to be agile in response to emerging needs and crises.

Immediately following the 2024 election, this seemed wise but deeply hypothetical. Sure, let’s be agile! But without any context for what would happen under the new regime, I stayed focused on supporting local non-profits and figured that’s just what we would do. Let them do their kooky, unhinged things: we’ll take care of the vulnerable people in our community.

But things have spiraled in a way that was unimaginable just six months ago. In 2021 I wrote, “Can we pivot and save the business? Can we totally change directions and stay afloat?” Now I am saying, “Can we use our agility and responsiveness to save democracy? Can we change directions and keep from sliding into an authoritarian police state?”

In 2021, I wrote about the pivots in my business saying,

As the circumstances shifted, people’s needs changed and my understanding of what I wanted to create evolved, I’ve shifted, changed and evolved what I offer. It’s been exhilarating and unsettling, exciting and scary. It’s been an ongoing opportunity to stretch my risk-taking and trust muscles.

Well, jeezum. I could say the exact same thing now.

While I’d thought KGT would focus almost entirely on fundraising for local non-profits, the current demands have also found us creating ways to joyfully and persuasively protest. We have been volunteering and showing up at community events. We have been speaking at City Council and County Board meetings. We have been studying resistance movements of the past and what to do when democracy backslides. We have been calling our Congress Critters on the regular.

The scope of what is needed now far exceeds my original vision and right now, this is what pivoting and agility look like.

In 2021, I wrote about how pivoting often lands in the body, especially for new movers who often complain of blisters on the bottoms of their feet and sore knees after class. Often, those complaints come from pivoting.

In movement situations of uncertainty or anxiety (or even fear), the tendency is to keep the feet planted on the floor. But,

If my bare feet twist or drag on the floor as I change direction, not only can the skin send up a tender, protective blister, but the joints of the lower body, particularly the knees, are also twisted and compromised. Both issues can often be alleviated if I lift and place my feet with awareness even when abruptly changing my direction.

So here we are, 3-1/2 years later in a time that requires us to move with agility, re-developing the ability to pivot. These days are uncertain. For many of us, fear is the water we are swimming in daily. And here’s where my 2021 pandemic self reminds me that

...pivoting has the potential to hurt or strengthen. Changing direction quickly can be fraught with discomfort, danger and new problems. Agile movement can also build new skills and muscles and leave us stronger than when we started.

So perhaps now, as we’ve all played with pandemic pivoting, the question to ask isn’t

Can we totally change directions and stay afloat?

but rather

How do we pivot and end up stronger and more resilient than before?

Times of change, uncertainty and crisis never really go away. Remembering the skill of the body, the person, and the community to pivot with intention, clarity and awareness is one we will always need. What does agility look like for you?

Messages from Your Older Self

HENSLOWE: Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

FENNYMAN: How?

HENSLOWE: I don't know. It's a mystery.

~ from Shakespeare in Love by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard

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What would you go back and tell your 21-year-old self?

Or, said another, equally time-traveling way, what would your Older Self tell You right now?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus asks the first version of this question to everyone on her Wiser Than Me podcast. Most of the time the answer is something like “be yourself,” “don’t worry so much,” “trust yourself,” “be grateful for your people, the world and your life,” “discomfort isn’t necessarily bad,” and “things don’t go as planned...and that’s ok.”

Which, you know, is all generally good advice. Thanks, Older Self. But frankly these days, I could really use more specifics.

I’ve always wondered how much courage I would have had if I was alive when evil reigned. I think about the people in the past who resisted, fought bravely, and did the right, not easy, things. Would I have hidden Jews in the attic or faced dogs and fire hoses? Would I have walked with Gandhi or worked for Mandela’s release?

All valid values questions, for sure. But in those historic situations, it seemed to me that what to do was obvious. The question wouldn’t be what to do but rather if I would do it.

Turns out it’s both.

I thought it would be clear what needed to be done when dark forces descend. And dammit, it’s just not the case. Which sucks.

Maybe.

The gorgeous and heart cracking film, My Old Ass, illustrates that sometimes the advice from the Older Self to the Younger Self is wise and sometimes it isn’t. In every moment, there are countless things we could do or not.

Y’all, it’s so good. Please watch it. And if you have already let’s talk about it.

Avoiding all bad things, even if it was possible, isn’t necessarily a good idea. Who’s to say that calamity or heartbreak or fear isn’t what made some powerful things possible? Maybe that first marriage that only lasted a couple of years was part of the reason your second one went so much better. Maybe breaking your foot made you a better teacher and a more empathetic person. Maybe that terrifying political sh*t show gave you a reason to show up and stretch yourself like you hadn’t before. Who’s to say?

When the world spirals into darkness, it’s worth asking both what can be done and will I do it. In that way, maybe those Older Self platitudes are worth considering more fully. Because even though they aren’t specific, they do offer direction in darkness, counsel amidst chaos.

In Shakespeare in Love, Henslowe says of owning a theater, “the natural condition is one of unsurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.” And that, of course, is also the natural condition of being human. Knowing what to do follows from knowing your values, knowing yourself and choosing if from there.

I sometimes imagine sitting with my Older Self and asking her what she’s glad she/we did during difficult times. She always kindly pats my hand and slides me a hot cup of tea across the oak coffee table.

“I’m glad that you chose to be yourself,” she says. “And that you didn’t worry all the time. (we both laugh) I’m glad that you trusted yourself and were grateful for who and what you had. You knew that discomfort wasn’t necessarily bad and that it was ok when things didn’t go as planned. In difficult circumstances, you tried to help those who needed it. You did your best, you did all you could do as only you could do it. That’s what mattered then. It’s all the ever did.”

I keep going back to ask her and she keeps saying roughly the same thing. Turns out those are the words I need to sort out what to do and if I’ll do it.

Beware Horizontal Thinking

When I was battling depression years ago, I made a realization: The most dangerous place in the world for me was lying alone in bed — not sleeping, not reading, but THINKING. And the most dangerous part of my day was that time period between when I woke up and when I stood up. And the longer I extended that time period — the longer I stayed in bed, captivated by what I came to call “horizontal thinking” — the worse off I would be.

~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Instagram post Nov 11 2020

Sometimes it’s about the world. I see trees falling and people falling. I see boots falling. Democracy falling. I see the unspeakable cruelty we unleash on each other.

Sometimes it’s about me. The stupid, hurtful things I’ve done. Countless bad decisions that have caused suffering. The morning I carelessly pulled into the high school parking lot and scratched Liz’s new car. Most of my first marriage. The stupid, terrible thing I said to Travis that time. The godawful situation with Jodi. My step parenting in general.

Horizontal thinking, as Liz Gilbert calls it, offers me an endless, painful parade of bad behavior, unwise words, and selfish choices.

Unlike Gilbert, my horizontal thinking happens not only in the liminal space between sleep and getting up. For me, it can happen if I’m not quiiiite sleepy enough when I first get into bed. It can happen at 2am when I get up for water and a pee. It can happen pre-dawn before even the birds are up.

It doesn’t take much to get the painful thought parade rolling when I’m horizontal.

And even though this scourge of horizontal thinking has been with me most of my adult life, I forget that getting vertical changes everything. I forget that once I’m up and moving and living, the pain parade falls into context and perspective. When I’m horizontal, I believe each and every thought in the train of terrible as truth. Every fear as forgone conclusion.

Once I’m up, I can see it all as part of a much larger whole. But God help me when the train of terror rolls through my horizonal brain, I have zero perspective.

Liz Gilbert advises to just get up. She writes,

Don’t let your mind win its most brutal game. You deserve better. Get vertical. Move your mind to a higher altitude, where the view is better.

And yes, that works. It feels like my brain is the top of an hour glass full of gritty, sandy, poisonous thinking that settles down and out when I get upright. So yes, get up. In the morning, get up.

But sometimes, this poisonous train pulls through when I need – and I mean, badly need – to sleep.

When it’s not yet time to get up, I give my mind something else to land on. Sometimes, I stretch out on the living room couch and read. No or very low light (an e-reader without connection to the Internet is ideal for this). Nothing too stimulating. Most certainly not email or social media or the news. I read for about 30 minutes then get in bed again and hope that the terrible train has pulled out of the station.

Other times, I slide on my headset and listen to Kathryn Nicolai’s podcast Nothing Much Happens podcast.* In her incredibly soothing voice, she reads stories in which, you guessed it, nothing much happens. My husband calls it my “boring stories.” But as Nicolai sometimes describes it, the story is less boring and more like a river on which my mind can gently rest like an upturned leaf.

I rarely hear a story to the end.

I know folks who listen to other things when they can’t sleep and horizontal thinking tumbles in. Some read boring things like appliance manuals. Whatever it takes to put the brakes on the terrible train of painful thinking, do it.**

At the very least, when horizontal thinking rolls in, I remind myself that those thoughts are distorted, one-sided, all out of proportion. Like Silly Putty left in a hot car, they are a mushy, melted mess. Whenever they march into your head as you lie in bed, see if you can gently say to yourself, “This is horizontal thinking, honey. You can let it go.”

Trust that no matter how bad things look when you’re horizontal, it really will look better when you’re up. Even the exploding sh*t show of the world right now looks better when you’re vertical.

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*A thousand thanks to my friend, Zakira for suggesting this podcast when I was in the thick of a bout of insomnia. I’m just paying forward her generous gift.

**I’m not a fan of sleep medication, melatonin, or alcohol for sleep. And not only am I not a doctor, I’m most certainly not your doctor. I’d say, research it well (here’s a conversation with Dr. Jen Gunter and a sleep specialist that focuses on menopause & sleep but it’s appropriate, really, for everyone) and ask your health care provider before trying anything like that.

When Books That Open Us Are Banned

Reading is a superpower because when we are reading, we are not just conversing with the dead who created it, but all the dead people who have read that book since, your predecessors, your ancestors, who picked this book up in a library, whose parents read it to them, who were recommended it by a friend whose lives were changed by the ideas. ~ Ryan Holiday

Recently, I was texting with my friend Blue O’Connell about her idea to do a group art event at our downtown public library in celebration of books and in particular, books that are being banned. Her idea sparked something in me. Soon we were having one of those thrilling text threads that rolled and scrolled down my phone.

Here’s part of what she said:

I think one of the causes of the current predicament we are in is lack of education and lack of critical thinking skills. Reading promotes awareness and knowledge. The book that made me an avid reader is now a banned book - the autobiography of Frederick Douglass (Narrative of Frederick Douglass). It resonated so strongly with me because my early years of schooling in inner city Chicago was very bad. In the 60s, I remember riots and gang fights and getting out of school early. I remember teachers locking themselves out of the classroom because of kids throwing things at them. When transferred to the suburbs later in my life, I was tested as 4 grades behind. I was a poor student too, I preferred to daydream out the window and check out. Here I was a white girl but school to me was a form of slavery. I didn’t know how to appreciate learning and see it as empowering until I read Frederick Douglass’ story. But when I read Douglass’s story -- about how he found a way to educate himself against all odds and learned the knowledge = freedom -- that lit a fire in me that changed my life! Once I fell in love with reading - I went from being a high risk student to honor roll. Next book was Jane Eyre!

Blue’s story exhilarates me: to have the trajectory of your life changed so profoundly by reading one book! Here, it seems to me, was proof of the extraordinary power of words, stories and ideas.

My own life has been filled with books and reading from as early as I can remember. There was never a time that I didn’t like reading and stories. The sheer volume of books that have touched me would be impossible to count. So to hear Blue be able to point to one book that changed her and opened her to her own intelligence was a revelation.

And it got me thinking: was there one book that opened me? My first answer was no, it was the ever-presence of books and stories and learning that guided me from childhood, through adolescence and into adulthood. Most conversations with my closest friends have somewhere in them the question, “What are you reading right now?” Books are how I sort out the world. Every book has opened me in some way, I couldn’t possibly point to just one.

But all jazzed up about this library project had me awake at 2am and it was then that I remembered Mr. McSweeny. He was practically mythical in my high school mind. He taught Shakespeare and Chaucer and all the honors English classes. He was terrifying, but his were the only English classes I wanted to be in.

As a freshman, I petitioned get into the one elective class he taught. It wasn’t open to 9th graders but I went to my advisor and begged to be allowed to take it. It was called Utopian and Dystopian Novel and I had no idea what that meant but I didn’t care. I just wanted to take it.

Apparently, I was annoying enough or persistent enough to get in.

We read Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal and Gulliver’s Travels. We read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. I loved George Orwell’s Animal Farm because I got it, I understood it even without Mr. McSweeny’s annotation.

But it was Orwell’s 1984 that broke open my awareness, that changed how I viewed culture, government and politics.

It was Big Brother and “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” It was “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” It was two plus two make five.

This is what it would look like if the whole system got distorted and power was for power’s sake. This is the kind of internal violence, and thought invasion that could happen if the goal was not to govern but to control and manipulate.

And like Animal Farm, I got it. I didn’t like it but I got it. In the early 80s, however, this was something that happened in the Soviet Union or somewhere frightening, cold and far away.

Last month, Stoic philosopher, Ryan Holiday was scheduled to speak at the U.S. Naval Academy on the Stoic virtue of wisdom (listen to his talk here). Just before he was scheduled to go on, his hosts asked him to remove any criticism of the recent decision to remove nearly 400 books from the Academy library. He said no. He was clear that he could not talk about wisdom and not seriously question that decision.

Stoic Philosopher, Ryan Holiday

In his banned lecture, he said,

[A]lmost 400 books have been removed from the Naval Academy Library and ... this was no accident, but in fact the official policy of the United States government. And when I first saw the news on April 1st, I suspected at first that it was an April fool's joke. The idea that the best and brightest students in the country are seen as too fragile, too easily manipulable, too susceptible to be exposed to works that people don't like or disagree with. This transgresses the very ethos, the very purpose of higher education, which is to challenge, which is to open doors, which is to allow you to understand things and understanding and being familiar with something is not the same as liking or endorsing or embracing it. 

His intention was not to discuss politics directly, put anyone on the spot or cause anyone trouble. In his New York Times op-ed about the incident, he writes

I did, however, feel it was essential to make the point that the pursuit of wisdom is impossible without engaging with (and challenging) uncomfortable ideas.

As Blue and I (and I bet YOU) know, books, stories and words are powerful. And if your goal is to hold onto power for power’s sake, by all means, keep people from books, stories and words.

“It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.” says language specialist Syme in 1984.

“They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em” says Rage Against the Machine.

“You should be curious. You should investigate. You should put everything to the test, as Epictetus said. Find out for yourself. Do your own research. It's why we don't need to be scared about the books you have access to. ...[T]his has to be the work of our life, this path to wisdom and education,” said Ryan Holiday. (Do listen to his talk here. It’s great.)

What’s a book that opened you up in some way? What’s your story about that book? Who would you be without it?

Cultivate the Opposite: Emotional Balance in Difficult Times

Thanks to Laurie S. Jacobson for this week’s guest post. Check out information about her new book, Unexpected Awakening, below — recommended by meditation teacher, Sharon Salzberg!

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Many years ago, during a terribly dark time in my life, I traveled to Buddhist monastery searching, hoping, and praying for answers to end my suffering. I spent hours at a time meditating on a hard cushion, and listened to monks explain the Buddha’s teachings. Unexpectedly, I left with clarity, an open heart, and the courage to forge a new and better life.

Now, 20 years later, the darkness has rolled into my life again. Each day I react to the day’s news with fear, outrage, disgust, incredulity, and anger. Too often I find myself battling between feelings of justified anger and the urge to lash out on the one hand, and trying to summon compassion toward misguided, ignorant individuals on the other.

Since I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to attain a peaceful mind and loving heart, seeing myself succumb to anger, even hatred toward my fellow human beings bothers me no end. It’s not who I want to be, and a dilemma to be sure. I keep asking myself the same questions over and over again: “How do I navigate this dark, chaotic time of upheaval, cruelty, and division while maintaining a loving heart? Where do I find hope and courage amidst the current fear, chaos, and uncertainty?”

We don’t have to sit for hours on a hard cushion like I did 20 years ago to open our hearts and gain the clarity and courage it takes to find our way out of darkness. But we can look to the Buddha’s teachings for guidance.

One tool to help us navigate a path through this crazy, overwhelming maze of fear and anger is the Buddhist principle of Pratipaksha Bhãvana. It translates as “cultivate the opposite.” This teaching suggests that when negative thoughts arise, one should cultivate the opposite thought or emotion. This doesn’t necessarily mean totally replacing an emotion with its polar opposite, but rather actively shifting towards a more constructive and compassionate perspective.

It sounds simple, but like any new habit, it takes regular practice. The key word here is “cultivate.” Think of it like planting a seed in a garden. You have to regularly water, feed, and weed the garden bed for the seed to grow, mature, and flower. So, each time you notice feelings of fear or anger, pause, take a deep breath, recognize those feelings for what they are, and open your heart. You can weed out the unwholesome emotions by planting seeds of courage or love, and water regularly.

My first experience with this practice happened many years ago when I opened my business and started teaching nutrition and wellness classes. I was new in town, trying to establish myself, and befriended a professional herbalist. She was well-known in the area, with a long list of clients and students. One day I noticed having feelings of jealousy and envy toward her, which surprised me. Afterward, every time I noticed the emotion of jealousy rising in my mind, I consciously began cultivating joy for her tremendous success instead of dwelling in my resentment.

Given today’s extreme divisiveness, the practice of “cultivate the opposite” is a far more difficult task than countering feelings of jealousy toward a successful colleague. Today, because we feel a tangible threat to our well-being, lifestyle, and freedoms, our emotional reactions are super-charged.

One instinctive response to threats is to fight to protect ourselves. And we hold on to those super-charged emotions for dear life in order to fuel the fight.

But what is the best way to fight? With anger in our hearts, or with love?

Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in-between. Perhaps by practicing “cultivate the opposite” we can find balance between these two emotional responses and fight in a positive, constructive way without hatred or animosity.

Next time you find yourself reacting in anger to the latest news, the first thing to do is hit the PAUSE button. Gain some clarity. Notice the feeling of anger rising. See it clearly for what it is. The emotion of anger. That emotion is not you. Next, open your heart and try to summon its opposite however you can. Where and when did you feel tender loving-kindness, or compassion? Close your eyes and imagine yourself there. Your nervous system will thank you. If you can send that loving-kindness to the person or people who anger you, bonus points to you!

The Buddha asks us to send loving-kindness to all sentient beings, even our enemies. A tall, daunting task to be sure! Or, if you feel the emotion fear, PAUSE. See it clearly. It’s just fear. Fear isn’t you. Then try to remember a time in your life when you took a chance, a leap of faith, or had the courage to start something completely new and unknown. Immerse yourself in those courageous feelings. Let them pour over you like a gentle rain, and reclaim your strength and confidence.

If we actively practice Pratipaksha Bhãvana with an open heart, we’ll gain the clarity and courage we need to sail our ships through this storm. We’ll reap the benefits of greater happiness and well-being, increased resilience, reduced mental suffering, and develop a more positive, and balanced mindset. God knows we need those wholesome qualities in our arsenal right now as we fight the good fight for justice, equality, and freedom.

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A graduate of Boston University with a degree in psychology, Laurie S. Jacobson is a writer and Certified Health Coach fascinated by the Buddha’s teachings. At age twenty-six, she traded city life for the peace of the rural Pennsylvania mountains, and opened Lifetime Wellness.  Her work in the natural health field has been featured on television, radio, and local and national magazines and newspapers. Currently, she enjoys a quiet, simple life in Virginia. Her new memoir, Unexpected Awakening is available on Amazon. You can find her at www.lauriesjacobson.com.