What's Right Right Now

A Practice for Rewiring the Brain(and our lives) Towards Goodness

Years ago, my daughter and I found ourselves in the middle of Rannoch Moor, a desolate, fifty-square mile expanse of wilderness that was at the heart of the last ice age. We’d done it on purpose; it was part of our hike of the West Highland Way, one of Scotland’s long-distance walks (ninety-six miles). As we stopped for a drink and a snack, my daughter said, “you’ve brought me to the end of the world.” Given that all we could see in all directions was the boggy peatland of the moor, this made sense. Shortly after, when we came upon the ruins of a crofthouse, she said, “People lived here?” Yes, they did—eked out their existence in this wilderness. As did all our ancestors at one time and in one place or another. We’re all here today because they sorted out how to survive; their survival one of their gifts to us. Another, perhaps less enticing, is the gift of the remnants of the brain wiring that helped them make it through that wilderness, through wild animals and famines and all manner of harms that might be lurking. It’s the part of the brain causes us to have negativity bias, which develops in infancy, and means that most of us have solid skills in noticing what’s wrong (or might be), what dangers might be waiting for us, even during times of societal peace and stability. It leads many of us to focus on the middle section of the old adage, “hope for the best, prepare for the worst, take what comes.” Which is, when done constantly, not the best idea. Under that notion, we spend our lives hammering the metaphorical plywood onto the windows to protect our metaphorical houses from the hurricane that’s always on the horizon. We are left sitting in the gloom, wishing for a ray of sunlight in our lives.

There’s an old Scottish saying, “whit’s fur ye’ll no pass ye”, meaning goodness will find you. But perhaps, if goodness comes down the street and sees the windows boarded up, she thinks nobody’s home and keeps on going. Or, more likely, because we’re eternally looking in the other direction, too busy preparing for the next worst thing, we can neither see nor enjoy the goodness that is right here for us.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the past couple of years, partly because of big changes I’ve made in my life that should have brought boatloads of joy and that have been, instead, clouded with anxiety and a resurgence of shame I thought I’d long-ago left behind. Brené Brown defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.” It needs three things in order to exist: secrecy, silence, and judgement.

In addition to changing careers and locations over the past couple of years, I also released my novel, When the Ocean Flies. Not only had I made a move away from what I was ‘supposed’ to be doing (and in the direction of what my soul was calling me to do), I had, through the novel, lifted the veils of secrecy and silence from some of the elements that contributed to shame in my life: relinquishment, adoption, trauma. (Though adopted people don’t have a corner on the shame-and-anxiety market, we are more highly represented in addiction treatment than the general population, and addiction is rooted in both shame and anxiety*.) With these veils lifted, I found anxiety and shame suddenly supercharged. A wise woman I know suggested that, in response to these moves I’d made, “shame had upped the ante”.

In a game of cards, when someone ups the ante, you either fold, match the ante or raise it. I wasn’t going to allow the old patterning of shame and anxiety to make me fold. So I had to sort out how to match (or raise) that ante. A daily practice of asking “What’s right right now?” began: Taking moments not just to write, but also to sit with and feel what’s right in my life.

And because, in addition to our brain’s natural wiring, there’s so much in the world—in the country in which I live, especially—that could cause us to prepare for the worst, I’m offering this here.

It is not an encouragement to toxic positivity or to ignoring danger; rather, it’s a follow-on to holding grief and gratitude; it’s about living in the duality of life, the wound and the way (feeling the harms and finding the path forward; seeing the gifts that come from survival), the material and the spiritual (making your way in the culture and keeping the light of the spirit nourished). Most of us are already good at noting the wound, at feeling the pinch associated with making our way in a culture that (to put it mildly) does not support our fullest, most soulful expression of ourselves; this is about consciously training ourselves to notice that those are not the only elements alive in our lives. In other words, a way to help us shift from surviving to thriving.

Each week(ish), I’ll offer a piece of writing and a prompt or meditation practice inspired by something, no matter how small, that feels ‘right’ in my world, and an invitation to you to do the same.

Here’s this week’s:

The buzz on the phone, a message waiting, which I ignore,

Because I am writing,

and I want the flow to continue;

I want to stay

in this early morning cocoon of coffee and the comfort of pen on page, of creating

or sorting or seeking

the wisdom within,

without interruption.

To lift the phone is to come fully into the world,

And most mornings, I prefer the slow slide in

through writing, meditation, the draw of the cards.

Today, though, I pause—

there is so much in the world

that might make us feel vulnerable,

not in the good, growth-inducing way,

but naked in the presence

of those who do not have our best interests at heart,

and in the pause, I understand that, right now,

I need a friend,

so I reply.

And in a minute, another friend

texts. These words on the page will wait

while I spend some sacred moments

with kindred spirits, and though they are a thousand miles away,

their words remind me that our hearts

are still together. No matter

the distance, no matter

the storm—we are present

for each other. Present,

as in here, now; Present,

as in a gift; Present,

as in always arriving. And right now

That is all

That matters.

Writing prompt/meditation:

*If you’re interested in a better understanding of addiction, shame, and anxiety in adopted people, Paul Sunderland’s talk is an excellent place to learn more.

If you’re interested in learning more about me and my work, you can find details here.

And if you’d like to hear me reading from When the Ocean Flies, the next chance to catch me ‘live’ (online), will be on Monday, February 17 at 5pm EST, when I’ll be reading along with a couple of other wonderful Vine Leaves Press authors.