Everything that's happening in the world is overwhelming me

This article and meditation are offshoots of a talk I gave last week for the Bozeman Dharma Center. That talk is available to paid subscribers here. If you can’t afford a paid subscription but want one, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’ll give you one for free, no questions asked.I keep hearing people say they’re overwhelmed because of “you know, everything that’s happening in the world.”To put it bluntly, no s**t. Of course you’d be overwhelmed if you feel like you have to deal with everything that’s happening in the world. But problems are only overwhelming if we feel like we are alone with them, and responsible for dealing with them by ourselves.At first glance, we might not realize we’ve been feeling so alone and wholly responsible for the world’s problems. But when we pay attention and start to unpack what comes up when we hear about what’s going on in the world, we may or may not notice some of the following:First, you feel like you should keep up with the news to be a good citizen, a good person, to do your part. But while you read about people starving in Darfur, you realize you’re drinking a nine dollar Starbucks drink. Then you keep trying to read about what’s happening in Ukraine, but you can’t focus because your mind is randomly trying to figure out how you’re gonna get your kids to their after school activities on the day of your important meeting. At some point you find yourself switching out of our news app entirely to do more research into which mattress firmness promotes optimal sleep health. You realize you’re doing this and feel like a terrible person, so you put a few things in your Amazon cart, buy them, and call it a day.Perhaps we feel guilty about the level of privileged distraction we’re steeped in, so we punish ourselves by getting consumed by shame and guilt. Maybe we donate some money to the World Central Kitchen, but we don’t let that stop us from feeling as guilty as possible for the rest of the day (or the rest of our lives), and then doubling down on the very habits that we feel guilty about.As we bury our heads in the quicksand of shame, we find ourselves in an endless cycle:obligatory news intake → overwhelm → avoidance → shame → obligatory news intakeIf we can recognize this cycle, we start to notice where we exit the present moment. We read the news and and it’s deeply unpleasant. We react with fear, and whole host of other mental and emotional strategies avoid the unpleasant feeling we just encountered. Distraction, control, shame, anger. The key point of possibility in the cycle lies between the contact with the news, and the reaction to it. This is where we normally launch into reactivity/distraction of some kind, rather than stay present with how we are feeling in the moment. The Buddha tried to point our attention to this place of potential, saying that we can recognize something as being simply an unpleasant, in-the-moment experience, before reactivity arises, and thereby prevent ourselves from landing in suffering. When things are uncomfortable, don’t abandon yourself. Stay, care, listen. You’ll learn that you can trust it. You’ll learn that there’s another way to meet a moment that is unpleasant: with compassion.But instead of staying, we hold ourselves apart from the things that normally give us comfort. We don’t let ourselves enjoy the warmth of our home or appreciate the food we have to eat or the good people and things in our lives. We feel guilty about it. No wonder we get overwhelmed.You can’t fix the problems in the world by yourself, so stop reading the news as if all the problems you read about are yours and yours alone, and as if you don’t already have your own problems at home. You also won’t do anything to help anyone on the other side of the world by feeling guilty for not having the same problems as them. You can’t save someone from drowning by throwing yourself in the water and drowning with them. Someone has to be on higher ground. If you’re not drowning, then your job isn’t to drown yourself, it’s to stay resourced, and to find out what your way of helping is. And by the way, your way of helping will be something that you actually want to do, not just something you feel like you should do.As you absorb the news, instead of holding yourself apart from what’s good in your world, stay connected to it. What do you feel in your body? What’s happening on an emotional level? Whatever you find, stay with it. Feel the fear, the sorrow, the guilt. Don’t turn your back on yourself in these moments. Use your body to hep you stay connected. What is actually happening right here, in this very moment? Come out of your head and into your body. Find things that soothe you. Let your hot cup of coffee comfort you, the view out your window soften you, your feet on the floor ground you. Notice when your mind starts to churn about what you should be doing to get away from these feelings of fear, when it tries to single-handedly solve the problems of this gigantic world. And reconnect with your (very localized) sphere of influence. It turns out, one of the best things you can do to address the problems of the world is not add to them. So many of us are trying to help, but we’re coming at it from a place of shame, depletion, helplessness, or rage. The situation goes from bad to worse, and the cycle of suffering continues. How can you lead with love today, or just right now? What is yours to do, that you want to do, from a genuine place of care?Daylong online retreat for parents & caregiversJust because you’re taking care of someone doesn’t mean you can’t wake up. Maybe it’s actually helping you wake up faster. Find out more and do some practice with other parents/caregivers and myself on this day of celebration, commiseration, and meditation. February 14th through the Bozeman Dharma Center. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit caralai.substack.com/subscribe