Lighten Up

Heaviosity: taking life way too seriously and feeling like you are carrying a two hundred pound weight on your back and generally feeling shitty (despite the gorgeous weather) because you've also cut way back on caffeine. (White tea just doesn't cut it.)

I woke up this morning from another night of rather vivid dreams (I'll spare you the details.) And I was feeling quite depressed after glancing at a text message from a friend who says she is seriously considering voting for McCain because she can't move on from Hillary. And that made me so furious, which then led me to depression, which led to thinking about everything else in my life that I feel frustrated about (a daughter who unlike everyone else's kid is not going back to college this September, a mother who keeps asking me, "When are you coming to visit?" And four more years of Republicans? I would jump out the window if I didn't live on the second floor.)

And then I just happened to pick up my dear Pema Chodron's "When Things Fall Apart" to see where I left off before I cheated on her with Jon Kabat-Zinn (and now Ekhardt Tolle's "A New Earth") and sure enough Pema, as always, came to my rescue.

I swear to God, I opened the book to see where I left off and this is the paragraph I read: "Finally, couldn't we just relax and lighten up? When we wake up in the morning, we can dedicate our day to learning how to do this. We can cultivate a sense of humor and practice giving ourselves a break. Every time we sit down to meditate, we can think of it as training to lighten up, to have a sense of humor, to relax. As one student said, "Lower your standards and relax as it is."

So that is my practice for today. And I might even treat myself to an espresso.

And I am very excited about Obama's speech tonight. I know he will "rock the stadium" and I hope that people in Ohio, Pennsylvania and the entire south will be moved enough to vote for him in November.