Count to Ten…
“When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.” —Thomas Jefferson
During the pandemic, I often said “take good care” as the conversation was closing to anyone I came in contact with via email, Zoom, or standing apart wearing masks.
Today the threat is different, with emotions heightened as the level of divisiveness we thought couldn’t get more intense now is ratcheting up and spilling over into conversations and interactions in uncomfortable ways.
o, in addition to “take good care,” I think I need to start adding “take a deep breath, close your eyes, and count to ten” for myself, if no one else. And sometimes I need to remember to not stop at ten and go on to 100, as Thomas Jefferson so wisely said.
We don’t know when or how tensions will ease or resolve, so tending our soul becomes vital to help us see our way through and be part of the solution.
“I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.” ― Booker T. Washington
Taking good care these days will look different for everyone, but many of us will likely need to bring ourselves back from the edge of destructive anger and hate by counting to ten or more. And of course, we’ll have moments of failure when taking good care means forgiving ourselves and trying again. But we’re worth the effort and so is this world.
How can you take good care of your body, mind, and soul today? It just might look like a deep breath and counting to ten over and over again. And that’s okay.
May you find the still, peaceful, center within one deep breath, one count, at a time.
Take good care.
With Awareness
“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.”
—James Thurber
The Thing to Do
“The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.”
―Maya Angelou
Out Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn’t make any sense.
―Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks and John Moyne, The Essential Rumi
