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How can we be well in a world that feels so desperately unwell? These days, I’m asked this question all the time. Where do we find ground in a world that seems to be on a downward spiral at warp speed, nosediving into what feels like a groundless bottom? And furthermore, how do we create change in a system that has fundamentally changed, and in which all the old rules and methods for creating change no longer exist?
First, let me take a step back. Earlier this year, I received some not-so-great test results. They suggested some potentially scary things regarding my health. Since then, I’ve gathered more information and discovered that it’s not as bad as I had thought and most likely will be OK. (Stay with me—this will connect with how to be well in an unwell world.)
That morning, before seeing the doctor, had been a busy one—busy, that is, inside my own mind where I’d been squabbling with my daughter about something she’d done that made me angry. Arguing my case before a jury of one—myself—I had been busy proving why I was right to be angry. Simultaneously, I was very busy scripting a future conversation with my husband when I would explain something he does that drives me crazy, and not in a good way.
But that afternoon, freshly infused with the aroma of mortality and my own vulnerability, my list of grievances and disappointments with those I love instantly melted. What had felt so pressing and disruptive hours before, and felt like it stood in the way of being loving and kind, none of it mattered, not even a smidge.
It was as if I’d been catapulted from the contents of life to the larger context. My irritation and anger transmuted into love, and the need to be right disappeared into gratitude. My mind went quiet, and I was flooded with a sense of awe for getting to be alive. More than anything, I wanted to tell those I love how much I love them and to be kind. The same heart I’d just discovered was hardening anatomically, was now burst wide open, as strong, full, and soft as it had ever been.
While I’ve had these moments of clarity before, there’s never been one this big, this clear, or this lasting. The insight that arose from that experience has remained and changed the way I respond to situations and people. When life is not to my liking, and people are not who I think they should be, in other words, when life is like life, I now ask myself: What actually matters to you—and will matter at the end?
The question I carry with me every day is this: If love and kindness are what will matter when you’re saying goodbye, where is the opportunity to live that right now?
Returning to our quandary: How to be well in an unwell world, the grace of that paradigm shift is precisely what’s needed in these unwell times. But we don’t have to wait for bad test results to initiate it.
When we feel lost and are struggling to find ground, when we feel like we’ve lost our North Star, we need to intentionally create one. In times like these, more than anything else, we need a guiding light, an internal compass for how we want to live. And we need to keep it close and always in our sights. We must remind ourselves of what matters—what will always matter.
Of all the hard feelings that exist in the range of human experience, the one that may be the hardest to manage is powerlessness—when we don’t feel we have agency in our lives, and don’t feel like we can make things change. This is the soil in which despair takes root—and indeed, many people right now feel powerless, hopeless, and despairing.
But here’s the thing: No matter what’s going on in the outside world, you always have agency, maybe not to change political policy, but agency in terms of how you treat yourself, other people, other species, and what you contribute to the world, no matter what condition it may be in right now. You can always live by the light of your own North star, aligned with your internal compass, and being in the world what matters most deeply to you, and what will matter when you’re out of time.
Yes, the world may feel like it’s on fire, but how do you want to walk through that fire? Yes, unkindness seems to be the new norm, but how do you want to treat yourself and other people and species? Can you still be kind? Can you still be loving? Can you still find gratitude for some of what’s here? No one has control over any of that but you.
What will matter when it’s time to say goodbye? For me, this is the question that drops me out of the contents of this moment and into the larger context, the portal through which fear becomes love. This inquiry sets me in the direction of my North Star, towards the people I love, towards gratitude, and towards the longing to be kind. It points me back to a deep sense of okayness, and a well-being that’s here, always and already here, underneath the un-wellness.
Find the question that brings you home—to yourself and your deepest and truest values, to what will matter to you in those final moments. Find the portal through which you can remember what’s most important to you and start living from that place, and being the incarnation of those values. No matter what’s happening in the outside world, or how distorted what we call the truth may seem at the moment, you can always live your own internal truth, which is not distorted.
Now, more than ever, we need a clear intention for who and how we want to show up in this chaotic world, how we will be the light in the darkness. Staying close to our own deepest values, and living them in the world as it is, grounds and guides us in these turbulent and confusing times. It starts with us, inside ourselves, when we choose to live an intentional life, to be what matters to us. This is our agency, and it’s always available. Kind, generous, loving, whatever it is that matters to you, be aware of it, be it, and live it. This is how to be well in an unwell world.
