I learned first-hand that we are not biologically designed to run non-stop without pause. I also learned that there was only so much that efficiency could earn me.

Humans are challenged by an existential hunger born from a false belief that we are limited, separate and alone.

On a hot, humid afternoon, a small dog-like creature nibbles on fruit suspended above a lush fern-covered ground. The thick jungle forest is bursting with sound, as this is a time when mammal life explodes with innovative evolutionary options.

Calling in—what does that mean exactly? For me, it’s an internal posture of bringing someone towards what I know is good and right and true.

On behalf of love, go ahead––get mad. Let your blood boil, raise your hackles, get your dander up, be in a huff. You won’t find me stopping you.

By Sunday afternoon I felt I had been hit by a truck. I had come face to face with the fact that I was part of the problem. My ignorance around racism was keeping me embedded inside an oppressive system. It was a grim moment of self-reflection.

But now we are grown adults and even though the direct childhood influences are no longer there––the stake gone, the chain no more––we remain imprisoned by our narratives, wandering only within our twelve-foot circle even though in reality our freedom, happiness, and fulfillment are just beyond our imagined limits.

Lots of cultures around us influence us: corporate culture, medical culture, family, state, church, and country culture, just to name a few.

What will your new normal be? What do you want to bring into your life? What do you want to leave behind? Who do you want to be now that nothing will ever be the same again?

We need each other. We always have, but now in the times of lockdown our need for support and camaraderie is probably more important than ever.

In my lifetime I’ve attended dozens of silent retreats and meditation sabbaticals; I’ve engaged in voluntary isolation retreats in order to listen to the quieter voices of my heart. Lockdown is different.

In these times of fear, it’s natural to want to be close to our loved ones. It’s a natural survival response to want to huddle together, bring our family and friends close, call to them across the globe and bring them home.

I lived in a naive binary which equated to something like this: either love unconditionally and therefore keep people in your life; or don’t love them and therefore don’t have them in your life.

Something about the combination of family, obligations, politics, secrets, loyalties, gift buying expense and stress, alcohol, and unresolved tension creates a toxic cocktail for drama.

Guess what? All these narratives, all these stories, ideas and beliefs that are floating out there, embedded in the daily news, agreed upon around the family table––are merely thoughts. That’s it. That’s the sum total of their substance.

My hope is that our natural enthusiasm for peace, freedom and joy will not become irrelevant to society because we did not insist on the spiritual transformation of McMindfulness.

You were born as a creative force. And you are creating every day—either deliberately or not. What you focus on expands. What you tell yourself, becomes true. The narrative you believe and surround yourself with, manifests.

When clients are with our EQUUS herd, the horses do not differentiate in the way we might imagine. They do not think, ‘Those two-legged creatures are not horses, therefore they are not part of the herd.’ Once the herd establishes a person or people are safe, then it is incumbent upon them to ‘bring them on’ as a herd member, and teach them herd ways. Otherwise, their presence could be a detriment to the herd

Imagine—just for a moment—if we were to select our leaders based on these principles. Imagine if our schools, our government, our financial institutions, our Fortune 500s, selected leaders based on their ability to be caring and profoundly present, to serve safety, connection, peace, joy and freedom – for the whole.

‘I’m so tired of apologizing,’ sighed a friend recently in her final defeat-by-inbox. I dramatically rolled my eyes in solidarity, while scrolling through all the text messages I had yet to respond to.