The Wisdom of Omicron Madness

In just the past five days, as the Omicron surge has engulfed my hometown of New York City, I’ve felt and thought the following:

• Done.  I’m over it.  Everyone’s over it.  In fact, let’s not even talk about it at Ten Percent.  No one wants to hear any more about Covid.  No one’s gonna click.
• Obsessed. But really, this is what matters.  If I don’t address this, what am I even doing? Let me now read a 74th article about this.
• Apathetic.  Whatever, I’m going to get it. It’s unavoidable. But I’m boosted, healthy and middle-aged.  I don’t even care anymore.
• Fearful.  What if they close schools again?  What will we do?  What if my bout with Covid is painful?  What about my partner?
• Calm.  I understand the data.  Omicron is serious but it needn’t cause hysteria. 
• Concerned.  I may be “over it” but older and immunocompromised people can’t afford to be.  Let’s check my ableism for a moment.
• Despairing.  My kid’s school did in fact close.  It may not reopen for months.  We’re back to April, 2020.  I can’t get any work or life done.  In fact, as I write this, during ‘bedtime,’ my kid is screaming in her room next door.
• Exhausted.  Can’t get enough sleep either. And pretending that I’m fine to my kid is even more exhausting.
• Self-Doubting.  I can’t do this.
• Self-Confident. I can do this.
• Rageful.  Can’t wait ‘til the anti-vaxxers send me hate-mail over having this feeling.
• Also Rageful.  I love how we honor our healthcare workers and parents as “heroes” and then don’t do anything to help or take their needs into account.
• Painful Compassion.  My heart breaks thinking about that.  It’s hard enough for privileged people like me; it’s painful to imagine what it’s like for those who aren’t so fortunate.  Why can’t our society do better to help?
• Selfishness.  It’s too painful to think about that, so I’m not gonna.
• Altruism.  I’m going to reach out to vulnerable friends and relatives, and at least see how they’re doing.  I’m going to try to help, in small ways.
• Trauma.  I remember parts of Spring 2020 that I’d forgotten until now. Little things, like the relentless march of the days.
• Sympathetic Joy. I know a lot of younger people are still out living their lives, filling nightclubs and bars.  Go for it!  Live!   Just get tested if you plan to visit Grandma.
• Judgment.  What are those kids thinking?!
• Hope.  According to what I’ve read, this wave may be shorter and less severe, for vaccinated people anyway.
• Refusal to Hope.  But deep down, I don’t believe it.  I’ve been traumatized and my heart won’t let me hope.
• Bored. Whatever, let’s get this over with.
• Heartbroken. Another setback, another ruined holiday, another wave.  It hurts.
• Grateful.  I’m so thankful to legions of scientists.  Imagine if the ultra-contagious Omicron had developed before we had vaccines.  Just imagine that for a moment.
• Also Grateful.  And I’m thankful for my mindfulness practice, for meditation, for my family, for my friends, for all the people and practices that support me.
• Suddenly Despairing Again. I know this feeling from grieving after my parents died.  You’re walking along fine, and then suddenly you aren’t.

I’ve felt every one of these, I swear, as well as many more.  And I know that, because they reflect my experience, there are many other feelings and thoughts that aren’t on that list, but that may be up for you.

I’m sharing this list for two reasons.  First, because if you’re on a similar merry-go-round of emotions, now you know you’re not alone!  And yes, I’m a meditation teacher.  Feelings still happen.  We are human.

Second, because being able to notice all of these feelings with mindfulness, and to RAIN them (Recognize, Accept, Investigate, and Not-Identify-With) has been incredibly reaffirming.  It’s what secular mindfulness is for.  It’s what Buddhist meditation is for, at least in some traditions: observing the incredibly impermanent, impersonal, and difficult flow of feelings and sensations, and seeing in their flux the fundamental characteristics of human experience.  And it’s what Ten Percent is for, at least in part.  This is what really helps.  Not the suppression of feelings, but relating to them from a place of mindfulness, self-compassion, and balance. Even humor.

I remember one time on a long meditation retreat, I was watching a similarly crazy-making parade of thoughts and feelings pass by.  But I saw that that’s what it was: a parade.  I wasn’t caught by the various emotions that presented themselves, in all their contradictory absurdity.  I felt them, I liked some and didn’t like others, but I wasn’t ensnared.  Not most of the time, anyway.  Even in the midst of very challenging emotions, I was free.

The same has often been true over the last week.  It’s not that I haven’t felt anxiety, despair, and anger – believe me, I have.  It’s that they haven’t trapped me, at least not for long.  The whole unfolding catastrophe continues to unfold.  I have had noble thoughts and ignoble ones (I left the most ignoble ones off the list).  But throughout, there’s been just a bit of loving awareness noticing the parade – and another bit of awareness noticing that I’m noticing.  That is the expansive space of freedom.

It’s a subtle teaching, and, in my experience, it’s sometimes overlooked.  Yes, meditation can be used to chill out, and it’s worth doing it just for that.  But its greater gift is training the mind to be able to be present with the full spectrum of life.  The chill and the un-chill, the apathetic and the intense.  Right now, it’s like this.  I can see it, I can feel it, I can not be tormented by the hard feelings or tantalized by the good ones.  I’m here.  I’m resilient.  And so are you.