When the world within and around you is drenched in chaos, how can you thrive? Humans are complicated beings. We can simultaneously hold profoundly opposite ideas, emotions, and thoughts. We can experience love and safety when wrapped in our loved one’s embrace. We can also experience intense pain when we hear news about wars, hate, displacement, and heartache. The hard stuff can weigh so heavily on you that it can feel impossible to thrive. You might even feel guilty about experiencing joy when there is so much suffering.

Several years ago, I listened to a conversation about opening and cultivating the human heart with Frank Ostaseki, co-founder of The Zen Hospice Project, and Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D., Buddhist teacher and Founder of Upaya Zen Center. One of the ideas that resonated with me then and even more now is that hope is essential, especially in a “time of radical uncertainty.” Hope is not about “sappy positivity,” bypassing the truth of suffering, or thinking that everything will be OK.

Thoughts About Hope

During the conversation, Ostaseki and Halifax shared their perspectives about hope:

• Hope helps us go beyond the rational.

• Hope can be the flip side of fear.

• Hope is not based on optimism.

• Hope is a surprise. It’s light and buoyant and not about a particular outcome.

• Hope reflects an understanding that what we do matters, even though we don’t know how, why, who it will touch, or what will unfold from our actions.

• Hope is resistant to futility.

• Hope resides in resourcefulness.

• Hope speaks to possibilities.

“While you might feel powerless to change the world, you can make your corner more joyous and hope-filled.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

31 Ways to Thrive and Feel Joyful During Chaotic Times

Having hope contributes to being able to thrive. Without it, we give up. Take an active role in cultivating hope. Nourish yourself and others, and create a solid base to grow from. During chaotic times, there are so many things that seem futile. Instead, focus on engaging in simple actions or observations in your control. Hope will grow from there. Consider:

• Watching the fall leaves gently float to the ground

• Taking a walk along the river with a good friend

• Getting a good night’s sleep

• Eating a nutritious and delicious meal

• Feeling the warm sun on your face

• Hugging your loved ones

• Reading or listening to uplifting books, articles, and podcasts

• Planning something you will look forward to doing

• Taking a road trip, even a local one

• Brewing and slowly sipping a hot cup of tea

• Curling up on the sofa, wrapped in your favorite soft, cozy blanket

• Learning something new

• Listening to your favorite music

• Practicing mindfulness meditation

• Organizing that one room that is ready to be tamed

• Helping something to grow

• Focusing on the inhale and exhale of your breath

• Making something with your hands

• Pausing in the middle of your day to regroup and reset

• Listening to the sounds of laughter

• Laughing

• Writing in your journal

• Smiling at a stranger

• Having a ‘do nothing’ day

• Checking in by phone, email, text, or in person on your loved ones

• Doing something outside of your comfort zone

• Helping a client set boundaries, establish priorities, and get unstuck

• Noting what you are grateful for

• Offering compassion and kindness to someone you do or don’t know

• Refusing to give up

• Listening to your intuition

Life is a mixture of joy, pain, and everything in between. As humans, we know this is true. Yet even so, it can be challenging to navigate the sadness when your life and the world feel so chaotic and unhinged. While you might feel powerless to change the world, you can make your corner more joyous and hope-filled. You never know how your actions or words will uplift someone else. Be gentle with yourself and others. Nourish your being to have the energy to extend more kindness and compassion to yourself and others.

What helps you thrive during challenging times? What brings you hope? How do you make your ‘corner’ better? I’d love to hear your thoughts and invite you to join the conversation.

The newest installment (v33) of the “What’s Interesting?” feature is here with my latest finds informing, educating, and relating to organizing and life balance. Included are unique, inspiring, wonderfully human-related discoveries, which reflect this month’s blog theme. 

You are a generous, compassionate, and engaged group. I am deeply appreciative and grateful for your presence, positive energy, and contributions to this community. I look forward to your participation and additions to the collection I’ve sourced.

What do you find interesting?

What’s Interesting? – 5 Best Wonderfully Human-Related Discoveries

1. Interesting Read – Human Being

“Awareness is a capacity of the human mind…the state of being conscious of something.”  This quote is from Diana Winston’s The Little Book of Being – Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness. Diana is an author, mindfulness teacher, and director of mindfulness education at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center.

Mindfulness practices have different areas of focus and awareness. In Diana’s book, she features natural awareness, which she says, “…is a way of knowing and a state of being wherein our focus is on the awareness itself rather than on the things we are aware of. It is generally relaxed, effortless, and spacious.” The book’s three sections help us understand what natural awareness is, share natural awareness meditation techniques, and give ways to informally practice natural awareness. What is the benefit of an awareness practice? Diana says, “…both natural awareness and classical mindfulness practices…give us a capacity to handle life.”

2. Interesting Product – Human Doing

This hot off the press game, Declutter Go!™, which officially goes on sale on November 15th, was invented by my amazing friend and colleague, Lynne Poulton, founder of Wholly Organized®. Declutter Go!™ is as fun and colorful as Lynne. The game entices you to get started, especially if you feel overwhelmed by clutter, with the roll of a dice or two or six.

This is a motivational tool that uses brain science and gamification to help you conquer clutter. The game will help prepare you to declutter, choose an action, set a time boundary for your decluttering session, select the room to work and enjoy a reward after completing three decluttering sprints. Designed by humans for humans, use this yourself, or play it with the whole family. Learn more at decluttergo.com.

3. Interesting Resource  – Human Experiencing

With intolerance and hatred on the rise, we need more kindness and compassion in this world. One way to do this is to seek to understand rather than to “other.” The Human Library®, a non-profit developed in Denmark over 20 years ago, is a learning platform that hosts personal conversations that aim to “challenge stigmas and stereotypes” and talk with people you would not usually meet. They create a safe space to openly discuss topics between their “human books” and readers. The “human books” are volunteers who share their personal experiences. The Human Library® says, “difficult questions are expected, appreciated, and answered.” They host events virtually, in libraries, and other venues in over 80 countries.

“Awareness is a capacity of the human mind . . . a state of being conscious of something.”

— Diana Winston

4. Interesting Podcast – Human Listening

Last month I loved talking with Dr. Christine Li, Make Time for Success podcast host, psychologist, procrastination coach, and all-around extraordinary human being. Christine invited me to be a guest on her podcast for a two-part series. I shared ideas for managing clutter and discussed, at her request, the virtual organizing work we did together. If you missed our organizing conversations, listen here.

If you haven’t signed up for Christine’s podcast, add it to your listening cue now. She has a calm, warm way of normalizing the challenges we all face and sharing ways to overcome them. Christine is authentic, brave, and asks excellent, insightful questions. Her voice is so soothing. You come away feeling inspired along with learning simple, doable strategies for change.

5. Interesting Thought – Human Appreciating
The holidays can be full of stress, rushing, overdoing, and indulging. There are parties to host or attend, presents to purchase and wrap, and special meals to shop for and prepare. But here’s the thing. Many moments can be missed if we’re so focused on doing. We forget to stop, breathe, and notice the beauty and joy available to us. So while you are rushing and stressing, take a minute. Choose the lovely route to the store, take a forest walk in the rain, and slow down enough to be present. It will help you enjoy the holidays with more gratitude and less stress.

What are your interesting, wonderfully human discoveries? Which of these resonate with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

Another week has passed as we navigate and adjust to the rapidly changing COVID-19 world crisis. More schools, local stores, restaurants, and industries have shut down, and additional closures are coming. We’re learning how to stay in place as we manage the new realities of family, health, work, or the lack thereof. Each one of us will be touched if we haven’t already, by loss of loved ones, income, and life as we knew it. People have described the “brain fog” and a general sense of anxiety they’re feeling. Others have shared how essential their need to stay connected to “community” is, especially at this time.

Each day brings a new awareness about how to cope with next, given all the uncertainty. I continue to learn and be inspired by you and the ways you are facing each day of unknowns with grace, compassion, and humor. None of us know how long this pandemic will last or in what ways our lives will be changed. We only have today. It is what we do today that matters.

Several things happened this week that helped me cope with next. I hope some of these will help you in the weeks ahead.

7 Uplifting Discoveries That Will Help You Cope With Next

1. Be Compassionate

Extending compassion to others comes in many forms, from offering a listening ear to sharing a smile with a stranger, to bringing groceries to someone who is homebound. One of my girlfriends told me about her friend that just started the initiative, Million Gallons. Their goal is to provide food security for restaurant, hospitality, and other workers that have been displaced by the coronavirus in Westchester County and New York City. A Million Gallons hopes to make and distribute one million gallons of soup. I am in awe of how quickly they mobilized with compassion and purpose to help those in need. To learn more about their compassion-driven cause, watch the video. What act of kindness have you experienced?

2. Identify Feelings

You might be feeling all kinds of emotions. Some of them you can easily name, while others are harder to identify. One of the feelings that surfaced in several conversations this past week was grief. On a Zoom call with my organizing colleagues, after listening to them share how they were feeling, it was clear that a few were experiencing grief. Their grief was not over the loss of a loved one. Instead, it was from their loss of purpose, of working, and of helping their clients. Later in the week, both my yoga teacher and Rabbi referenced the Harvard Business Review article, That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief. In the article, David Kessler, the preeminent grief expert, explored how to acknowledge, manage, and find meaning in the pandemic-induced grief you could be experiencing. It’s an insightful piece that helped me feel gentler towards others and myself. What are you feeling right now?

3. Find Humor

In this time of social distancing and isolation, we are finding different ways of being engaged with the world. I’ve become more aware of how institutions such as museums, aquariums, and zoos are keeping us connected through video. One segment I saw this past week made me smile from ear to ear. Two penguins from the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago were allowed to run loose as they wandered around and toured the exhibits. It was so much fun to watch! What added humor to your day?

4. Notice Indicators

Being that I live in New York, which is one of the current COVID-19 outbreak hotbeds, my husband and I have been staying put. We only go out to get groceries, pick-up food from local restaurants, go on walks, take a drive to nowhere, or do yard work. When I’m out, I notice changes, especially at the grocery store. Several weeks ago, I saw shortages of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and disinfecting wipes. As the weeks continued, additional items came into short supply like hand soap, dish soap, paper towels, tissues, cleaning supplies, ice cream, eggs, Tylenol, chicken broth, and chicken. And this week, when I went to the market, the chicken and ice cream had been replenished, but the entire supply of chocolate chip morsels had been ravaged. Those shelves were completely empty. I realized that one of the home activities parents were doing with their kids was baking cookies. A happy feeling ran through me, as I was flooded with love-filled memories of baking with our daughters. What indicators are you noticing?

5. Get Creative

It’s been fascinating to watch how companies and individuals are using the pause to get creative with projects, how they do business or infuse creativity in their days. Baked By Susan, one of our local bakeries, put together “decorate your own cupcake” kits. One of my friends is busy knitting a complicated cardigan. I’ve been testing out some new recipes, writing, taking photos, and creating organizing videos. One of the recent recipes I tried from the Yotam Ottolenghi’s Simple cookbook that my daughter, Allison, gave me was mashed sweet potato with lime salsa. It was so delicious and easy to make. If you’d like the recipe, let me know in the comments, and I’ll share it with you. What creative outlets are catching your attention?

6. Seek Connections

You might be isolating, but you are not alone. There are different ways that we connected with people before the pandemic. And temporarily, many of those intentional and casual points of contact have now been cut off. But we are social beings. We need one another. One of the things that have kept me sane is finding new ways to connect and “be with” the various communities and people in my life. Zoom has been a positive and satisfying way of staying connected with family, friends, colleagues, yoga, organizing, and spiritual communities. I recognize that not everyone feels connected to a community. If you are struggling, feeling alone and isolated, the COVID-19 Emotional Support Hotline is 844-863-9314. What way has connecting changed for you during this time?

7. Explore Nature

We experience many positive benefits for our wellbeing when we spend time in nature. Can you recall a recent time when you walked in the woods, felt the fresh air and sun on your skin, or dipped your toes in the sea? Being surrounded by nature can be restorative for our minds and bodies. Lately, I’ve mostly been walking in the woods since the path is less crowded than other local spots. But this week, I walked along the Hudson River path. I loved being by the water, hearing the birds sing, and seeing the spring foliage just beginning to bloom. I know that not everyone has access to or the desire to be outdoors. One of the other discoveries I made this week was from the New York Botanical Garden. Like many institutions, they too have temporarily closed. However, you can take a virtual tour of their magnificent orchid exhibit. So if you love seeing, but not being in nature, try a remote viewing. In what way does nature improve your wellbeing?

When we are experiencing grief and other strong emotions, it’s hard to think about next. In this time, next might need to be a big dose of self-compassion. Or, perhaps it will be you reaching out to someone else that is hurting. Regardless, there are ways to cope and simultaneously uplift yourself and others. What have you discovered? What has inspired you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to leave a comment and join our conversation.