Everything All at Once

by Rebecca Crichton

At the risk of implanting an earworm in your head, I’m offering this verse from The Byrds’ rendition of Pete Seeger’s 1959 song To Everything There Is a Season:

“Turn, turn, turn…
To everything (Turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (Turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose under Heaven.”

The lyrics – except for the title, which is repeated throughout the song, and the final two lines – consist of the first eight verses of the third chapter of the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes. You don’t need to be a Biblical scholar to recognize the reality of the rightness and inevitability of each season.

A rabbi present at the return of the hostages said that the seasons mentioned in scripture were all happening at once. We have to learn to hold the polarities simultaneously. We are in all seasons all the time.

What does that look like, and how do we deal with the stress that results from having to manage so much all at once?

First of all, let’s admit how stressful this time is. Second, it is important to acknowledge the range of emotions involved: joy and sadness, celebration and mourning, love and loss… Whichever spectrum we are on, we need to allow ourselves to feel them deeply, even if only briefly. Naming and acknowledging what we’re feeling can make it real, giving it substance and meaning.

Recently, I presented a talk at a retirement community called Staying Sane When the World Feels Crazy. I shared research on how the brain works, reminding people that our most primitive brain is wired to pay attention to the negative. I joked that if our early ancestors had not paid attention to the rustling of the grass outside their caves, they would not be our ancestors.

Today’s sabertooth tigers can be traffic on the freeway, memes, fakes, and the 24-hour news cycle. We are always potentially activated by things that scare us.

There are many techniques and processes for managing our fears and feelings. Among the ones I like most is a technique called Freeze Frame from the HeartMath Institute. This body-based biofeedback technique takes less than five minutes to return us to a calmer place.

If nothing else, find something that makes you laugh. There’s a good reason for the thousands of animal videos that people watch. This summer, there was even a CatVideo Fest that appeared in movie theaters around the country and the world. It raised money for animal shelters and gave audiences 75 minutes of non-dogmatic content!

Find the techniques that help you stay sane. I calm myself by reaching for one of my favorite cookbooks or scrolling recipes online. Not only do I feel better, but I discover something I’d like to share with others. That’s another way I manage everything all at once.