The concept of impermanence keeps creeping into my life.

It was the subject of a few recent passages in the Buddhist and Taoist collections that I read every morning. It was the first thing I saw in the library last week, as the theme of Mary Pipher’s new memoir. It was the salt in my daughter’s tears when summer camp ended, and it’s the ache in my heart when I look at her and wonder where the last decade went.

It can be kinda crazymaking to consider that change is the only constant; that we’re always in this weird transformative flux of evolving towards our expiration.

It’s hard to say goodbye to the status quo we took for granted, our youth, our health, and our loved ones. The upside is that impermanence impacts everything, including shitty situations – they too shall pass.

When I overthink all of this and existential dread kicks in, I remind myself that change is a biological imperative. Every cell in our body, every cloud in the sky, every stone on the earth, every wave in the sea, every single moment is fleeting – it’s up to us to find beauty, joy, meaning, and purpose not in spite of but because of our shared impermanence.

Bedtime can be particularly challenging because without the distractions of the day it’s just us and our thoughts… and often those ruminations are far from pleasant and cloud our perception of reality. The other night I realized that the inner monologue running through my mind was a really nasty narrator.

That wasn’t my real voice; that wasn’t the real me – not the rational, wise, kind person that is usually behind the wheel and interacting with others.

It was my ego – my fragile, fearful ego.

When the ego feels threatened, it will: assign the role of “enemy” to the threat; focus on faults and flaws; magnify and exaggerate the danger; insert its own conjecture in the absence of details; create and fixate on thoughts that support the belief of the threat.

It creates what-if scenarios to prepare itself for how to defend and retaliate if/when its fear comes to fruition. And for the paranoid ego, it’s really an inevitable when; not a potential if.

In this attempt to protect itself, the ego actually weaponizes its fear against us and colonizes our minds with its delusions and looping thoughts.

So how do we deal with this destructive nutjob living rent-free in our minds?

Acknowledge that it isn’t you and it isn’t true.

Don’t take the bait; if you already bit the hook, let go by: getting curious; considering nuances; seeking opposing views to your thoughts; being flexible; trusting what you know is true – choosing facts over fear.

Our ego relies on mooring in the constructs it has created to deal with the fact that very little is within our control – which often means we diminish uncomfortable reminders of mortality.

When we are confronted with the stark nature of impermanence, we feel unsettled.

Ego wants everything we love (or at least everything we’re accustomed to) to last forever.

Ego wants to feel substantial and solid, with no surprises.

But this is in contrast with nature and existence itself, which is a constant cycle of change, degeneration, death, and renewal.

This is so hard to stomach and surrender to… but releasing our resistance and accepting the inescapable (change, aging, illness, and death) allow us to become active participants in our fleeting, precious lives.

When an uncomfortable emotion such as anger, jealousy, or fear arises, there are a few steps we can take to manage it mindfully.

First, we simply acknowledge that the feeling is (temporarily) there. “Ah ha, I’ve been triggered. My heart is pounding; my cheeks are hot – this feels like jealousy.”

Then, we accept the emotion. We’re not judging ourselves for feeling that way or labeling the emotion as “bad,” or trying to dismiss, deny, or wallow in it – we allow it to be without our resistance. “I can sit with this for a moment; it won’t kill me and it won’t last forever.”

Finally, we soothe and release the emotion. “This person triggered my old fears of being betrayed and abandoned. But there really is no threat here, it’s just in my head. I’m going to keep breathing deeply – my heart is already settling and I’m starting to feel calmer.”

It takes practice for all of our lives to just let it be; the acceptance of discomfort is the key to our freedom.

There is a space between myself and my thoughts, and in that place, I observe with curiosity.

I’m aware of the patterns and loops; the fixations and stories. Rather than automatically believe them, what I’m striving to do is pause, notice the mental habit, and remind myself that a thought isn’t a fact or an accurate representation of reality.

It’s not helpful for me to believe a mental construct, often created by my ego to serve its needs.

And when comparative criticism starts to creep in, I interrupt the process and ask myself if I’d want someone thinking that way about my daughter. Taking that approach further, I remind myself that everyone has a child inside, and I think about that child’s fears, needs, and feelings.

This practice of pausing, observing, and replacing judgment with empathy helps to open my heart.

I saw a woman’s recent reflection that “violence is never ‘proof of love’.” She then updated her post to share that she was told by other women that this was “not [her] conversation to have.” This has sparked a fire of indignance within me.

Gatekeeping is the antithesis of inclusion.

Everyone deserves a seat at the table and the respect of being seen and heard. We all bear the scars of the institutions and individuals who have abused their power to discredit, disqualify, shame, and silence those perceived to be beneath them. We are still actively working to heal and reform these injustices in our societies, schools, workplaces, homes, and hearts – there is no end to this fight to flip the power dynamic and ensure that all are included.

This includes taking the “horseshoe” approach to community and conversation, keeping a space that is open and inviting to all with no exceptions. No one is granted divine authority to judge and dictate who should be allowed to participate, speak up, and share their mind – especially about a topic such as violence that impacts every human being.

If a person tries to silence another, they are attempting to exercise power over that individual. This is weaponized ego, and has no justification or place in the framework of empathy and inclusion.

The First Noble Truth in Buddhism is dukkha which means “difficult to face.”

This refers not only to the suffering that is an inevitable part of life, but also to our uncomfortable emotions and troubling thoughts.

Too often we take detours – we avoid, deny, numb, repress, or lash out rather than live in the experiences and feel the feelings that cause us fear and pain.

If we summon the courage that is inside all of us, we can remain open and curious about what our emotions and mental loops are trying to tell us, and we can face life itself in all its unpredictability and impermanence.

Practicing gratitude is a powerful way to live mindfully, paying attention to and giving thanks for the good things in our lives. Gratitude can provide a shift in perspective and help us find purpose and hope.

It’s important to understand that gratitude cannot exist until we validate and process our uncomfortable emotions.

When we’re experiencing frustration, grief, or uncertainty, common responses are sentiments like “Who am I to complain when there are people who have it so much worse than me?” (this is comparative suffering, a system of ranking pain that only makes us feel worse) or “It’s selfish to feel like this when I have so much to be thankful for.”

Dismissing emotions is a form of gaslighting, and it compounds the pain. Accepting what we’re feeling without trying to deny, numb, or run from it will allow us to move through the emotion and get to a place of clarity where we see that we can feel something difficult AND we can feel thankful.

We are strong enough to straddle this paradox.

Our brains create emotions as immediate reactions to environmental stimuli.

Emotions are based on sensory input and memories, and only last 90 seconds – anything longer than that is not the emotion anymore but the story we are making up about it; dwelling in our feeling about the trigger, like when we stew in self-righteous anger.

Emotions are neither positive nor negative, and we can’t control how our brains produce these reactions – but we can control how we respond to them.

We can get curious, label the emotion, notice how it feels in our body, and choose what to do next.

This prevents us from getting hijacked and falling into habitual patterns, and gives us the agency to make productive choices that create new neural pathways in the brain.

When we pause, we harness our power.

The past cannot be restored.

But we can repair, adapt, redeem.

We can hold both grief and gratitude in our heart – the grief for what is no more will deepen the gratitude for what is now.

Loss and suffering birth a perspective of awareness and understanding that all things are temporary; change is inevitable.

This is the very nature of all life and it beckons us to awaken in presence; to connect in kindness with the world, ourselves, and each other.

We can use this wisdom to share our light, offering empathy and hope.

We are storytellers.

Our brains parse impressions, form opinions, fill in the gaps with presumptions, and create products sold to us as data without ever proving them as facts.

There is an insatiable energy behind this storymaking – a driving need for certainty, justification, and self-preservation.

Stories hold sway, and the judgments we create based on our stories determine whether we condemn or forgive; fear or love.

Stories can hold us hostage or set us free; they can split or suture.

What would happen if we changed the narrative of the stories to which we cling?

What’s the real story when we feel jealousy flare? Could it be the fear that we are inadequate in comparison?

What’s driving our insecurity? Could it be shame, that insidious lie that we are unworthy of belonging and love?

What’s beneath our impatient temper? Could it be our forceful resistance when people or situations don’t ascribe to the way we think they should be?

Is our anxiety really just the fear that we have no control, and our terror of the unknown?

Our emotions are clues; signposts that guide us to go beyond the surface and deeper into the terrain of our inner worlds. When we follow this map, we discover in our minds the gnarled twists of old programming that we can acknowledge without believing and rewrite in new ways to empower us to pause, reflect, and respond judiciously rather than react instinctively when we’re hooked by old patterns.

If we can hold our anger, our sorrow, and our fear with the energy of mindfulness, we will be able to recognize the roots of our suffering.

Thich Nhat Hanh