Are You Okay?

Elmo & Taylor Swift have entered the chat

Hello! Welcome back.

Did you hear that earlier this week Elmo, our fuzzy red friend from “Sesame Steet,” made a post asking everyone how they were doing?

Turns out, thousands of people told Elmo that they are not okay. Burnt-out. Depressed. Heartbroken. Financially stressed. Election anxious. People unloaded their burdens and trauma on their old TV friend. The word “doom” came up repeatedly.

For the most part, people spoke honestly and some even tenderly, which was a refreshing change from the vitriol we often see on social media. It’s glaringly apparent that we have a mental health crisis. According to Dr. Craig Sawchuk, a clinical psychologist at Mayo Clinic, one in six Americans has sought treatment for depression. One in six. That’s going to a doctor and asking for help, not a self-report of feeling depressed. That’s a whole lot of people. It’s a problem that society needs to address.

There is a lot of unfettered emotion and understandably, people have a hard time managing it. It often comes out as incivility. All it takes is a glance at social media or a news source to see that people have become increasingly angry, unfiltered, and disrespectful to one another. It is not sustainable.

It’s okay to disagree. If I am not a fan of the neighbor’s holiday decorations would I say something? Demand they tear them down? Of course not! They bring them joy. They don’t belong to me. People have opinions and often disagree, but need to relate in a way that is thoughtful and reasonable. The amount of hate and anger we see daily is troubling.

I heard about a young woman in a coffee shop in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. She was minding her own business on Monday, doing some work on her computer. A stranger approached her demanding that she remove a sticker from her laptop. It’s okay to have stickers that express your views on cars and laptops, and others should be able to see them and not be triggered. Have we become this intolerant? The coffee shop story goes on but it ends with the barista refunding the man’s coffee to get him out of there. The angered man called the police over the sticker, and persisted for quite some time, even threatening this woman on his way out the door, pounding loudly on the window. Except for the barista, not a person intervened. Even after the man had left, no one asked her if she was okay, or needed to be walked home, or offered to sit with her. No one smiled. Most people looked away, pretending it had never happened.

We have to look at these things. Get curious and not turn away. The last few years have been traumatic. The isolation of Covid was a challenge and the effects linger. There is social division and war. Perhaps our values have shifted to self-preservation in such a way that our automatic response is to be negative or avoidant rather than useful.

An unignorable number of people are lashing out with outrage that Taylor Swift, a strong, successful, self-made woman, is being televised on football games. Here is a woman so popular that legions of new viewers tune in to watch her watch a sporting event. But it’s just like the holiday decorations or the laptop sticker on a bigger scale. Some among us have become intolerant, and lash out at things that are incongruous to their preferred worldview. They feel threatened. It’s gotten so bad that people are making up extreme conspiracy theories that are not rooted in critical thinking. They are non-sensical and sided, and sprout up from a place that is beyond the scope of this post.

So — No, Elmo, we are not okay, and we need to do something. It is going to take a lot more than meditation to fix it, but meditation might be a good place to start. Meditation helps us expand our worldview, be more tolerant and compassionate, and build a healthy sense of discernment on when to, and not to, act.

The last few posts have hopefully reminded you that along with whatever negative event is unfolding, there is also good in every moment. Somewhere a shelter dog is being adopted. Someone just had a eureka moment and will bring an invention to life. Friends are reuniting. People are planning food drives for those who are hungry.

This idea of expanding our attention is in no way a negation of the suffering in the world. Things are messed up and things are going well. Doing what we can to remember both are occurring is helpful. Then we decide where to place our attention, and maybe even help. Before we can fix things we need to identify the issue specifically, and we need to check in with our capacity to do so.

This week’s meditation will help you connect with how you are feeling. You will see where you are feeling okay, and explore where you aren’t. Then you can take it from there, and operate from a more informed state.

One more thing. It can be uncomfortable to not be okay. Being honest with what you have going on can involve discomfort and we humans tend to avoid that. The uncomfortability will still show up when we don’t look at it. Not looking doesn’t make it disappear. It will be found in places like angry comments on social media, conspiracy theories about the world’s biggest pop star, and complaints to Elmo.

This week’s meditation is below.

If you have enjoyed this post, it would help me out if you could share it with a friend. I truly appreciate your support.

Please let me know how it’s going in the comments below. If you have an idea for a future topic or feedback on this one, I would love to hear about that too.

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