Thank you!

Hi, How are you? Really?

Honestly, I didn’t really know what to write for this month's newsletter. I feel we are getting so much information from so many different places: the news, advice, suggestions, classes, articles, audios, memes all which are helpful but I always find myself a bit overwhelmed by excess outside input. So today, I won’t offer any advice, I WON’T give you a suggestion or even tell you how meditation or contemplative practices are so helpful in times like this.
I just want to say THANK YOU! Thank you for trying hard to do your part in all of this. Thank you for doing your best even if you feel like you are falling apart. Thank you for trying to sit still to protect yourself and others, despite all the anxiety it may bring up in you. Thank you for going through this with grace despite all the financial and career fears and the uncertainty of where we’ll land after it. I’ve been seeing so many different ways we’re showing love, gratitude, solidarity.  Sometimes simply through a gaze exchange and a nod when I’m on a walk at least 6 feet away from my neighbors passing by. It’s not a normal gaze from 2 weeks ago. It’s a “I see them and they see me” type of gaze, in the most profound way. It’s different than a few weeks ago because now we’re all in the same boat navigating the same experience. I’ve seen text message chain check ins, virtual dance classes, creative ways to support your local community. Parents stretch themselves to provide a safe nurturing home for kids. I’ve seen drive bys to provide supplies to hospitals in need, I’ve seen teachers trying their best to show up, store clerks stocking up so we can still access what we need. Doctors and all the health providers going beyond their limits to take care of us and the implication of it to their families. You too might have experienced different ways we are trying to be there for one another. 
All of these actions are reflecting our humanity, our compassion and our resilience when times are really extreme, when we are squeezed and when we are in survival mode. This situation reflects the paradox of our human life. How in difficult situations we can both hold the pain, the struggle, the fear and hold our gratitude, our hope, our compassion. We can do both, it’s not an either or. If we don’t know yet how to do that, this moment's an invitation to continue opening up to this possibility.
Thank you for recognizing the importance of more profound conversations, of asking more meaningful questions. Thank you for trying to make your way back to being more patient, a quality we’ve lost collectively after running non-stop with our busy, fast paced lives.
Thank you for allowing and making space for your grief, my grief and our collective grief. 
Thank you for lifting others up when they sometimes can’t and with a ripple effect allowing others to lift you up. Thank you for not pushing away your feelings, welcoming the mess and the fear. Learn how to name them, thank you for speaking up. Thank you for listening when others do the same. 
At the end of the day, we all want to know we’re going to be okay. However, at this time we have no one to turn to, no one who knows the exact answer, no one to assure us what we want to know. It’s going to take some time for us to process what it really feels like inside of us to NOT know, it’s going to take some time for us to open up to the idea that the “okay” we are looking for might not be the “okay" we want, it might be different. We are standing collectively in front of this bridge we are about to cross, together. I’m over here also aligning myself to what this is presenting, daily. Asking myself questions, like: What really matters? What do I really need? How can I help? What world do I want to go back to? What do I want to let go? 

Sending you a virtual hug with love, 
Mariana

Ps: I recorded a special free meditation, you can access here.