As impeachment proceedings move forward, and there is also talk of war, and horrific images of climate change, I am reminded to be aware of the need for staying grounded. While I don’t tell others what to do, I feel morally obliged to share what I do in the hopes it might be helpful to others.

My idea of being grounded is this: Success and money has made me complacent, fear and failure have rooted me firmly on the ground. This is a stunning idea for me, because our society teaches precisely the opposite, from parents to teachers to politicians to the media.

I will not give pieces of my life away to fear, rage, or argument. That is an abuse of the self.  I will not speak poorly of my life, or my country, or my world. I won’t complain about taxes or prices or change.

No political leader or campaign will dictate my sense of peace or meaning. I move forward with my life every day. I won’t waste any more days. I am getting grounded.

I believe in truth, love,  justice, and compassion, and I do not doubt that these values, the most potent values in all of humanity, will prevail, whether I live to see it or not.

All around me, I feel and hear the fear, anger, and disconnection that shrouds 2020 – climate change, the election, the rise of national extremism and hatred, the paralyzing polarization that has crippled our Congress, the hate and grievance already bubbling up like a poisoned well in advance of the November elections.

You remember that election, many of us will never forget it. We seem to be locked into chaos and conflict ever since. This one is freaking a lot of people out on all sides.

We have been overcome by the manipulations of the “left” and the “right,” which divide all choices into two, making solutions to our problems impossible. This seemingly unresolvable conflict sometimes frustrates and angers me.

Faced with years of this tension and division, I chose a different path from the one I have been taught to pursue my whole life. This path has grounded me for the first time in my life and amid so much turmoil and anxiety.

“Get yourself grounded,” writes Steve Goodier, ” and you can navigate even the stormiest roads in peace.”

I redefined my idea of what “home” is; It is certainly not the “left” or the “right,” the “conservative,” or the “progressive,” two narrow and essentially meaningless labels. I lifted the foundations of home within myself and found that are no roots more intimate and powerful than those between a mind and body that have decided to become whole and one that is to say, authentic.

No President or party label will run my soul and psyche, that is up to me, it’s mine. No Presidential election or administration can take from me my sense of self, ethics, and purpose.

Learning not to lie to myself or others has become a central faith and ideology.

I am light and free; I have no secrets, no shame, nothing to hide. I live openly and honestly, what you see is exactly what you get and precisely what is there, good and bad. People are always trying to tell me who to be, what to be, what to write, how to feel, what to do.

I don’t look outside of myself for answers to those questions, I look inside of myself, and if I like what I see in the mirror, I am good and right.

I find time every day to be alone. To be quiet. To meditate or face the truth about myself.

I’ve read all of my life about do-gooders and the idea of doing good, from Christ to the Kabbalah, to St. Augustine, Thomas Merton, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King.

But I never did much good until the 2016 election. Doing good is grounding. It feels good. It supersedes angry, anxiety, alienation. Last week we got test review books for the students at Bishop Maginn.

Yesterday, I brought pants to the Mansion for Jim, and shirts for Jon, and pajamas for Lois, and coffee creamers for the Mansion aides in their new Break Room. It felt good. I took Zinnia to Memory Care, and she sat in Jeans’ lap for half an hour. It felt good.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from Alaska, a blog reader feeling lost and anxious started raising money for impoverished Native American village schools, she feels grounded now, and whole. She said the Army Of Good’s work on behalf of Bishop Maginn High School inspired her. That made me feel good.

I see every day how grounded my donkeys are, and I learn from them, they practice acceptance and accept life as it comes. With grounding comes rootedness, insight, and new worldly wisdom. They take life as it comes, good and bad.

Argument and anger are poisons; they persuade no one,  solve nothing, and accomplish nothing.  Neither does trembling like a rabbit in a hole or freaking out over the news.

These emotions are incompatible with a grounded life.  How curious it is, whether he is the son of God or not, Jesus was right. No one has said it better. It is sacred; it is the point, not a hobby.

Being kind to others and doing good for others is profoundly grounding. You don’t need to take my word for it, you can feel it for yourself.

Just ask the mighty legions of the Army Of Good. Someone thanks me every day for letting them see this for themselves.

“What does it mean to be grounded?” asks Deborah Bravandt? “It means no unkind being is taking up space rent-free in your body. It also means you love deeply without the need for revenge. It means digging beneath the machine mind to understand and see the beauty in each human being.”

Before I was grounded, I was stagnant, caught in the past. When I know where I am going, grounding brings strength, confidence, joy. Anger, grievance, and anxiety receded, they are no longer dominant emotions; they are pushed into the background, where they belong.

Don’t come here to my blog to hate Donald Trump. Don’t come here to love him. We are way beyond that now. We are more evolved than that. We are more grounded than that.

I will never turn over my sense of well being to anyone outside of me.