A willingness to see beyond hurt and despair will see us through

Observing people dancing at a party years ago I realised that one had survived being shot in El Salvador and another had survived a Loyalist roadblock in Northern Ireland (the bullets hit her car and not her) though a family member hadn’t survived an IRA bomb.

Recently I read an account by a Vietnamese Buddhist nun who had been born in a tunnel while a major battle between the Americans and the Vietcong raged overhead. She was sexually abused as a child and, when a teenager, lost her mother who vanished, probably murdered, one day. But her life story (Mindfulness as Medicine by Sr Dang Nghiem) includes incidents such as screeching with laughter as she and another nun skated about on a frozen lake, falling and tumbling on to the ice.

So, in spite of all, there the wounded and survivors are, dancing, laughing, skating.

Thich Nhat Hahn, the Vietnamese monk who made himself unpopular by providing medical help to both sides in war, said that " you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow".

‘I’m a middle-aged woman living alone. Sometimes I think: is this it?’

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‘Dodging SUVs as I run on small country roads’

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‘My girlfriend shows her kids more love and attention than I think I will ever get’

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Is love necessary for survival? And if so, how do we help the lonely?

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It strikes me that we are going to need this kind of spirit as we move into a future with so many storm clouds I’m starting to lose count. I’m not going to list them – you know what they are.

The concept that you are more than any one thing that is going on for you is a core concept of the psychology behind mindfulness.

But you don't have to sit meditating in a temple to know this. Guardian journalist John Crace wrote about his mother and her probably very tipsy pals dancing though Piccadilly during an air raid in the second World War. Many English pubs did a thriving business with much merriment during the Blitz, even though you could get blown to bits walking home from your night out.

Resilience

I see the EU is training climate change officials to meditate and enjoy the beauty of nature on walks. It’s all part of building up resilience instead of succumbing to burnout and despair.

We apply this attitude in everyday life too, often without realising it. Some people going to a job they hate get a kick out of having a laugh with colleagues or even customers.

At least some of the mourners following a funeral to the graveside make jokes as their shoes crunch the gravel.

Something in the human spirit breaks through and gives us the gift of laughter, appreciation, love, fun, joy in the middle of it all

I don’t think it’s denial – I think it gets us through. I was hurt but today I can dance; I fear the degradation of the environment but I can stop to enjoy the flowers I’m here to save.

We are going to have to learn to do all this as we see the familiar world changing too fast and in front of our eyes. Remember when we didn’t have Covid or this war or the speeding up of climate change?

We still got stressed and anxious and depressed and terrible things happened in the world, sometimes on our own island. Covid brought an extra and prolonged layer of negativity. I think the addition of that layer in itself harmed our mental health in a silent sort of way.

New layers

Now we have had a partial lifting at least – so it would seem – of Covid and its negativity. But new layers are thrown on with the war and with the rapid changes we are going to have to take to adapt to climate degradation.

Yes, we need to tackle all these in a serious way and to put hard work into them. And we need also to remember the importance of our own mental health as we live in this new landscape.

It’s a question of willingness. Something in the human spirit breaks through and gives us the gift of laughter, appreciation, love, fun, joy in the middle of it all.

What we have to do is to be willing to receive it without denying realities we would rather not contemplate.

– Padraig O’Morain (Instagram,Twitter: @padraigomorain) is accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His books include Kindfulness: A guide to self compassion; his daily mindfulness reminder is available free by email (pomorain@yahoo.com).