Engaging my awareness is how meditation helps me manage my mental health in unsettling times.
The Shifting World Order
We are living through a defining moment in history. The world order has shifted. America, under the Trump regime, is no longer the leader of the free world. They are falling into dictatorship, suppressing opposition, spreading fear of speaking out, firing thousands of workers to make government support systems ineffective, deporting people into what are essentially off-shore concentration camps without any legal process, ignoring court rulings, controlling the media, interfering with the judicial system, and so on. The Trump regime is essentially following Hitler’s playbook for turning a democracy into a fascist dictatorship. The regime is gutting the government, raising prices inside the US with unilateral tariffs, and tanking the stock market.
America is no longer a reliable ally of other Western democracies. They have broken long-held international alliances by voting against them in key UN resolutions, threatened to invade China and Greenland, slapped tariffs on the whole world, and started a trade war with China. Prior to Trump arriving on the political stage in the US, one would not have thought such a thing possible. But here we are, living through a story every bit as full of conflict as a gripping novel. But this is not a novel; it is reality and it’s scary.
A Fiction Reader’s View
The reader in me sees the beginning of a dystopian society in the US, and possibly a civil war. Everything the Trump regime has done will have Putin rubbing his hands with glee, weakening NATO in Europe and a weakened US in turmoil at home. America is imploding, being destroyed from the inside out without Putin or China having to lift a military finger. And the Trump regime is stoking further conflict in the Middle East.
The worst outcome would be war.
Anxiety is a natural response!
Concerns as an Australian
Australia is a long way from the USA, but all this affects us. Given the US trade war with China, Australia will likely eventually have to choose between our long term national security partner in the USA – now unreliable and demanding tribute – and our biggest trading partner, China. And our rightwing politicians are stoking fear and division in the same way that Trump has. These are very unstable and unsettling times, and that fuels anxiety and depression in a society already facing an erosion of mental health.
The Benefits and Problems of ADHD Hyperfocus
At best my ADHD hyperfocus helps me to get a huge amount done in a short period of time; at worst it takes over my life to the detriment of other areas of my life. My sense of history in the making has drawn me into all this turmoil in the US and the world. My passion for reading has been ignited, and I read a great deal about it all, but it is not a happy subject for hyperfocus, and that could easily have negative effects on my mental health.
The sheer cruelty of the Trump regime is horrific enough, but reading the details of what it is actually doing to people’s lives makes me sometimes feel physically ill. I have felt their despair and terror, and it is all too easy for neurodivergent people like me to take the feelings of others onto themselves. But thanks to all those years of meditation, I have the tool of awareness to help me avoid falling into despair and terror myself.
I have had to become quite diligent about not dwelling on what is happening across the ocean and focussing on the here and now. I can tear myself away from the hyperfocus. I can delay looking at the latest news or reading the most interesting substacks until after I have done my work and taken a meditative walk in the garden. Tearing oneself away from one’s hyperfocus is not easy, but when that hyperfocus threatens the wholesomeness of one’s life, it must be done. Awareness of what is happening gives me that ability.
Awareness: How Meditation Helps
Because of my 20 years as a Tibetan Buddhist, during which I did a lot of meditation practice, I know how to look after my mental health. Meditation has given me the skills to be able to leave my problems behind. To know when I need to get up from the computer and move. To know when I have scrolled enough on my phone. To know when it is time to end a conversation. To ban a person from commenting on social media. Despite my ADHD, I have developed the necessary awareness to be able to do that, and I say that, with all humility, it is simply a result of 20 years plus of meditation practice.
The Legacy of Meditation
Of course, I am no longer a Tibetan Buddhist, but the skills that I learned during that period of intense practice remain with me. It’s as second nature as breathing to turn my mind inwards. To allow fears for the future, concerns for the present, to just drop away.
Finding Solace in Nature
Once aware that I have fallen into the trap of doom scrolling or read more articles about the world situation than is healthy for me, the next step is to put down my device. After that I go outside and commune with nature. I walk to shift the energy in my body and focus on my footsteps on the earth, my body moving through space, the sounds of the garden, and the beauty around me. Through that my mind comes into the here and now. The rest of the world drops away, and I know I am safe, calm, aware. In that state of mind, I am fine. All good. And we all need to feel that sometimes.
Embracing the Present Moment
When I’m walking in the forest, I’m just there where I am, mind present. I can feel the wind blowing through my hair. I can smell the fecund nature of the forest. I can hear the wind, I can hear the crickets, my feet on the ground. The water trickling in the stream. And my mind is clear. I am here, now, centered, grounded, whilst the world order shifts around me.
Nature is my way out.
Now I’m heading off to the cliff to stand on the edge and let the wind blow through my hair.
How do you handle the uncertain times we’re going through right now?
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