Archives for posts with tag: life

Reclaiming My Time

January 25, 2026 //

If you’ve watched congressional hearings in the U.S., you’ve heard the phrase, “Reclaiming my time.” A congress member has a time limit for their questioning of witnesses. When the witness does not answer the question but instead strategically attempts to fill up time with counter attacks or other irrelevant talk, the congress member will say, “Reclaiming my time” to stop the clock and preserve their opportunity to participate as fully as they can in the hearing. Reportedly, this was a strategy popularized by the democrat congresswoman, Maxine Waters. She used it like the goddess that she is and you can watch it here.

I’ve been thinking a great deal of late about how I use my time. Being a wife, mother, and clinical psychologist, and part-time activist takes up a significant amount of time and energy. Frankly, as I’ve mentioned, being an awake American requires a lot of emotional energy. When I was going through cancer treatment in 2012, I was able to take advantage of the flexibility of my private practice as well as the fact that I am married and have a husband who also brings in income. I was able to cut back my hours to 75-80% of full-time and to take off time for surgery recovery. I was also devoting a great deal of time and energy to my daughter, who from the ages of 11 to 19, was experiencing severe mental health issues. I had my SCAD caused heart attacks at the end of this time, which further called for continued self-care, to the extent that was possible. Consequently, I never returned to full-time work. I still work 75-80% and in recent years, I have increased the time I take off, which is now about 11 weeks per year. It is unpaid because I am self-employed but I am lucky in that even part-time I make a decent amount of money and my husband has even better earnings. Nonetheless, I have been exhausted by Trump, the pandemic, and the re-election of Trump. I am exhausted by the realization that a significant minority of U.S. voters are so steeped in delusion, hatred, and fear, that they have confused immorality with upright living.

I am not an unlimited resource. I do recognize that unlike many, I have easier choices about how I spend my time. My husband and I have reduced parenting responsibilities, own our home, and in the larger scheme of things, are wealthy, living in a beautiful part of the country with a lot of like-minded people. Although one reaction to this may be guilt about complaining about my limited time, instead, I see it as my responsibility to reclaim my time to work for democracy while maintaining my health. I also know that as a 60-year-old, there are things I want to do that are important to my spiritual health such as my meditation practice and making art.

Some of this examination has been painful and has resulted in sadness and anger. Overextending oneself and being generous beyond sustainability is often expected of women, especially wives, mothers, and other caretakers. I am very skilled at organizing, leading, and community building. I am generous by nature. I do not expect generosity in return but I expect fairness and there have been some recent events in my professional life with younger colleagues and my long time commercial landlord, which have been trying and disenchanting. I moved my office to a place where I am not reliant on or responsible for other people in the office. By getting new space, I reclaimed my time. The space happens to be beautiful and is a place of solace and calm.

This is just one example. There are others that I am working through. We often run on the treadmill of life and think that nothing can be different. Perhaps that is true for many of us, but it is not true for all. I often recommend to parents of young children that they go on dates without their children on a regular basis. When they reply, “We don’t have time,” I tell them that that is their brain’s way of telling them that they are past due for time together and that they really need to find a way to do it.

In other words, brains in overdrive get so stuck on real and perceived dangers get stuck and inflexible. They have trouble pausing, shifting, and examining reality. It a life where reactivity takes precedence over living a more intentional life.

Take a pause every day, even to close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. (Make sure it is your belly is that is rising and falling with your breath, not your chest. The two techniques have opposite effects.) Perhaps you will find some clarity and in that clarity an opportunity to make changes.

Please consider reclaiming your time, if you can and don’t automatically assume that you can’t. It is not only more healthy for you, your friends, and your family, but the country needs you.

Peace friends,

Elizabeth

Tags activism, health, life, Mental Health

Categories Uncategorized

The Truth Mandala

August 21, 2025 //

I’ve belonged to a small online meditation group for the last two years taught by Donald Rothberg, a psychologist and major teacher on socially engaged Buddhism. He comes from a long line of nonviolent activists and really merits a separate blog post. Donald was very close friends with Joanna Macy, an environmental activist and Buddhist scholar who died last month at age 96. Joanna led the development of a collective grief ritual, for world events, the Truth Mandala.

At our request, Donald led the ritual with our online group of seven people, to deal with the current democracy crisis in the U.S. There are four phases of the ritual. During the first phase, people talk about gratitude. The second phase is opening to the pain of the world. The third is seeing in a different way, and the fourth phase is to “go forth into the world”. We completed the first three phases. Participation was optional at all times.

Most experience meditation practitioners have a gratitude practice. We all shared during this phase, such as for our health, personal safety, music, and the beauty of nature. Then we opened ourselves to the pain of the world expressing feelings of sorrow, fear, anger, and confusion, the four segments of the Truth Mandala. People spoke when they felt like they had something to share, after which, the group said, “We hear you.” It’s simple but it was also very deep. Since what people say in our group is private, I will only share my own feelings. I expressed sadness and anger at the cruel actions of the government and people in support of it as well as the apparent enjoyment in it, as if it were a game. I shared my sadness that so many were disconnected from activism because it is too painful to act or because anxiety and anger have led them to hopelessness.

Although the second phase was painful, by the third phase, when there were some people able to share a different kind of seeing. For example, I expressed fear and confusion about the outcome of our democracy but clarity about my immediate next steps as an activist. I also shared that I view myself as having resources to draw on for activism given my age, race, economic security, and emotional resilience. Others appeared to be in deep despair and chose not to speak. I could see a lot of pain in their eyes and body language. I have spent a couple of years with these people and they have wisdom and fortitude.

I saw their distress and I felt it. I wondered if I should not have shared about my sadness that more people were not engaged in activism. I know how people are, especially emotionally sensitive people. They often don’t think they are doing enough even when they are doing a lot. I didn’t want to make anyone distressed with my statements. Then I thought, “Well, this is the truth mandala. This is true for me and is not targeted toward anyone in the group.”

Most of us in this country are going through collective grief, which has intensified with the second Trump administration. Many are familiar with the late Swiss American psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’ work on death and dying, in particular, the stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. An important thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that this stage model was never meant to be a strict progress toward a final end point of acceptance.

I realized that what was making me most distressed was that although my meditation group was in shared grief, we were not all experiencing it in the same way at that moment. We typically share about our perspectives on an individual experience, not on a world event.

I am often distressed by other activist’s distress, the distress that results along the lines of “we’re doomed” or beliefs that there is only one answer to the problems we are facing. People can be so sure that they have the right answer and everyone else is wrong. My right answer is that there is not just one, even when we share guiding principles of non-violence, building an inclusive, “We, the People”, democracy, and respecting the Earth and living things.

A teaching I am taking out of the Truth Mandala is to recognize that some of the disconnect I often feel with others who also want a better world, is a difference in the way we are grieving, in that moment. I can respect that. I can also respect that grief changes.

My friends, however you are grieving, I am working to honor and validate it.

Much love,
Elizabeth

Tags Authoritarianism, democracy, grief, life, loss, love, meditation, Mental Health, Non-violent social activism, the truth mandala

Categories Uncategorized

Environmental Encouragement

February 22, 2014 //

I know that a lot of you have experienced great hardship this winter. Some of you have lost loved ones, some of you are sick or have been sick. And then there are the terrifying weather events that are getting increasingly common, most recently the impact of the polar vortex on a substantial portion of North America.

I made all of you a little film of a portion of my walk today along with some of the thoughts I have when I am in the woods. I am hoping this is an encouraging experience and if not, you get to see some very pretty trees and hear some crows having quite a conversation in the woods.

It’s funny to me because although I am surrounded by earth forms and plants so much larger than me when I am in the woods, It’s okay to be small. We don’t need to be big. We can just be.