The way to de-stress is not to avoid stress, but to befriend stress.

In a world full of hate, stress, division, confusion, conspiracies, blame, lack of accountability, speediness, defeated sadness, depression, toxic loneliness, consumerism, poverty mentality, prejudice…

…we may feel overwhelmed.

It’s a practical concern, in a way: we can only process as much as we know how to process. If we seek to avoid discomfort, we may not even try to process. If we long to cling to the island of “good vibes only,” we may regard all the above as bad.

But what is hard and, even, bad, is not bad. It is something to process, to inhale not push away, to breathe deep in and out and through, and relax and release ourselves back into this moment. The more we can process, the more we can rest in this present moment with all its contradictions just so.

The more we rest in the present moment, of course, our basic goodness (read about it) may rise to the top like bubbles floating in a cauldron. Our basic goodness is revealed when we are naked, raw, open to this present moment. Our basic goodness is inherently kind, caring, not selfish, not cowardly. We need only be brave enough to dive through that wall of fire, of fear of discomfort and “bad.”

And, once we do, we may find that, somehow, this world for all its hurt and harm is something manageable, workable, that we can do our small part to help it heal and cheer up, that community flowers and supports us as we flower and support it, that as we ride the rail of the present moment a thing Buddhists call “auspicious coincidence” manifests. We are awake to the details and textures and terrain, and our skill in negotiating life increases.

None of this is to say that I get this, or that it’s easy, but just that, simply, it’s a practice. Like meditation, it’s a practice in coming back to this our life, to the sounds and shadows and lights and breezes of this very moment.

The more we can process, the more we can handle. The more we can handle, the more we retain our sense of caring, of extending ourselves to others and animals and our planet, the more we retain our sense of humor, our relaxed confidence in our ability to work with constant challenge and neurosis—ours and others.

We learn to manage more through the Buddhist practice of tonglen, founded in turn on shamata meditation.

We learn to manage more through practice itself, through seeing that we can breathe deep and sigh and smile and apply ourselves again and again to the path.

We learn to manage more through learning that we can be open with others and they will want to help, that community is a source not of stress but of support.

We learn to manage more by befriending loneliness, turning it from something lacking into something sharp and cool and beautiful and sweet, tender, pure, simple.

Shamata: The Best, Basic, Classic Meditation Instruction for resting our Mind in the Present Moment.

Pema Chodron: How to do Tonglen, a meditation practice for difficult times.