For the past few days, I’ve been writing about the ripple effect. About how every thought we think, every choice we make, every action we take has a ripple effect. About how our inherent wholeness returns to consciousness when we recognize this and make our choices in consideration of the whole instead of our own little part.
On Sunday, as I was planting my new garden, I was chatting with my wonderful next-door neighbor. She’s the only person I see on any kind of regular basis — and if I had gone to Central Casting and picked out my ideal next-door neighbor, I couldn’t have done any better.
Among the many things we have in common is that she’s from Colorado—and has lived here in Western North Carolina for the past fifteen years. So she knows what it’s like to come from the Mountain West to the Mountain Southeast.
As I was planting she said, “I just never get over how green it is here. Sometime it rains and rains for days and days. And I just stay home and read. The basement floods. Everyone’s basement flood around here. And it just keeps raining. Sometimes I wish it would stop. But then I remember how green it is here and I’m grateful for the rain.”
Well, perhaps my next-door neighbor is a prophet, because since then it has rained and rained. It’s been too wet for any kind of long walk. And the basement has flooded — as I now know it does when the weather reports a “Flood Watch”.
I walk on average five miles a day. Not walking feels weird. I thought I would feel antsy — and I have from time to time, until I had an attitude adjustment. Now I have a super clean house, all my laundry done, the summer clothes unpacked and the winter ones put away, one client’s website finished, two blogs written for another client, lots of meetings and website data entry done, and I’ve gotten to bet early. And the icing on the cake is that most days I’ve still walked at least three miles. Indoors.
When the basement began to flood a few days ago, I kept up with it. But then it began to rain in earnest, and it was fruitless. I would go down and peek at the height from time to time. At one point I texted the landlord and suggested that perhaps we should stock it with fish. That was a way of deflecting a little anxiety I was apparently feeling.
Last night that anxiety came to a head. I was in bed listening to the steady fall of the rain, imagining the water accumulating downstairs and how long it’s going to take to empty it out and with no straight-up sunny days in the weather forecast for two weeks, how it’s ever going to dry.
And that’s when I remembered what my neighbor said about loving how green it is.
So the ripple effect of this rainy spell could be seen as a flooded basement — or it could be seen in the trees outside my window that are triple the height of the tallest trees in New Mexico, with leaves so brightly green that they almost glow. In the singing birds I hear in those trees all day long. The glorious flowers I see on all my walks, Or in the vegetable and herb garden I just planted whose leaves are soaking in endless moisture.
The ripple effect could be seen in someone who hasn’t gotten a long walk in in three days — or it could be seen in someone who has a sparkling clean and organized house and is feeling more caught up on work than usual and has gotten a few extra hours snuggling with Allie in bed.
The ripple effect could be seen in the low-grade worry that has arisen about how much moisture is accumulating in the basement — or it could be seen in the lessons learned from witnessing the fruitlessness of worry and understanding that a pattern needs to be changed.
And it can certainly be seen in learning to change that pattern. . .because when you see the habit of worry pop up in one place and choose to make a shift, all of a sudden you see how it pops up other places — and the shift you make in one place helps shine a light on other places too.
Because worry is just about the most fruitless activity in the world. It is low-grade anxiety swirling around in our head with a backlog of tense what if’s — and doing nothing about it. Not taking action. Not praying. Not looking at things from other perspectives. That worry feels exactly like the water underneath me. It just puddles up and then gets deeper. It accumulates and rises. It creeps up the walls and slowly but surely our lives get waterlogged with worry.
So the only flood I really need to watch is in my thinking. Am I allowing my thoughts to get flooded with low-grade fears, or am I listening, leaning into, and learning from Love?
The first time the basement flooded a little, I didn’t know what to do, so I figured it would dry on its own. It did, but it took days and days.
The second time the basement flooded a lot. I hauled out almost 20 large containers of water. I decided that I needed something different to do after too much computer time, so I enjoyed the work. I put a fan in the window and it took a couple of days to dry out. It was what it was and I had a good attitude.
The third time the basement flooded, I was bummed that it had happened again. But this time it took only two containers to get most of the water out. Not only that, the sun came out and with my fan on and the windows open, it was almost dry by evening.
There’s supposed to be a break in the weather today. But the real break came in my attitude adjustment last night. It came from remembering that anxiety is ingratitude in advance. I can keep falling for the siren call of fruitless anxiety. Or I can choose to be grateful. And grateful I am: For the most wonderful landlord. For a sweet safe space to live while the world and my work on the road has ground to a halt. For the birds and the trees and the prettiest places to walk. For my wonderful next-door neighbor and all the nice people I smile at on my walks. For the people I am slowly meeting as we emerge from staying at home. And for how much I just love this little cottage that is my temporary home.
I’ve got my boots and wet vac ready for a break in the weather today. I’ve got the fan ready to put in the window. I’m planning to put on headphones and listen to some joy-filled music. But those aren’t my real tools. My real tool came from my attitude adjustment last night and my determination to break a lifelong low-grade habit of worry and replace it with a much more consistent practice of gratitude.
This basement is a new take on the glass half empty or glass half full metaphor, that’s for sure. But it’s one that I am grateful to have.
You see, the habit of worry is so subtle. We benignly check the news to see the status of the stay at home order in our area, and instead of taking in the information we aimed to get, in comes the habit of worry. It’s almost invisible, unless we learn to witness it. Witness — as in see without judging how we see. Just look at how we see and then choose our response instead of react unconsciously.
It’s time for a global flood watch. Because nothing could be more important right now than for us all to learn to witness our thoughts and shift from fear-based reaction to heart-centered response. The ripple effect of that is huge. . .and it’s critical right now. Especially right now.
So today, as you face whatever your flooded basement may be — witness what attitude you bring with you. Witness what tools you need to choose Love not fear. Imagine the ripple effect of whatever choice you make. And if you need company, know that I’ll be down in my own flooded basement, choosing Love with every bucket of water, and choosing gratitude as I look up at the green trees all around me. And I’ll be imagining each of you doing the same.
At the end of the day — in the event — we are all always together in Love. Whether it’s raining or sunny, each of us, one drop at a time, we are always together in Love.
In lieu of a video today, I offer this perfect metaphor by the one-and-only Dr Seuss. . .Let’s look at what storms we are letting rain on our parades of Love. . .and then keep choosing Love!
