Staying Power
A Field Guide to Inner Strength in a Complex World
I love the world, and I love my kids, and I'm scared for both.
I could provide a long list of reasons why, but we already know many of them. Bad news—about everything from the dismal state of American politics to climate change—is everywhere.
And if we learn even a little about the state of our world, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that we have entered an era of seriously tough times. Times in which the relative stability we have come to count on is coming apart at the seams, like a threadbare coat.
Of course, countless good people are working to address the world's growing crises. But whether they will succeed is anyone's guess.
So, what I want to know is how, in these times of great uncertainty, can we resist feeling powerless despite the many messages that encourage us to do just that? How do we avoid despair despite the unprecedented complexity of the global challenges before us? How do we reject the temptation to retreat into denial or distraction despite the fact that both sometimes seem like the only sane thing to do?
How, in short, can we use the harsh reality of these times to live a better quality of life right now? And by quality of life, I do not mean a higher standard of living but a more genuine, meaningful, and balanced practice of living that has been out of our reach for some time.
I first wrote these words more than 15 years ago. I was the mother of two young boys and had only recently woken up to climate change, which terrified me. Never in a million years could I have anticipated the world-shaking challenges that would multiply and grow as they have since then.
But one thing has remained the same in all this time: my quest to discover a healthy, wise, and, above all, loving way to navigate the storm.
What I have learned, with a now unshakeable conviction, is that the answer to meeting today's extraordinary challenges rests on two things: cultivating a strong inner life to help us meet outer challenges and collectively joining together to create a better world.
At this moment, of course, many of us are afraid, angry, anxious, and even despairing about the reckless destruction of lives, shared values, and the health of the earth on which everything depends.
Many of us are also disheartened by the absence of the kind of leadership people need in challenging times; indeed, it is all too easy to feel that leadership, at least from some powerful places, is against us.
This means good change is up to us. The big us. The collective us. The unbreakable us. The us that may not feel like we have that kind of strength within.
Previously unimagined potential, however, is often precipitated by crises. And so, this power of possibility is with us today. Possibility without power, however, will not get us far. At least not far enough.
That's why I'm introducing a new series based on what the past 15+ years of experience and interviews with hundreds of people have taught me, specifically about owning our inner and collective power to meet the towering challenges of our day.
I have, to my surprise, collected more than 250 pathways to developing inner strength in a complex world. But fear not, I'll not subject you to them all!
Instead, I’ll offer one and perhaps eventually more A-Z guides, exploring topics such as the power of action and diversity, of the only FOMO that counts, of humility and kindness and justice, of lilies in the mud and of limits and limitlessness, of meaning and mindset and mission, of presence and purpose, of regeneration and ripples, of self-trust and shared power, of surfacing the unspoken and thresholds, and of vision, warriorship and wonder.
I'll kick the series off next week with one or more of the many possibilities that begin with the letter A—and how many there are! (This is why the A-Z ordering is helpful.)
Among them: the power acceptance, action, adaptability, admitting disappointment, adventures, agility, alchemy, alignment, altruism, anger, antidotes, anxiety (as a signal and goad to something better), appreciation, archetypes, asking the right questions, attending to challenging emotions, attention, attitude, authenticity, awareness, and awe.
If you have a preference, please let me know!
As the great theologian, mystic, and philosopher Meister Eckhart observed some 700 years ago, “Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.”
May it be so for us now.
Lisa
P.S. Yes, I changed the name of this newsletter, again. The focus remains the same.
I help values-driven individuals and organizations build psychological resilience, reduce emotional exhaustion, and reconnect to purpose and each other so they can continue doing their vitally important work. Please reach out if you’d like to learn more about my coaching, workshops, and talks.