When I was in high school, after my classes were done, I’d walk towards Lake Michigan and wait at the public bus stop on nearest large road. There was not much to do as the cars whizzed by. Not too many kids relied on the public bus, so many times I was alone facing the road and the lake shore park across the way. Sometimes I’d read. But often, I would sit there on the concrete and look up at the sky. 
 
I’d watch the movement of white against blue against gray. I’d see just a small opening in the clouds beginning and then gathering clarity, revealing azure behind the mist, and finally rays of sun visibly filtering across a milky white backdrop. 
 
I’d try to read the clouds for impending weather shifts, which could happen moment to moment. But mostly I’d take in the beauty of it. The fluffy cloud formations and play of light reminded me of a renaissance painting. Magic.
 
Even now, looking at clouds above, I imagine sitting up there. It looks so close I could nearly touch it. There’s a reason those fantastical Italian ceiling frescos feature the sky, clouds, and beams of light so prominently, and why we picture the gods in this "celestial" realm. It’s otherworldly. 
 
As I look up today, I stop to consider two ways my sky-study supports my life philosophy based on Stoic principles.
 
First off, I think looking up offers a kind of reverse "view from above." We could call it “a view from below.”
 
Traditionally, the ancients practiced the “view from above” by picturing themselves floating high over the people and cities and world that they knew, and seeing things from a new perspective where our problems and, indeed, our whole lives look small and inconsequential.

If we try the “view from below”as a practice, as we look up, we are reminded of the beauty and structure of our whole planet and the environment we live in—and of how small we are in the wider perspective. Seeing the timeless sky above, one that originated with the dawn of Earth, also serves to indicate how fleeting and short our time is.
 
Looking up, we can also feel very keenly that we all see the same sky, the same clouds. Every human being, no matter his or her location or profession or status, can study those remarkable clouds and sinuous patterns of light and shade. And we all can appreciate them.
 
In that way, it’s a reminder of our inter-connectedness as well. Looking at the clouds and sky can serve as an exercise in what the ancients called cosmopolitanism. Because we all share the same sky, and we can all potentially respond to its beauty and its life-giving light and air. 
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So the next time you’re outside, take a few minutes to turn towards the sky. Really study it. Be moved by it. And let it serve as a vivid reminder of our small place in this world, of the beauty and joy we can find here, and of the millions (billions?) of other people who are also looking up at this very moment.

​One afternoon, my ten-year-old daughter confessed that she had been quite frustrated after a few long days at a local summer camp. The atmosphere there was chaotic and some of her experimental projects weren’t working out. 
 
She knew intellectually that it wasn’t a big deal, but it did have an impact on her emotions. The amazing thing was, when she reacted by over-snacking on late-afternoon slices of toast, she was fully aware of what she was doing.
 
“I’m eating my emotional bread, Mom,” she said. 
 
I understood just what she meant. I’ve long suffered from bouts of emotional eating. This has happened when I was stressed, bored, sad, or felt empty. Food is instantly enjoyable, and can seem, momentarily, to counteract negative emotions and the fatigue of dealing with everyday challenges.
 
“Eating my emotional bread” is something I recognize and want to avoid, and when I can’t, I try to forgive myself.
 
One year and a month ago, I decided to try a new eating plan. I became more cognizant of food quantities, using a hunger scale to measure how much my body needed to eat. It was an effort to counteract years of emotional eating.
 
The plan helped me reset how I think about food. I do indeed still eat when I am stressed or feeling low or sometimes just bored. But I’m more aware and honest about it, and I more often listen to my body when it says “enough, I’m overfull, I don’t feel well anymore.” By stopping myself before I over-consumed, I reduced some symptoms I used to get more often (for instance, heartburn) and positively affected my waistline. 
 
And I became much more willing to leave food on the plate or on the table. If I am bored or anxious, I try to substitute other more healthy alternatives, like taking a walk or jog, reaching out to a friend with a text, doing a small piece of art or craft, reading a book or article, or watching a funny video. 
 
This is a more “mindful” approach to food that keeps it in its proper place. I know that food will never make me emotionally better. My daughter comprehends this, too.
 
Yet emotional bread has a powerful pull. It’s a choice that’s not always as “within our control” as we think, despite what Stoic thinkers may tell us. In today’s Western world, we are often surrounded by large quantities of food, either offered to us by friends, family, or co-workers, or for sale at reasonable prices. (My particular weakness is free food at the workplace.)

Our world is also one where the stresses, emotional needs, personal challenges, and environmental and international problems seem to be ballooning, and eating is a less destructive response than alcohol, drugs, extreme thrill-seeking, or other forms of “self-medication” that help us avoid the causes of our suffering. (I should note: Even if overall world problems such as war and famine are on the decline in recent decades, the demands of everyday life in the West still seem to be overwhelming to many people.)
 
We can’t always change the causes for our distress, just our responses, as Stoic thinkers often remind us. Bad things do happen. But in the bigger picture, I’ve tried also to reduce the number of issues or stressors that I carry with me, and, through Stoic practice, to keep in perspective all the silly “small stuff” that used to bother me much more.
 
For my daughter, who feels things deeply, gaining a sense of perspective is hard. It takes time to learn to see the world that way. Luckily, a serving of bread here and there won’t hurt her too much. 
 
Even better is for her, or for any of us, to tell our family or friends, “I guess now is a time when I need emotional bread,” and to lean (just a bit) more on their shared wisdom, support, and love. When I think of my loved ones, I know I can find emotional nourishment far more meaningful than that in the pantry. 
 

Remember that each of us lives only in the present, this fleeting moment of time, and that the rest of one’s life has either already been lived or lies in an unknowable future. The space of each person’s existence is thus a little thing….
                                                                               - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 3, Section 10 
 
How much time have I wasted mulling over mistakes of the past? Thinking about unfulfilled hopes from younger days? How many moments have I squandered worried about the future: about what would happen later today, about next week, next month, next year? Anxious that I might disappoint other people or let myself down?
 
I realize I can’t eliminate these kinds of thoughts, but these are things that I strive to notice. I want to at least be aware of them. I would like to recall Marcus Aurelius’ lines continuously, but it’s very hard to make my brain think that way.
 
Marcus’ wisdom resonates with what I’ve learned about mindfulness and Buddhist meditation practices. By focusing on the current moment, by just being present now, we can (even briefly) escape our “stories” about ourselves (often filled with insecurities, defensiveness, and misjudgments), the litany of fears that have governed us in the past, the bad habits we find hard to break, and the anxieties that plague us about tomorrow. This is a difficult practice for someone steeped in concerns, cautions, and sometimes-unrealistic expectations (about myself and my world), but very much worth trying.
 
I’ve been pouring over Marcus Aurelius’ work recently to try to re-ground myself in a time of stress. And I’ve found another book that offers a different kind of grounding. It’s Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker, a study of how reason and science have led to progress throughout the globe since the Enlightenment period in the late eighteenth century. 
 
The book is filled with facts about improvements in the standard of living, health, education, food availability, women’s rights, and more. This knowledge needs to be verbalized much more in society today. Those who decry science and say that the world is getting worse seem to be winning for the moment on our public stage. But it need not be this way in the future.
 
Look how far we have come in terms of laying the groundwork for more and more people to live a good life. We can quibble about exactly what values we should subscribe to, but knowing that reason, science, and humanism have yielded a world in which things have gotten a great deal better—so much better that more of us can afford to spend time thinking, reading about, and practicing practical philosophy, among many other good and useful things—is eye-opening. 
 
It’s far better to be a woman and a mother today than in past generations, however rose-tinted our backwards-looking glasses may be. And I’m even more optimistic for my two daughters. They are living in a time when people are working hard to expose and diminish bias, fight against harassment, and offer the best education possible for girls as well as boys. 
 
There’s much, much more work to be done, surely. In fact, education is one of the most problematic areas today in terms of inequality and issues of access. But knowing that something’s not perfect doesn’t mean we should decry it, or give up on it. Letting go of the past and remaining cautiously optimistic (though realistic) about the future, we can carry on today.

And as for me, I’ll try to use whatever time I have given to me in the now to live in accord with nature--and to make my best efforts towards wisdom, justice, and self-knowledge.

​Last week, Modern Stoicism published my guest post on Stoic Parenting in the Age of Distraction. If you haven't seen it, please check it out. If you already have, thanks!  

The post is my take on staying focused on what really matters - as parents, modern Stoics, and technology users. It's not an easy task in our world filled with distracting devices and competing demands.

My story begins with my dad, who had remarkable powers of concentration. I find it much more difficult than he did, but every day is an opportunity to practice. I try to squeeze in dedicated periods of concentration. The more I remind myself to be present, the more I'm able to focus on the people and projects I truly care about. 

In case you are not familiar with it, Modern Stoicism is an excellent source on applying Stoic philosophy to our lives today. Writers for the blog explore a wide range of interpretations of Stoic thought. The group also organizes the annual Stoicon conference and Stoic Week. 

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​Long streaks of water tumbled over the gray granite mountain walls above us. Dark streams gushed past well-washed tree trunks and over green shoots bearing pink wildflowers.
 
As I stood there taking in the scene, I was angry and frustrated. About a lot of things. Part of me couldn’t even bear to look around. It was too beautiful, and it didn’t match my mood at all.
 
I bent down to get a closer look at the rushing streams. Then I reached my hand towards the water, drawn to the rushing falls’ clearness and coolness in the midday sun.
 
The moment I felt the icy cold water touch my fingertips at cascade falls, my mood began to change.
 
Before that, all the advice and thoughtfulness of my husband, my hiking companion, hadn’t shifted my dark mood. “Come on, make the best of it—you’re in a gorgeous place,” he said, and it made no difference. Our kids were at camp and it was a rare chance to take a hike solo. But all the views of the mountain, the trees, Lake Tahoe, and its crystal water hadn’t broken me out of my negative thought pattern. All the footsteps that led me to these rushing falls hadn’t done it either.
 
It wasn’t that I had something serious to worry about that day—my terrible mood was a result of a range of petty problems and missed expectations that fed my anger with myself and other people.
 
But somehow the water, feeling it and being shocked by its frigid temperature, noticing just how clear it was, hearing it wash the rocks, changed me. I realized afterwards that this was an example of something I need to do much more often: Using mindful awareness of my (tactile) senses in the moment to break out of a difficult, negative emotion.
 
I know I have a tendency to focus on the negative. Actually, on some level, we all do: it’s how primitive humans survived in a dangerous world, by spotting threats and avoiding them. It’s just that today, we perceive so many things as threats, from other drivers (who legitimately are potential killers) to unexpected expenses to disapproval by our family members or our bosses. But my thoughts about our less-than-perfect world often spiral out of control far too quickly. I am trying to understand that, and develop resilience for myself and also for my kids. To be there for them more fully, and to model for them how to handle tough feelings.
 
Often I talk to my daughters about the importance of calming themselves when they get upset. While deep breathing can often work, some methods are more senses-based and tactile. I  recommended that my angry daughter punch a pillow. A counselor I know suggested other things: Try a blowing game where you move a balled tissue across the table with your breath. She also mentioned finger painting, which I now realize was a brilliant idea. Using your hands in thick paint and feeling its texture could activate touch and the awareness of the moment just as the cold water did.
 
In fact, kids tend to do a lot of things that use their bodies and senses to take them out of their minds this way: jumping in big puddles, turning their faces up to the rain, hitting things with sticks, bouncing into piles of fallen leaves. These are the kinds of exploits that we’re often warning them against—I can hear myself saying, “you’ll get dirty, you’ll be all wet, you’ll catch a chill, you’ll hurt yourself.” But maybe they instinctively know that not only is it fun, but it’s a way of feeling the moment and experiencing life outside the confines of our regular thought patterns.
 
I learned from that moment at the falls. Using our senses is not merely a way to distract or cover up our feelings. It’s a way to break free by refocusing the body and the mind. No one had to lecture me to change the way I felt, no harsh voice inside me had to tell me to “suck it up.” I shifted from within.
 
I was still angry when I reached into that water, but it washed the feeling out of me. I noticed my hands, my sense of touch and temperature, and my own body in a way I hadn’t before. And I was able to stop ruminating over negative thoughts, even for a short time--enough time to take in the beauty and fullness all around me.

​I promised I’d post about how the 8 and 9-year-olds responded to my mindfulness and contemplation training for a small group of girls at a local elementary school. My daughter participated, which gave me a good sense for how things were going (she can be brutally honest about her opinions!). The program was more successful than I’d imagined and motivated me to keep thinking about how to share these ideas locally and beyond.
 
I wanted the kids to understand the context for why this matters—and how we can influence how our brains work. We all began by thinking back to the time when the human brain first evolved. What was the world like? The students chimed in with a lot of reasons why humans would be afraid of things like lightning and wooly mammoths and running out of food. (Although one girl’s claim that people were fearful that they would be eaten by dinosaurs had to be quickly discounted!) The students grasped how hard life must have been.
 
I asked them to try to understand that nowadays, we view the small annoyances and setbacks of modern Western existence as if they were equally life-threatening dangers. And that we can develop bad habits of the mind as a result. I used the example of my response to someone not replying to my email – was my message stupid? Will that person tell other folks that I’m an idiot? Could I be fired from my job because I’m not smart enough? Will I then starve? This kind of thinking is sometimes called catastrophizing. It’s common in my brain and seems to happen to a lot of us.
 
(If you’ve seen the short film called Inner Workings that is now showing before the movie Moana, you’ll understand that it is a perfect example of what I mean. The main character, a guy whose body we can peer into like in an anatomy textbook, is pulled by the lure of fun things like eating a big delicious breakfast and going swimming or surfing in the ocean. But his brain keeps pointing out all the threatening, dangerous things that could happen to him if he chases fun. These possibilities always lead to an illustration of an early grave in his mind’s eye.)
 
Next, I explained to the students how to do a personal weather report about how they feel. I liked this idea because it’s such a neutral, non-judgmental way to think about our own emotions. In the same way that you can’t change or control the weather, you can’t always change your feelings—but you can notice them and be aware. I had all the students close their eyes and ask themselves quietly if they felt stormy, rainy, snowy, sunny, cloudy, tropical, etc., in their own minds. My daughter thought this was a useful exercise.
 
I included a few other metaphors that didn’t register as well with the third graders. For instance, the notion of “surfing your emotions” turned out to be pretty abstract to them. I got a few vacant stares and quickly moved on.
 
We did a five-minute guided meditation using a recording from the UCLA online center. It focuses on calming the mind and gently breathing, but not much else—just a very simple pause. Most of the girls engaged with it. A few kept giggling, and one said she thought it was creepy. I asked that girl afterwards to explain what she meant, but she wouldn't respond. Possibly it was the recorded voice—which was a sort of monotone. I found it soothing, but kids might not all agree. Next time, I would try to bring in a bell or a block to strike when the meditation time is over. The students would pay attention to an intriguing sound, I think, and I could use my own voice rather than a recording.
 
At the session’s end, I briefly explained that we could use meditation to develop compassion and loving-kindness towards others and ourselves. The girls closed their eyes and thought of a friend or family member, repeating to themselves, “May she/he find joy and peace.” They did the same with themselves: “May I find joy and peace.”
 
Feedback on this session has been positive. I’d like to pursue more testing of this teaching soon. More to do in 2017!