I'm not a snob about contemplative practice. I see zero shame in scrolling through Instagram during moments like these. I'm not trying to maintain monastic levels of composure throughout the day.

I just decided to explore what would happen if I fell back on what has proved paradoxically comforting in the past when waiting for potentially terrible news.

“If we sit still, like a mountain in a hurricane, if we don't protect ourselves from the trueness and the vividness and the immediacy and the lack of confirmation of simply being part of life, then we are not this separate being who has to have things turn out our way.”

Pema Chödrön