I was listening to Anderson Cooper’s All There Is podcast the other day, specifically the episode Love is What Survives. People called in to share their stories of grief, and one phrase kept coming up again and again: “lean in.” It resonated in my mind because it connected with a funny experience I had had that weekend.
I had spent the weekend in Toronto with four friends. On one evening we were all jammed like sardines in a small SUV, one in front, three in the middle row, my friend’s husband driving us out of the city after a long day out. There were multiple conversations happening simultaneously among us all, a buzz of noise and commentary and general conversation. At one point, the friend sitting up front got her phone out and told us to lean in. Two of us did, looking up and smiling for the camera. Our other friend was either in the middle of another conversation or misheard and called out forcefully, “No!” It was so completely out of context and character that we all broke into instantaneous fits of belly laughs. We laughed so hard we couldn’t speak, until someone wheezed out another “no!” through giggles and laughter would erupt through the car all over again. The rest of the weekend was peppered with a call and response of “lean in!”, “no!”, punctuated with more laughter. We even have a keepsake picture memorializing the moment with three of us gumming it up for the camera and only the left eye and shoulder of our fourth friend in the frame.
I was reflecting on that lean in moment and the weekend full of friendship, rejuvenation, and laughter as I kept hearing the phrase “lean in” while running my errands. And I started to think – that really is the key, isn’t it, to this life? You have to lean into it – to friendship, to love, to taking chances sometimes (like when I got on that plane and flew to Guatemala, which is what started me on this blogging and writing journey and reignited a part of me – through connection and purpose – that had been dormant). You have to lean in to LIFE – to ALL OF IT. Even the hard stuff.
It’s natural to want to protect oneself from difficult feelings, to have the curated instagram version of an emotional life where everything is beautiful and awesome and happy all the time. It can feel better to be numb or to press down hard feelings in the hopes that they will stay quiet or go away. It’s counter-intuitive to face into – to lean into – pain and grief, but that’s actually the recipe for healing. It’s also the recipe for genuine, authentic living.
It took me a long time to learn that, unfortunately, the feelings don’t go away just because you avoid them. In fact, ignored feelings often strengthen and distort, like a crack in the foundation that settles in more deeply as time passes, eventually shifting the structure enough that the walls start to lean. In my early days of grieving my mom’s health and my health while trying to juggle kids and work, I would use the analogy that the wheels were coming off. Maybe a more apt analogy was that I had built a house out of a deck of cards and was spending all my time running around trying to keep the wolf from blowing my extremely precarious structure over versus strengthening it from within.
I can’t help but continue to reflect on the wonderful, cleansing laugh of my recent lean in moment. The whole weekend was a beautiful example of leaning in – of showing up, making memories, standing by your people in good times and bad – and also just because. That’s really the essence of life. We are here so fleetingly in the grand scheme of things. When a group of friends comes together in a circle they lean in while while leaning on each other. It’s a hug that is simultaneously the support we need to hold each other up. So lean in – to it all! That’s what sustains you!
Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First 