You know how when you’ve been watching a certain Netflix series and you stop for a while, and they send you this message: “Are you still watching this?” 

Or you’ve been watching for so long in one sitting that they finally interrupt you and say, “Are you sure you want to keep watching?”

This always seemed like an ordinary marketing ploy to me, but clinical psychologist and mindfulness teacher, Christine Runyan, heard it as a judgment: Are you still watching…? (which I thought was quite funny).

Yes, most of us have struggled with numbing devices/activities/addictions of some sort during this year, unless we’re subhuman (no judgment if you are).

It’s also been documented that depression, suicide rates, suicidal thoughts, panic/anxiety, etc. have increased exponentially during this time. 

And I wonder: how many of us have been feeling like we should somehow be feeling better by now if we’re not--less tired, more productive, able to think more clearly, whether we got sick with Covid or not, and perhaps especially if we’re not among those on the “front lines.” 

Some have actually made the choice not to slow down, which can be a kind of addiction in itself: the insistence that we must go on at the same pace no matter what. 

Runyan thinks that the statistical analysis of depression and suicide is a dangerous thing; she says that if we think in terms of numbers, and 30% are suffering in this way, there are still 70% that are not, so if you’re among the 30%, you still end up wondering, “What’s wrong with me?” 

Runyan talks about fight or flight or freeze, and the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, and how living with so much uncertainty and unpredictability for so long takes its toll on the body as well as the psyche. 

So--whatever you’re feeling, emotionally or physically…”Of course you are,” says Runyan.

It’s funny, but several weeks ago, I shared some physical struggles I’ve been having and I got several responses of sympathy. 

As much as I appreciated the gesture and knew it was coming from the heart, I have been more loath to talk about such personal things since then in my blogs. 

Because my purpose was not/is not to get sympathy. My purpose is to let everyone out there know that I, like everyone else in their own particular way, am struggling.

I was hoping to evoke a more universal feeling of solidarity. I wanted to let everyone know: we’re in this together, and I’m willing to show my vulnerability, and I hope you are as well. 

Because we are all in this together, as humans, and what links us as humans, as Runyan said in the podcast, is love; to love each other, allow ourselves to be loved, and take the risk of sharing our vulnerability as an act of love. 

Runyan presented some mindfulness practices for us as individuals, and it reminded me of the Torah reading of the week, Tsav.

In this parsha, after all the preparations of the Mishkan, the mobile dwelling place for God in the desert, where animal and grain offerings will be made according to ancient sacrificial laws, it is finally time to bring Aaron, Moses’ brother, and his two sons, and anoint them as priests to carry out the sacrificial rites. 

The ritual engages the senses; there is the washing of feet, the placing of hands on the head of an animal, the subsequent slaughter, the handling of animal parts, the dipping of thumbs and fingers into the blood, the smearing of blood on the edges of ears, the splashing of blood all around the altar; fire, ashes, the sizzle of fat and turning it into smoke to send up a pleasing odor, and then the eating of the permitted parts. 

Such an act, which engages the senses, requires real presence: a slowing down and a focus. It’s as if a pause button is pressed; a pause from the daily fight or flight or freeze that our ancestors lived with in their daily struggle to survive.  

People may have lived slower lives back then, but they lived with daily uncertainty and constant threats in ways we do not know. 

It’s hard to compare, but I imagine similarities to what we are living through now; we are so activated, it’s been hard to pause and take a breath.

But to make the choice to do so, to engage our senses in ways that release dopamine---to find ways to calm our system---is the power of humanity.

The thinking-brain is our power, says Runyan, but we have to make the space and make the choice, moment by moment, to engage it, even if we go right back down the rabbit hole. 

Victor Frankel, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, famously wrote, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space; and in that space lies our power to choose, and in our choice, lies our growth and our freedom.”

Whatever we’re feeling---of course we are. It’s all normal. This year has taken a toll on us, and we’re still in it, so we can’t even properly mourn, and we’re showing it as a society with the increase in violence we’ve been seeing lately.

Despite all of this, we have the option to use our human brain power and human love power, press the pause button when we remember, slow down, take a breath, engage the senses, and perhaps find our way to a measure of freedom during this Passover season. 

Until we can “not anymore” instead of “still.”