Author: Kirsten Lavine

Transit unreliability seems to be a regular source of stress-inducing aggravation in our society and yet, a situation that’s hard to avoid. The latest one for me was last week, when I ventured out to catch an early morning train to Bath to volunteer at a vegan outreach event, but upon arrival at the station, discovered that the train was delayed, with the expected arrival time getting later and later, until eventually, the train sheepishly crept into the station a full 40 minutes late.

While I was certainly perturbed that I had to rush about when I got to Bath, previously, such an incident would have literally had the power to derail me with anxiety and upset, but thankfully, I now have the mettle to remain calm and to channel my energy instead towards finding a solution.

A few days later, I had another transit issue as a solo passenger on a bus – which was also running late, and the driver, clearly immersed in personal problems, was unequivocally rude, bordering on abusive to me. While I vowed on the spot to report him to the bus company – which I subsequently did, at the time, I didn’t see the point in being aggressive back and just held it together, breathing steadily until I could get off in the next town.

I’m certainly not suggesting that we shrug off such incidents as inconsequential. Unacceptable situations are unacceptable and need to be handled appropriately. But I’ve only been able to refrain from overreacting by working hard on developing an inner sense of calm and equanimity. It’s important to acknowledge and process feelings of anger, anxiety and upset, but in doing so, to be cultivating an inner calm, strength and resilience that can help us to face stressful situations and to keep them in perspective.

This is why I believe a regular meditative practice is so crucial – whatever that means to any individual, be it writing or walking in nature or even breathing mindfully. Any such practice can help you maintain a sense of inner equanimity, which will, in turn, serve you in dealing with stressful situations. Moreover, if we’re facing the world in a state of anxiety, we will have much less of an ability to enjoy or appreciate any of the positive things that we encounter along the way.

But once you transform your inner environment to a more peaceful state,  not only will stressful incidents not rattle you as much, but you’ll also  be better able to see and appreciate your outer environment – the autumn colours, the the birdsong, the stars, the joyful interactions with other people. Radiating an internal light will also help clear the way towards attracting more positive scenarios or solutions.

It’s a strange sort of paradox  that to have the sort of peace we all desire, we need to already have it in the first place. In order to face life’s challenges with grace, while also being able to truly feel the radiant sunlight through a forest or the cascading sunset over the sea, we need to feel that solidity of strength and peace within ourselves. 🙏

Recently, one afternoon, while I was cycling back home to Chipping Sodbury, I saw a young man with a bicycle sitting on the pavement against a wall. It looked like he had his jeans down so I immediately moved away, thinking, this has nothing to do with me and I had best avoid the situation. But then I suddenly wondered if he was okay and I went over to speak to him. It turned out that his jeans were torn through from him having fallen off his bicycle and gashing his leg quite badly.  Fortunately, his mother was on her way to pick him up. When she arrived moments later, she and I got her son up on his feet and supported him walking to the car, as he was clearly in a lot of pain.

His mother was very grateful to me for helping, while privately, I reflected on how prepared I was to just walk on by. It was the sight of the bicycle and recognition that this could so easily have happened to me that made me reconsider and I’m glad that I did.

The way that we ‘other’ people so readily and distance ourselves from them has been hitting me a lot lately. And yet, I’ve been discovering in most situations where I feel I have nothing in common with certain people, I find if I continue to search, I can usually find some shared experience or interest.

We are often so quick to judge others on their appearances or for having different beliefs or life journeys, dismissing such people as having nothing to do with us. As a society, we should always strive to acknowledge, accept, and respect differences. And of course, we don’t have to like or get along with everyone indiscriminately, but there is a real danger of ‘othering’ people to the point where they no longer seem human to us. Such beliefs can lead to the worst behaviour in us – discrimination, ostracization and reprehensible acts of violence.

Instead, while acknowledging and respecting diversity, it is always a good practice with fellow human beings to look for similarities. Underneath outward appearances or life choices, we all struggle with issues, frailties, needs and desires. If we can truly acknowledge and understand this, we can begin to have compassion and patience for one another and the desire to help where we can.

Ultimately one day, it can and will be ourselves in need of such help too.

Every time I go to Bath, a truly beautiful city, I feel energized and uplifted. Recently, however, one morning, while I was cycling along a bridge, I passed a man who began shouting obscenities at me for no reason. He continued bellowing his cutting remarks at me after I’d passed by. It was very upsetting, to say the least. I had a day planned full of many lovely things, which did not include having unprovoked insults hurled at me.

After sitting a few minutes decompressing by the river, I steadfastly decided that I wasn’t going to let some random encounter spoil my day – or my mood. I ended up having a wonderful day, which included a tree identification walk by the river, apple scrumping, shopping, cycling by the canal and encountering very nice people everywhere else I went.

A similar incident occurred a few days later, most unusually, in my sleepy little town of Chipping Sodbury. Cycling once again along a shared path, a woman with two dogs started shouting at me. It was annoying, for sure, but I was not going to let her ruin my enjoyment of a gloriously sunny evening.

While we can actively choose to engage in higher energy activities, we can’t control who we may encounter along the way or how they might interact with us. All we can do is to control our own reactions to people, including those spouting negativity. And while such encounters are upsetting and my initial reaction would be to lash out back at the instigator, I usually find that this actually escalates the situation and makes it worse.

I’m not suggesting we just take abuse wholescale, and if I had thought in these scenarios that there was anything to be gained by interacting with either person, I would have said something, but I felt it was better just to leave them to their own inner dilemmas and walk away, shutting out the negative energy and not internalizing it or letting it ruin my day.

The way I’ve learned to do this is to take the intense emotion out of it and realize that whatever is going on with that person probably has very little to do with me and I just happened to be an available target upon which to vent.

In some ways, I feel sorry and have compassion for such people, that whatever is going on with them is causing them to interact with people in such a hostile way. It must be awful to have that in your head 24/7. I can only feel grateful that I’m not tormented that way and have the internal equanimity and rationality to get on with my life with intelligence and positivity, though it is sometimes put sorely to the test.

The best way to combat such negativity is to seek out joyful activities – anything that raises your energy and literally fills you with joy, thus dissolving the negativity and transforming it into a source which strengthens the relationship with your inner and outer worlds.

I recently went on a camping trip in the New Forest in England – a truly magical place, with meandering ponies and donkeys, and this time, happily, plenty of sunshine. By night, however, it was still freezing – though the height of summer, this is still England, of course. My best friend and I were in a tiny tent – not an ideal scenario for fighting.

We do generally get along, but problems frequently arise when we have miscommunications, which we do often enough. On this occasion, one night, my backpack – with everything in it – was left on the main street of a town while I used a pub’s facilities. I had put my bag down outside and left it with my friend – who didn’t realize I hadn’t taken it with me, while he went back to our nearby car. When I returned to the car and discovered he didn’t have it, I rushed back to the pub and thankfully, the bag was there – this is rural England, after all.

I was relieved to get the bag back and ready to move on past the misunderstanding, but unfortunately, it took me the rest of the night to try and diffuse the situation, as my friend was clearly very upset about whose fault the missing bag was. Not an ideal scenario, being so tired and in forced proximity to one another. Morning broke, and with it, any remaining tension, and we moved on.

This situation wasn’t as serious as the previous month, when, on a road trip in Ontario, one evening, while my friend was driving our rental car down a gravel path through a nature reserve, we hit a concealed branch and damaged the front end of the car. It was very upsetting, to be sure, but we managed to temper our emotions and instead focused all of our energy into getting us back safely to where we were staying. Any other actions – recriminations, regrets – would have been pointless, and in this situation, actually life threatening.

It can be hard in the heat of the moment, not to react – or even overreact, letting your emotions take sway. But getting hysterical, bandying accusations or becoming defensive will only lead to becoming further stuck in the situation and make you feel worse, draining you of the energy you need to get out of it. By keeping calm and concentrating instead on a solution, you are better placed to think your way clearly out of it sooner, while dealing with any lingering emotional issues at a later stage.

I think if we need to be in control of every situation, we will always be disappointed by something or more likely, someone. None of us are perfect and we all make mistakes. But solutions to difficult scenarios can always be found if you work together with a desired aim.

Gratitude is also a good place to work from. Circumstances could always be worse, and I was extremely grateful to get my bag back, or more pointedly, to have been uninjured in the car and to arrive back safely. I was also grateful that, even with heightened tensions, to have had a friend there to offer support.

When we put aside our recriminations and instead, detach from our emotions and express gratitude in being able to arrive at achievable outcomes, we can emerge stronger from an experience and better equipped to deal with future endeavors.

Last month, I spent a wonderful week in Newfoundland. I told the immensely helpful folks at the tourist info in St John’s that I’d mention the city and how friendly the locals were. People in Newfoundland are incredibly lovely and kind, their hospitable reputation even immortalized in the theatrical production, Come from Away.

This generosity of spirit definitely helped me navigate my experiences there, which were not without challenges, the main one being the return of a health problem from three years ago, which left me very dizzy and breathless, quite literally waging an uphill battle through the steep streets of the colourful city.

Tackling this issue, along with the usual particulars of orienting to a new place, brought into sharp focus the paradoxical way that travel simultaneously opens you up to new worlds, while forcing you to hone in on the essentials. All kinds of niggling problems and obsessions fade into the background when you’re faced with the need to find food and shelter, or, as in my case, to address a health problem in a strange place. There is also something very liberating about packing all that you need into one bag, with (nearly) everything serving a functional purpose and feeling grateful for having all the basics to hand.

Once armed with all of the essentials, there is nothing comparable to having a new world literally open up before your eyes, putting your own situation into perspective and showing how much more there really is on offer, making travel one of the best and most uplifting experiences you can ever have in your lifetime.

The opportunities for learning and sharing and the joy of discovery are endless. I feel exhilarated by all the challenges I set for myself, pushing myself past my comfort zone and trying out pursuits beyond what I would ever have imagined me capable of doing. And of course, seeing puffins soaring across the ocean was pretty incredible too. 🐧

The best thing about travel is that you can literally do it anywhere – even in your own home town. It’s not about spending a fortune or going to an exotic location. It’s about being open to what’s around you, and being adventurous enough to try out new places and experiences. When you travel – in any capacity – you naturally make yourself vulnerable, which allows you to connect with others, to grow and to gather new ways of understanding.

As a result, you can also develop confidence and skills that you can take with you throughout your life. I would encourage everyone to take a break from the daily routine and live a little – stay out late – do interesting things, take a chance. Your body will recover and your spirit will soar.

The wonder of travel is that it is always available to us if we open our baggage within and fill it instead with the joys of discovery. Travel – of any kind – is one of the best ways to feed your soul and to feel appreciative, expansive, energized and alive.

There has been a recent movement nationally for revamping local historic sites, to ‘decolonize their narratives’, implying that what is depicted in these places is inherently shameful. Instead, the initiative is to broaden the use of these spaces to tell the stories of people about which less is known. I’m not against sharing stories of marginalized individuals and communities, but for me, if they’re not related to the site, then such places are not the best way to do so, as presenting them out of context is misrepresentative and bestows a false association which is confusing for the visitors.

In the current museum world, my views are well in the minority, and as a guide in an historical family home, I have to suppress my need for period consistency and deliver this juxtaposed content. I’m also not peculiarly au fait with the way in which these efforts zero in on specific groups, as ironically, by featuring certain ones in the name of inclusivity, we are actually excluding so many others not currently in the public eye. I think it’s also erroneous when we gloss over the context of how things were understood at the time in favour of our modern sensibilities of how we think things ought to have been.

Another parallel example is the recent push in many places to rename streets and institutions named for public figures now considered villainous. For me, this is problematic on a few fronts. First of all, I think it would be difficult to find any historical figure that is not flawed in some way and many of them, along with some clearly reprehensible actions, also accomplished a great deal of good. By erasing their existence altogether, we can never study their actions and properly evaluate their legacy. We must also be prepared to examine our current paragons of society in a similar fashion.

Furthermore, by investing so much time and money into wiping out the public face of such figures, we are wasting valuable resources that could be better used to solve problems that we have right now, all around us – homelessness, lack of affordability, mental health issues – to name but an obvious few, and where money and energy could be so much better spent. What does that say about us, that we would rather focus on sanitizing our distant past rather than face up to the immediacy of problems that surround us today? 

History is a plurality and simplifying it with reductionist, loaded terms or worse, rebranding it to assuage any residual guilt we might feel over transgressions that transpired, really does more harm than good, by not fully exploring all of the complexities of various time periods, particularly as events would have been understood in the day.

If we reduce, edit and label our historical past with convenient simplifications, we will never truly understand or learn where we have come from, and the challenges overcome in order to progress. It also blinds us to our own continuing and urgent need to progress towards future improvements for all in our human and non-human world.

One afternoon, while I was working at an historic house museum, a group of six friends came in for a guided tour, which is the only way of seeing the house. The maximum tour size is fifteen, with a preference for groups of six or more to pre-book. This particular tour was only half full and could accommodate these six, which I was happy to do, but a senior staff member stepped in and insisted they would have to split up into two groups, with half going on a tour an hour later. After much kerfuffle, they were eventually all allowed to join the departing tour.

I later posited to the site manager that surely the primary goal of the museum was to provide our visitors with a positive experience, which we could most successfully achieve by accommodating them to the best of our ability, within reason. She agreed and promised to look into the matter.

That evening, by coincidence, I experienced a similar ‘barring of entry’ at a free community clothes swap, having neglected to pre-register for a specific entry time slot. I’ve been going to these swaps regularly, and timed entry was only ever occasionally requested but had seemingly now become a hard rule. I was asked to wait, but even after half an hour of watching the pre-registered flutter in, the gatekeeper still refused to let me enter, though there was clearly plenty of space. She was completely unsympathetic and I left, disappointed, with my big bag of clothes in tow.

It seems that amidst our claims to be a freer and more inclusive society, we’re becoming more and more bound by rules. Rules are a set of logical guidelines to follow, reflecting a space or institution’s values, principles and practical considerations. Such rules are meant to provide a safe and equitable access, though many rules often seem to exist more for litigious or even arbitrary reasons.

While rules clearly have a legitimate function, they should not be inflexible, and there should be scope, within reason, to adapt them to meet individual, real-life circumstances. The danger is that if we become so wedded to the rules, our kneejerk reaction is to defer to them dispassionately, rather than to consider if there is a way to exercise compassion and help find a more favourable solution.

Last weekend, for instance, I asked a ‘water refilling station’ booth at a festival if they would watch my bike for a minute (there being nowhere to park it) while I ran to the washroom and they said no, they were not authorized to do so. Fortunately, the adjacent booth said, ‘sure, no problem.’ What a difference it makes when we bend official rules in favour of helping someone in need and to provide a better outcome.

Even with our best efforts to ‘follow the rules’, we are all imperfect and make mistakes, and I think, particularly as service providers, we should all endeavor to try and help members of the public with their individual needs as best as possible. A desire to help and to provide a positive solution should truly be the number one rule governing our actions.

As I write this, I am immersed in the clamor and noise of construction across the street, preparing to build yet another apartment block no one seems to want, but which invariably keep popping up all across the city. ‘Condo cancer’, as I’ve long called it, spreading without warning everywhere you look. It feels as though soon this city will have little else other than these towering structures blocking out the sky.

Crossing the street the other way brings me to a busy shopping plaza, with pedestrians darting between the cars which narrowly avoid hitting one another in the cramped parking lot. At the end of the plaza, I catch an often-packed bus to connect with an equally packed subway train.

Everywhere I turn there seems to be increased activity, people, traffic, construction and noise, all of which are becoming harder for me to bear, especially as I get older. I do seek out the panacea of nature regularly, but even then, I’m often met with noise from traffic, building or the ubiquitous leaf blowers. Large sections of two parks I go to have been under construction for months and remain inaccessible.

It feels like everywhere is getting filled up, taking away the space. We all need space to breathe – as much as we need air, because without it, we cannot achieve a sense of perspective on our place in the world and what truly matters.

One of the things I love about landscape painting is when an artist depicts figures in the foreground, dwarfed by towering mountains or the endless swell of the sea. Recognizing that we are tiny creatures in this universe, we can begin to feel our vulnerabilities and the precariousness of our existence.

In cities, we skew this perspective by filling up all the space, thereby inflating our own sense of prominence and place. And by filling up our outer space, we’re also cluttering up our inner space, so we literally have no room to grow or to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going next. Our phone addictions compound this, beaming out imaging and messages that permeate our souls. We need to put down our phones and look out in the distance, but we need to be able to see into the distance in the first place.

Space, like time, is another disappearing commodity for many people, as it is, most pressingly, for wildlife. Humans need homes but animals do too, and this planet belongs to them as much as it does to us. I wish with all my heart that we would stop building and start re-wilding, so we can truly experience the wonder of living on this earth and to be able to find some peace.

I am sitting in a silence that has enveloped the space since my mother’s recent death.

Sometimes it is too silent, our home having gone from a hive of activity, of caregivers bustling about, to my now being completely alone, immersed in an unending loop of reflection over her final days and whether things could have gone any differently.

 I am blessed that my mother’s passing was peaceful and anchored in support and loving care. I was with her until the very end, listening to the laboured rasping, as her body shut down, the final quiet intakes of breath, the movement into a complete stillness and immobility. Witnessing the finality of death, the incontrovertible expression of the fragility of life.

Now I am engulfed in the silence of her absence, the imposed solitude and overwhelming introspection about her life and our time spent together. What I need most is for the people in my world to hold this silence with me, to dwell in the sacred space as I come to terms with the ending of her life and the resulting transformation of my own. I’ve also been immeasurably tired, depleted and disoriented, while immersed in the endless tasks of disassembling a person’s existence.

Immediately following my mom’s death, I received many messages of condolence and support, charitable donations and gifts, all of which I’ve genuinely appreciated. But what I’ve needed even more over the past few weeks is the gift of people’s time, of being with me as I navigate this new and uncertain reality.

It’s a very difficult road to traverse alone and no one wants to feel that they’ve been abandoned or forgotten at such a sad time of their lives. Companionship, however, is not an easy thing to ask for, and as grieving is an ongoing process, I will always be grateful for those who are able to listen to my uncertainties with empathy and compassion.

It’s been a further reminder to me that we should all endeavor to check in with each other more, especially at hard times, but at other times too. Life is difficult enough without feeling isolated and alone. We can really make a difference by reaching out and giving of our time and our humanity, with acts that will always be appreciated and remembered.

Experiencing the death of someone you’ve loved is a journey that takes time, patience and healing. Paradoxically though, the loss of my remaining parent signifies to me how limited my own time is here on earth. I have been filled with immense gratitude for all the gifts my mother has given me, while also feeling now, more than ever, the precious and precarious gift of life itself.

While Valentine’s Day has come and gone, I wanted to discuss the pursuit, not so much of someone else’s heart, but the importance of following your own.

Like many people, I regularly struggle feeling conflicted between my desires and my obligations, of fulfilling my own needs versus meeting my responsibilities to others. The sensible ‘must dos’ often win out over the deeper yearnings of fulfillment and connection.

The other day, for example, I needed to run some errands for my elderly mother, while I desperately wanted to go to the riverside park in the opposite direction. I decided that, despite the hassle of all the extra transit time, each were equally important and so I did both. It was tiring and  I didn’t see anything particularly special in the snow-encased park, but the saliant point is that I overrode my mind telling me how impractical this was and made time to honour my inner needs as being important as anything else going on in my life.

Following your heart can feel scary, as it is often times involves going against logic and the goal-oriented behaviour we are so regularly conditioned to follow. But it’s always worth trying, listening to that small voice inside of you, even if the outcomes are not what you expected or even wanted, because the more you get used to trusting your intuition and exercising the muscle of listening to your heart,  the better it will lead you to places in life that are resonating and uplifting.

Conversely, the times I’ve not acted on my intuition or followed the longings of my heart, the regret has always eaten me up. Over time, if we suppress our deepest desires and needs long enough, we may become chronically depressed and even physically ill.

The greatest gift we have is the ability to live our lives with health, dignity and the freedom to make good choices. And honouring and fulfilling who you truly are as a unique individual is the greatest gift you can give yourself – not just for Valentine’s Day but every day – and the clearest pathway to living a life imbued with integrity and inner peace.