When things are tough, our ego runs. Or, our ego fights. Or, our ego suppresses.

These are the three root reactions of neurosis, as Buddhism teaches: craving or clinging, ignorance, and aggression. We aim to seduce, or avoid, or push away.

But what really works is doing something quite the opposite. Hint: it requires bravery, and vulnerability both. It takes being kind to ourselves.

~

When a part of your life appears to be falling apart, the best remedies are a mentor, a best friend, and several long walks around green things. These things can pull you back into this moment, which, even if unpleasant at present, holds the key to finding a good path forward.

There are other salves, listed here.

But short of systemic or societal-level solutions (national healthcare, anyone)?

…we’re left with personal, and community solutions, or salves.

One of them is openness.

So here’s some, from me, to you.

Some serious news, if you love Elephant.

Elephant is struggling. We have been for some time. We are now at a place where we may lose a good part of our caring, skilled staff.

Our history, in brief: we just turned 20 years old, a remarkable achievement for indie media in any era, let alone one with so much climactic tech upheaval.

Elephant was born a local or regional, independent and grassroots (i.e., not funded by The Man, or investors who wanted a quick return) print magazine. After 6 years, I then gave up our growth in jumping into the nascent (new) online world. We steadily built for the next years, from there, eventually reaching 30 million reads a month at our peak.

But then Facebook, which had until then served happily as a place for folks to get the news, or read quality articles, changed its algorithm to favor friends and family (many of whom, it turned out, loved to share fake news and hate).

Because of these algorithm changes at Facebook, our readership has dropped slowly and steadily for 7 years. It’s not just us: 90% of our competition has gone out of biz or been sold. We’ve stayed healthy & independent thanks to our skilled caring staff and active, caring readership and writers. That’s not just nice-talk: we would not be here but for your reading, writing, sharing, commenting.

We still have a strong subscriber base—thank you.

But if you love Elephant, there’s never been a better day to resubscribe, or subscribe. You get unlimited access, reads, free yoga, and the knowledge that you’re supporting what little is left of indie media. Please share this link if you want Elephant to still be here in a year, or two, or three.

http://elephantjournal.com/subscribe today. Please share. Comment. Help this get seen. Thank you so much.

But aside from solutions, above, I am left with a more human level of anxiety, fear, uncertainty, as well as more “positive” feelings of reaching out, connection, community, taking one step at a time, looking toward new opportunities, and grounding myself in basic goodness with meditation, breath, exercise, real simple food, biking about, and talks with mentors, friends, peers, and colleagues, even when they’re hard.

If you leave a comment, I will reply. If you subscribe, or resubscribe, please comment so I can thank you. You can also buy a gift subscription here.

Our connection will also be helpful to our future survival, and thrival.