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We aren’t just fighting internal demons. Our culture sees success as sleepless nights and work prioritized above all else. Hustle is celebrated above rest, above sleep, above laughter, above life.

Economic stresses keep us living in a constant fight or flight mode. Only 56% of Americans take even one week of vacation a year. With 6 out of 10 Americans having less than $500 in savings, we need the work. [Johann Hari, Lost Connections]

We are lost in screens (In 2017, the average American spent 5.4 hours/day on their phone-E. Brown April 2019) with technological algorithms purposely manipulated for surveillance capitalism. And we don’t even know it. But even if we did, we don’t how to escape it. It takes immense effort to overcome these things. Blame is placed on OUR shoulders and we are guilted with cruel optimism.

Humans are physically and mentally exhausted amidst an epidemic of disconnection.

Adding all information sources being blasted at the average person would have amounted to 40 newspapers worth of information each day in 1986. In 2007 (the most recent data!), it would have been 174 newspapers per day. [Science 332] Our minds don’t rest.

Only 15% of people wake feeling refreshed; 40% of Americans are chronically sleep-deprived; 23% of Britains get less than 5 hours of sleep/night [Harvard Medical School]

We face toxicity everywhere: in our homes and our environments; what we put on our skin, what we put in our bodies, what we put in our minds. With no time to cook or exercise, we eat on the run with what’s fastest: processed, synthetic, chemical-ladened foods 

We are in a war for our mental health.

I came to know this in the midst of a battle to save my life while in my own mental health crisis.  As it often does, on the outside it looked like I had it all.  I was in society’s square box of what success was deemed.  Money, prestige, power.  It came with all the bells and whistles of imposter syndrome managed with 80 hour work weeks, unrepentant using of people, never taken vacations, broken marriages, poor health, and so on. I was surrounded by toxic relationships.  Hell, I was toxic. That’s what happens when you can’t see the forest for the trees and you don’t know the forces pitting you against yourself. 

My life as it was then was unsustainable.  I crashed.  Dark nights of the soul look like weeks spent in the fetal position unable to crawl out of bed except for the barest of necessities; more tears than you knew a body can hold.  My goal driven life was boiled down to a goal of being able to just get out of bed and open the drapes.  Pain is a powerful catalyst – if you can survive it.  Too many people aren’t.

I’m a fighter, a deep diver, a seeker.  I set out to figure out how I was one of the fortunate ones who was able to survive the dark days.  I researched for years while traveling the world.  I redesigned my life.  The teachings I absorbed led me to the brain and understanding it’s complex but magnificent wiring.  They led me to understanding the underlying factors of systemic issues. And they led me to ancient practices, to long lost ways of living.  I found an unassuming tool.   It’s not a cure all. 

There’s no simple one box fits all in response to what is a complex nuanced world riddled with mine fields. But it’s a powerful beacon with such profound insight and simplicity that it can be life changing.  I knew I had to share this. 

Who knew that opening the drapes would show me a path out of a different kind of darkness.