Change the Channel August 15th, 2026

Just as in the lives of everyone, sometimes several sticky anxiety producig situations arise at once in my world.

So it has been in my life this summer that I had a crisis each week. First I had a serious and frightening heart episode (I won't go ito details as I make things too long). The following week my cat Booty disappeared then turned up dead in my recycle can. The week after that, my dog, and best friend, Uma died of a heart attack. This week, I just heard from my brother in West Virginia that he has been diagnosed with melanoma in his eye.

There are five of us siblings in our family unit of my parents, Mary and Joe, now deceased, and their offspring. I am the oldest at 80 and next to me is my brother, Joe in W.Va., about 77 or 78 (I am never sure which), then my brother Neal in Philadelphia who is in his late 60's, my sister MaryAnn, estranged from us in W.Va. in her med 60's, and the baby, Sue who is 61. Sue ad I are the closest.

My personality from birth is to be anxious and see many angles of potential disaster (like my father) and my position in the family predisposes me to worry. Too often I feel like "my Brother's keeper" literally, although, I have been out of that job for a couple of decades. Slowly over time, I began to say "No" to their requests for money or assistance and they all matured and found ways to resolve things on their own. Not feeling responsible was my task. Still, when my brother Joe, told me yesterday that he was diagnosed with melanoma in his eye, I awoke this morning wondering how he was going to get his groceries if he couldn't drive.

Joe lives on a mpuntain a half hour drive to the closest small town, and an hour tp Walmart; a car is a necessity. Joe inherited living rights to the house when my father died, which instigated the rift betwen four of us up North and the sister in W.Va. who had expected to inherit the house outright. My brother had moved to W.Va. to stay with my mother and father who had declined terribly after my mother's death, so my father wanted to make sure Joe had a place to live but that maryAnn who was committed to living in W.Va. would own the house when Joe died.

My sister Sue gave me the advice I needed this morning: "Joe is Captain of his own ship. He will work it out one step at a time as things evolve, stop worrying about him." She is right, of course. Not worrying is the thing I need to work on - not feeling responsible for everyone and everything - not thinking that the way people behave is in some way attached to me. Sometimes people do things because of who they are and it has nothing to do with me.

There was another situation recently, a problem arose and I had to step back and stop looking at this small and recent problem and expand my focus to take in the whole, larger successful and beautiful situation Expanding the focus - like moving the camera lense to panoramic.

I had made a cartoon type drawing in my daily journal once of a radio dial, a metaphor to mysself about changing the channel. This is a far harder thing to do than one might suppose. Our minds get stuck on one station, maybe an angry complaining talk show, and we have a hard time moving the dial. That is a skill. That skill is acquaired by practicing meditation, in my life anyway.

Pema Chodrin calls those places where our minds get stuck, "sticky shenpas" and they are like parasitic leeches in the lake of the mind, they sink their teeth in and suck away your vitality and creativity. Detaching them is a practice, not allowing them to feel fixed and immutable. Recognizing that they have no real hold upon us and shaking them off.

I think I have been working on that my whole adult life from my first acauaintance with the subject of Buddhism sixty years ago, through college and psychology and to my Quaker practice. I am still a novice, still learning, still practicing and still seeing how I fall short. But owning the concept that we can change the channel is the key to freedom.

Happy Trails to you until we meet again.....

to comment or converse, you can reach me at my e-mail wrightj45@yahoo.com

I write this as a reminder to myself!