Three Cheers for Hand Washing

As the virus of fear is spreading across our planet, there are moments of humor. Have you seen the extremely long lines at Costco, which snake down the block and around the corner? They say people are buying huge supplies of water, toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Now, I can understand hand sanitizer but water? Or toilet paper? It is not my experience that a virus shuts down our water system or causes us to use more toilet paper. That is how contagious the virus of fear is. It affects us not only individually but collectively and off to the store we go because we have heard other people are buying water and toilet paper.

Now, you have probably discovered there is no hand sanitizer available anywhere, even online. But the CDC says that washing your hands for 20 seconds is more effective than hand sanitizers, because washing your hands does a better job at removing all the germs especially when our hands are dirty or greasy.

And yet many people go into a panic when they cannot find hand sanitizers even though washing our hands is more effective. This is fascinating to me.  Could it be that we are resistant to slowing down enough to wash our hands for just 20 seconds?

To our busy minds, 20 seconds is a long time. There are places to go and things to do! Our minds are often so busy that it can feel impossible to slow down enough to simply wash our hands. We have become so used to doing life that we have lost the healing of simply being.

And yet everything we long for and everything we truly are is discovered in the here and now. There is nothing in our mind that is more real and more satisfying than a deep, intimate connection with life as it is right now.

So, washing our hands can be one of the most grace filled parts of this time when fear is so present. The root word for ecstasy is the Greek word ekstasis, which means out of time. It makes sense to me that life is inviting us to pause, to bring our attention out of our busy minds that whirl and spin, careening from the past and out into the future and back again, often times waiting and longing for the ‘good stuff’ to finally arrive.

Life is inviting you to simply be here – hearing the music of the water, smelling the soap, feeling the joy of caressing your hands and even experiencing deep gratitude for all that your hands do for you. In those moments you are bringing your attention out of your time-based mind and grounding it right here in life and this is where ecstasy lives.

Yes, this can be a scary time. Our minds live in the illusion that they can control life because they fear the unknown. And there is so much that is unknown about the coronavirus and how it will unfold. And since there is no vaccine available, our minds can go a bit crazy.  But maybe, just maybe, life is inviting us to let go just a bit on our grip of control and instead connect with the only moment that matters – now.

If it calls to you to use the washing of your hands as a sacred reminder that the safest place you will ever know is this moment, play with it. Rather than making it a ‘have to,’ see it as an invitation to be present. Feel the joy of having nothing more important to do in your life than be present as you wash your hands.

And don’t be dismayed about how challenging this can be. Be fascinated about the times where you felt you didn’t have the time to spend 20 seconds in simply being. Be fascinated about the days where you totally forget to wash your hands.

And know that no matter how much fear this time brings up inside of you, life knows what it is doing. Or, as Byron Katie once said,

“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don’t have to like it… it’s just easier if you do.”

I deeply appreciate this quote, but I don’t agree when she says it’s easier if you like it. We don’t have to like the difficult and challenging parts of life. In fact, at times, I find that almost impossible to do. So I like to say, “You don’t have to trust it but it’s easier if you do.”