Seeking Peace as Markets Try to Take It Away

Markets continue to try to take away our peace of mind and soul. We need to find ways to take it back. So how do we seek peace in the face of all that's going on?

Even more important: How do we seek peace in the face of all that's coming? Yes, coming. In case you missed it, we've begun Phase 2 of the Stock Market's Bear Market. Not sure how you could miss it in the face of the 1000+ point drop in the Dow this past week. But, hey, maybe you're busy with other things that take up your time and attention. 

Frankly, if you don't need to pay attention to the horror show that has become our financial markets and our economy, good for you. Yes, the economy too. Sure, the argument's being made that the U.S. economy's doing pretty good, considering Europe and much of the rest of the world. Maybe...at least for now. But whatever your gauge or measure for the economy, you can't avoid the stark reality of inflation. 

And it was indeed inflation that supposedly shocked stocks into their one-day crash (which was followed by even more bad action). Maybe. Or maybe, as one of our Brain Trust guys warned days before, the damn was about to break. The technical action spoke to him clearly. And that was days before the inflation report. If anything, that report was the trigger or excuse that pulled the rug out. 

Markets work that way. They go where they're going to go, mostly despite the so-called "news" that the financial media cites as the reason for the rise or fall of prices. There are exceptions, of course. But they're rare. Mostly the news is noise. Best to ignore it. Find sources that analyze what's going on in more substantive way.

Which brings us back to the markets stealing our peace of mind. If you have such sources, or learn to do some decent analysis yourself, you can bolster your peace of mind to some meaningful degree. Not that the price collapse doesn't steal away some of your wealth. But if you follow your sources and/or your analysis, you may have faced the drop with some hedges in your portfolio, as we did. It helped. (As of now, we have two such hedges working for us, one put on weeks ago, the second just a week or so ago - fortuitously before the big drop.)

Those hedges helped last week. More important, though, it's good to have them in there as this 2nd Phase unfolds. And unfold it will. Naturally, though, we're considering how long we keep them on. At some point the market turns around, even if only for another round of Bear Market correction Do we keep them on through that correction or try to "play" the correction to clip a few bucks of profit? Sounds good until you're in the midst of the correction, wondering if you should sell now or wait for the stock market to edge up a bit more. If we can craft a good sell strategy, we'll consider it. If we can't, we'll skip the whole thing and just stand aside.

So there's some peace of mind in all of this, I think. But what about peace of soul? That's a deeper sort of thing.

Of course, you have to believe that we humans have a soul for this to matter. So if you don't believe we each have a soul - ideally believe that each soul is unique, created by God for this to really matter - then skip the rest. But for those who do believe, and have at least some basic understand of the soul, that it's a spiritual, not material, that it's destined to live beyond the grave in either some happy or less happy state (to put it mildly), here's something you may not have considered. We present it because it can help bring some peace to our soul - and I say this from personal experience. It's a distinction between what spiritual writers (Catholic in this case) call the "Upper" and "Lower" Parts of the Soul.

If you can wrap your mind around this distinction, you may find it most helpful, especially as the financial markets continue their descent and the economy continues to unravel. This particular bit is from a Abbot Chapman, a fellow with whose writings I have some basic familiarity. I've found the passages I've been exposed to quite helpful and hope you can garner some sense of how to build or strengthen your peace of soul. Here goes:

“In times of desolation we must try to be equally detached from our own feelings. We must always have in our minds the intention of accepting the state we are in: ‘O God, I am distracted, without devotion, full of temptation, extroverted, worldly – but I don’t like it – I am ready, therefore, to remain so, as long as it is Thy will.’ We must always go on praying not to sin, not to give way to willful imperfections, and if we do give way we can thank God for the humiliation that results. But all the time we must try and not take ourselves too seriously – laugh at ourselves for the state we are in, and laugh at ourselves for minding it. Because the great principle is that all these commotions, all these consolations, are effects in the lower part of the soul, and do not in themselves matter in the least; they purify and strengthen the lower part of the soul, if they are patiently and lovingly accepted.

 “What does matter is the upper part of the soul; but that is something which we can’t feel, but only know. But we have to make that the highest part of our soul (or the deepest, if you prefer this metaphor – St. Francis de Sales says ‘highest point,’ Blosius says ‘the depth’ – it is the same thing) is united to God, and nothing else matters at all in this world. The right intention is the only way I can describe it. The essential interior act of religion is the giving ourselves to God, turning to Him and remaining turned, uniting ourselves to His will and remaining united. When this essential act is going on in the high point of the soul, all the rest of the soul can be in a disturbance, unrest, rebellion, misery – it does not matter – on the contrary, the ‘point of the soul’ accepts it, embraces it, wills it.”

Interesting, eh?

I learned about this upper and lower thing from Abbot Chapman, but, as you can see, he's not the only spiritual director to teach this idea. Since learning of this, my daily reading has taken me back to it many times. I "re-learn" it each time. I then take the time to think about it to see if I can somehow "embed" it into my brain, my heart, my soul. Over time, if you give it time and effort, you may find you can, in the moment of some sort of distress, "locate" yourself in the higher (or lower) part of your soul and preserve your peace despite the sturm und drang that's ravaging you.

The point is, it's well worth taking the time (and it will take time I think) to understand this idea and make it something real in your spiritual life.

With God's grace, you'll succeed.

And if you do, you'll have at least the beginnings of peace in your soul, even as we enter Phase 2 of this Bear Market, and watch inflation suck up the hard-earned savings we though would provide some financial security as we face this uncertain future.