2020 is three quarters finished. It seems like we have been in this year for a decade. In other years, September would arrive and I would get the feelings of “this year is almost over already!”. This year I am staring at the September calendar and thinking “still three more months until this year can be officially OVER.” I am not one to wish time away (it is the one resource we can never get more of and we don’t even know how much of it we actually have). But, like you, I am tired. This intensity of upheaval in this year was more than unexpected and I am changed. We are all changed.
What has changed for you? Your job? Your location where you work? Your ability to travel? Your health? Your plans? Those are just a few of the surface things that have changed. They are the outside view of what has been shaken, broken, redistributed and realigned underneath.
Underneath the pandemic, the racial injustice, the politics, the economy crashing, the passionate and widely opposing views of all of those things is where we are wounded, bleeding, and many are healing. We have seen ourselves – our deepest selves – and now must decide who we will be going forward.
We have been faced with stark realizations that we are not as free as we want to be. We are not as safe as we hoped we were. We do not know the hearts of many that we once saw as allies. We have lost loved ones to illness, we have lost others to the shock of seeing our morality based differences. We have had to look hard at ourselves and what we are willing to tolerate, accept and actually be. We are not done. None of this is done.
The unknowing of what is coming next looms over everyone. We have had our eyes opened to the fact that none of us ever knew what was coming before; we just lived our lives as if we were safe and in control of our own destiny. We took so much for granted; especially our most valuable pieces of life; our time and our connections to each other. We found ourselves in a world of questions and conflicting answers and what made it worse was that we found ourselves widely alone in a social distancing nightmare. For those of us who naturally try to gather and connect during crisis, this was particularly hard. No gathering in person. No hugging. No being physically close.
For many of us, our homes which used to be our sanctuaries became our prisons. We were told to stay in them, separated and alone – relationships on the computer screen or cell phones. Supplies disappeared, and we felt the fear of lack that we had not known before. Menial things took on great importance: basic things like toilet paper and hand sanitizer. We covered our faces, or refused to. We stopped seeing the faces of others in person or when we ventured out in public. Public now came with a new sense of “unsafe.” Connections in our humanity got harder to recognize. Are they smiling at me or wincing? Can you tell from 6 feet away? Lines between us began to be drawn on which sources of information we would now believe and follow. Anything that weakens our ability to connect from a place of humanity puts us in danger.
Our sense of belonging and security was all questioned. Everything was questioned. Everything is still questioned. That is not necessarily a bad thing as many of the questions were long overdue. Still, more lines between us are drawn as some of our answers are so vastly polarized from the answers of others. Eyes have been opened whether they wanted to be or not. Many minds have expanded while others have slammed shut. We all think we are right when our beliefs are strong. What I am seeing and hearing now though is this; Our differences don’t seem to be rooted in skin color, gender, political party or neighborhood, they are rooted in our hearts. Open or closed? Either way, this year has done something excruciatingly well: It has changed us all and there is no going back.
Mind your change. Make sure it is the one YOU choose from your own place of love. Fear will separate us and destroy what is good. Love makes room and our humanity grows. What pieces of you have changed? What is changing you most? Fear or love? Where are you choosing to put your power?
In all honesty, it is fear that changed me when the many crisis and struggles of this year started coming. I grappled with fear for months. I searched for my footing, my true core beliefs. I fell numb for a short time to try to adjust to a world, a life, a daily experience that was all unexpected, strange, painful, and whose duration was unknown. I felt fear stealing my power to create. I was reacting to the pain and scared. I will not tell you otherwise. This year has been unbelievably difficult and being a coach, therapist, leader (and chronic over-achiever) has added an extra layer of pressure to try to get myself together faster and stronger than others. I am okay with that. We are stronger than we think we are.
I am still holding tight to my belief that the majority of people are inherently GOOD and that love will ultimately win. Most people are resilient, adaptive, and want a more loving, just and peaceful existence. We are making hard choices and finding new ways of being who we choose to be, not just whom we were told to be. We are letting go of things (and sometimes people) that are not part of the future we want to see. This is a time of awareness and action and doing hard things (even if the hard thing to do is to stop doing what we were doing before).
I believe in love and our collective humanity and while fear woke us up and started this change, I believe it is up to use to now consciously put love in charge again to choose what changes next.
