When Your World Feels Smaller...Again

I was working on a different post to today, about playing safe and succumbing to sabotage….but as I’ve watched the world unfold over the past week, that doesn’t feel as urgent or important as addressing what many are dealing with right now. With COVID cases rising in Western Canada in particular, where I am, and in other parts of the world as the second wave hits full surge, there’s a new sense of urgency, hopelessness and frustration mounting. 

My hometown back in Saskatchewan has been hit with an outbreak at two care homes, a child care centre, and a local business. So far. Staff and residents of these facilities, customers and members of the small community are being hit hard. Childhood friends’ parents, siblings and grandparents are testing positive, being isolated and in some cases, being hospitalized and placed on life-supporting ventilators.

It’s scary, and it’s personal. 

In other parts of the country, infection, hospitalization and death rates are rising (again), and so schools are closing (again), restaurants, gyms and other businesses are closing (again) and other restrictions are being put in place (again) to slow the spread of infection to enable the healthcare system to keep up with demand, so they can, you know, save lives. 

I want to offer some words here that may help if you’re struggling to be with this uncertainty, fear, despair and sense of foreboding.

If the thought of locking down during the cold, dark winter months has you feeling like You. Just. Can’t. Even.

If you can’t find it in you to strap on your mask and do it all over again, and maybe again, and maybe even again.

If you’re depleted and defeated and despairing.

Here are some tips, perspectives and inspiration to keep you going. Take what helps, set aside what doesn’t, reach out if you need more, and pass this along to anyone else who may need it. 

It’s okay to feel overwhelmed / angry / afraid / hopeless / whatever.

Basically, it’s okay to feel it all, especially the hard, negative, uncomfortable stuff. Be in it. Allow it in, observe it, be curious about what it reveals to you and about you. When you are ready (you’ll know: you’ll be sick of feeling this way) only then begin to move forward. This is how we build resilience. For a refresher, read this. 

It’s okay to ask for help.

We’re holding a lot right now. Again. Still. There are people who are trained to help in times like these. There are also people who are untrained and who love you and want to help. Reach out and ask for help when you can’t carry it all alone. 

It’s okay to take care of yourself.

In fact, please do. And if you need it, here’s my piece on self-care as a reminder of how to prioritize and embed care of self in your daily life. 

It’s also okay to feel good, despite everything that’s going on.

Maybe you’re cushioned from the blows this pandemic is battering on those around you. You like (and are able to be) working from home. You like your housemates enough to spend 24/7/365 with them. You’re healthy. Maybe even happy.

If you’re already feeling good, why not shift that to feeling grateful? Engage in a daily gratitude practice to maintain the positive vibes and healthy outlook. It will boost your immunity, make you more pleasant to be around, and more able to show up and do your good work and support those around you.

And, if you need help to feel good, I love this happiness chemicals cheat sheet that’s circulating on various online communities right now, that I recreated.

Feeling good is good. Doing good is better.

If you're able and it’s safe, offer to provide assistance to the marginalized communities in your world, either through your money, your time or your effort. The homeless and at-risk population in particular has been hit hard by the pandemic -- lack of beds in shelters due to social distancing; lack of money to be made because of fewer pedestrians and shoppers, fewer people carrying cash and fewer transactions in the sex trade due to social distancing; lack of outreach supports due to lack of funding and volunteers who are themselves vulnerable because of age or health conditions. And now with winter weather underway, there is likely (for sure) someone who will benefit from your generosity and good fortune -- you just need to look and offer it. 

It won’t be like this forever.

It just feels that way. Several promising vaccines are in trial. There are smart people working on solutions, tracking and analyzing information, making sense of the chaos. We, through them, learn more every day. There’s hope. And let’s be real: it also won’t ever be exactly like it was before. That fact can be hard to understand and accept, so please don’t despair if it feels like too much.

What can help? Grieve what you miss, what you long for, what you regret. Then allow yourself to dream about how it might be when we can gather in large groups, hug our friends and families, and enjoy unencumbered movement and travel and care-free-dom again. Create a list of “what you’ll do first when...” Let it inspire you. Share it, so it may inspire others. Let’s dream together.

You can keep doing uncomfortable things, and you can do hard things.

Let’s be clear: for most people, wearing a mask is not a hard thing.

Washing your hands is not a hard thing.

Refraining from going to a restaurant or a movie is not a hard thing.

Being isolated in your home, whether that is a house, an apartment, a hospital room or a care home, can be hard.

Closing your business because it’s no longer viable is hard.

Being ill and hospitalized and ventilated is hard.

And living in ambiguity, in uncertainty, and feeling untethered is hard.

Acknowledge yourself for all you’ve done and grown and learned this year: your adaptability, your stick-with-it-edness, your ability to get up each day and keep trying. Celebrate that you’ve made it this far. You’ve made it nine months through a pandemic.

You know what else takes nine months? Growing a new human being. How have you grown over the past nine months? Consider all the skills, choices, ups, downs and sidewayses that you’ve incubated, nourished, hoped, dreamed, grieved, supported, tried, failed and delivered through the past nine months, and give yourself some credit.

And maybe some cake, too. Celebration calls for cake. 

The bottom line, for now.

Uncertainty is difficult for us humans. Extended uncertainty is really difficult. Most of us tend to like certainty, structure, routine, a sure thing, some boards to bounce off of (a winter/hockey metaphor for you there). We’re figuring out how to be and do in these strange times, making it up as we go, still, nine months running. 

And maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s even a bit emotionally liberating for some of us. 

What rises to the top of your priorities when the world is shutting down or closing in/up around you? 

What can you set aside, set down, settle so you can attend to what’s most important, most helpful, most comforting right now? 

What falls away? 

What reveals itself to you and in you? 

How can you hold this uncertainty as an opportunity for choice, clarity and discernment? 

If you’re called to explore these questions, or need help of any kind (a referral to a service provider, recommendations for resources, or anything else to help you carry on) please reach out. Let’s take care of each other.  

Inspired Action Alert

I want to call out the impact of being moved to inspired action despite a negative circumstance. A childhood friend, Shannon Grant Tompkins, started a Facebook page after her father was hospitalized due to COVID last week to bring attention to the real people this pandemic is impacting. By inviting folks to share the human faces of the pandemic, she’s creating community, an avenue for witnessing and space for healing, which is what we need right now. You can find it here: Beyond the Statistics: The Canadian Faces of Covid-19. Please send some positive healing vibes her dad’s way.