The World Turned Upside Down

I’d like to take this moment to dedicate this article to the lessons learned during the pandemic. In March of 2020, the world as we knew it, well, died. Our ways of working, socializing, and being, changed. We also saw what happens when the world if flipped upside down. 

For some, the change of pace was somewhat welcome. Entrepreneurs took risks and started their own business. Exercise novices invested in on-demand fitness videos. Some people who started to feel lonely and stressed began to see therapists and other healers. While it was a challenging time for them, these folks decided that they needed a change and decided that it was time to do something different.

For others, change was resisted. Some folks continued to ignore public health mandates. Some tried to intimidate people into staying in their societal “roles”, such as being an overworked, underpaid staff or continuing to engage in racism in an attempt to maintain the status quo. Here, change was and continues to be seen as an adversary.

As I reflect on my birthday month this year versus my birthday month in 2020, I notice many differences. In 2020, my birthday events were canceled due to businesses shutting down. Many of my friends were sure of whether they should be around other people or not. I felt drained from the energetic panic of the world around me. In 2021, a further sense of weariness enveloped me. After a year of dealing with the pandemic, I wasn’t sure if anything was going to change. In a way, I continued to move forward, because I knew I had to, but a part of me felt defeated. 

This year, I feel that spring has arrived. The season of pain that the pandemic brought into so many of our lives over the past couple of years feels like it ended. I thought I would be instantly happy, particularly when I realized that my burnout was due to my frustration with my present and myself hoping in many ways that things would get better. I realized that I tend to cause myself a lot more pain by wondering when something is going to change

One lesson that I am taking away from the pandemic is that it will happen when it happens. Farmers and gardeners know this lesson well. While we can put fertilizer in the ground to expedite growth, Mother Nature has a natural flow of deciding when things grow and at what pace they grow.  So much of my life has been set by expectations within timeframes that I often had no control over. I wonder how often each of us does that to ourselves. When we set the expectation that we should know when things will be made right. I have seen my clients experiencing additional suffering because they wanted to know when the pain would end. The answer to this is, it happens when it happens. This does not mean that we cannot do things in the meantime though. We can learn how to nourish ourselves and our communities. We can choose peace over pain. We can be mindful of what we can control and accept what we cannot.

 While I hope and pray that this pandemic is over, I choose not to worry about when anymore. Instead, I choose to focus on the lessons that I can use now, trusting that I don’t need to worry about aspects outside of my control. I can