What, Me Worry?
I have been in deep reflection these past few months. Maybe you have been as well?
I tend to like to be home alone, so a good deal of my time spent in quarantine felt rejuvenating and enlivening. When I was home, tending to my nest and the garden, life was good. When I ventured out
either on social media, actually out, or watching mainstream media, the energetics I was met with were often astonishing. Panic, confusion, uncertainty, despair, anger and polarity was often too much to bear. Friends were arguing with each other, people shaming each other for their beliefs —a lot. Leadership that didn’t occur to me as what I understand leadership to be. Just people saying stuff that is inflammatory and contradictory and offering opinions as facts. Facts that shifted and changed hourly, weekly, from the end of one day to the beginning of the next.
And it seems like many of us have gone into a free-fall. Uncertainty is all up in our faces right now. Humans in general and westerners in particular, don’t enjoy the reminder that life is fragile. So many of us are beyond panicked for our safety, thinking our lives are in danger.
Each of us have been searching for some sort of answer. Something we can hang our hats on. The truth. That is what we are fighting with each other about, after all? Wanting each other to believe what we believe is the truth? The thing that will save us. The polarity speaks to me of just how strong we are clinging to our need for certainty. Which, of course is the big part of the story of corona virus. No one knows what to plan for, what tomorrow will bring. It is out of our hands.
The corona virus lockdown coincided with the arrival of spring.
As the story of corona virus became the big news, and most of the world was immersed in and enmeshed in the story of death, I was watching life. I found solace in my garden. Trees and shrubs were greening up. Buds began to show and opened up as flowers. Pink and purple and white and blue flowers, large and small. Even the rhododendron, which I wasn’t all that sure was going to make it, had one glorious flower.
Birds were flying around and the fish were waking up and doing their springtime wiggling (anyone have a pond and want some baby goldfish??). I was super connected to emergence and life.
The blatant contrast of these two realities occurred as extraordinary for me.
I had turned off the news, and almost my full experience of the world was one steeped in a reality of cycles of life that had been repeating for centuries. When the days become long enough the daffodils open. The cherry tree blossoms. In a week, the dogwoods leaf out. The grass became green, the hardy kiwi growing on the fence was out of control with more fruit than ever before, the roses exceptionally bright. I did lose the peach tree—apparently they are risky, and finicky. When I ventured to the beach for some mother earth love, it looked very much as it always has, white sandy beaches and waves coming in and coming out.
Connecting to the rhythm of nature all around me was how I met my own need for certainty. Having this need met, allowed me to more easily navigate all the uncertainty I was suddenly plunged into. I (for the most part) had the strength to show up with and for others who were struggling in so many ways, one of which was the suffering through the ‘not knowing’ and worrying about it.
“The natural world is the larger sacred community to which we belong. To be alienated from this community is to become destitute in all that makes us human. To damage this community is to diminish our own existence.”
This experience that is not different than any other. All situations and every encounter we have with others, provides an opportunity to consider what’s important to you and how you want to respond. Whether it’s when someone suggests Chinese food for dinner and you were hoping for hoagies, or to potentially life threatening choices we are making together.
I encourage you to reflect on ‘How was I when ‘sh*t got real?’ Were you living within your values? If you value respect, have you spoken with respect to those you came in contact with? If you value freedom, were you able to hold space for those who had a different perspective than your own? Were they free to speak? Were you willing to listen? If you didn’t want to listen, how did you make that known? Did you lose your connection in how you spoke up? Did you invite others into your world and explain why it was so difficult to listen to what they were saying? Or ask them why they didn’t want to listen to you? Did you forget? And if you did, what happened?
Are you tracking the cost of your choices? Did you lose a few relationships? Possibly you found connection with some people you weren’t anticipating? What I am most curious about is how have you experienced yourself during these times? Have you learned something new about yourself and your hopes and dreams? Have you become clear about what you want to do with your wild and precious life?
Were you too worried about what might happen that you forgot to notice what was happening all around you?
For those of you that this question is challenging, it is an invitation rather than a demand. Personally, I am prone to worry. Learning how to shift from worry to being prepared has offered me hundreds maybe thousands of hours of ease and peace —and likely saved a few relationships as well. Because we can’t know the future —no matter how stable it seems. The corona virus just reminded some of us of this particular certainty: all we have is uncertainty.