I woke up Sunday morning. I mean I really woke up. Since Covid19 began to impact and then totally upend our lives, I’d been going through the motions of eating, sleeping, meditating, walking and working with my clients by phone and Skype in a state of…what I thought was calm acceptance, but was actually apathy and low-level anxiety. I was doing my best to hold off despair.
I should be somewhat of an expert on grief since my entire career has been dedicated to working with trauma survivors. But I didn’t catch it until Sunday- that I had remained optimistic in the first stage of grief, denial and disbelief. Then I’d moved right into repressed anger, obsession and deep sadness.
I’d had to cancel trips I’d looked forward to: a vacation trip I’d won; my frequent trips to Denver to be with one- year-old Savana and five- year-old Santiago; and a reunion trip to San Diego to memorialize my sister’s death last year. My sister wouldn’t mind a bit. Judy would have said, “Oh poof. Get over it.” But the fact that Megan has to care for a baby, plus a ball of energy we call Tiago (who now lives in his protective Spiderman suit), plus somehow work for eight hours at her computer…Really? That’s humanly possible? So, I worry and go into, “If only she didn’t need to work;” “If only she had more money. If only I were twenty years younger, I’d go up there and take care of the kids….” and so on. And that’s the obsessional part of grief. If only…
I was grieving the loss of my life as I had known it; my sense of control and competence. And grieving the loss of human life around the world. We humans are social animals. We live for connection and intimacy, rituals and celebrations. The deep sadness I had buried was related to losing my family connections, my daily visits with friends, my exercise community at the gym, and the freedom to go anywhere at any time. And everyone I talk with is having some kind of similar experience. And it’s dawning that this pandemic will likely go on for not just weeks, but months with the medical and economic issues unresolved for more than a year.
So, I’ve been waking up to my need to use all the resources I can find to marshal my strength, my faith and my ability to see new creative possibilities for the future. Here are a few of these resources:
- A Mindfulness message
- A note from Winnie the Pooh
- C Virus Clearing Meditation Using Angelic Frequencies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxgCjiN93E4
- Quote from Master Coach and Trainer, Tony Robbins:
“We have a resourcefulness inside ourselves that says no matter what happens in life, who I am is bigger than anything that could ever happen to me or anyone I love. No problem is permanent, and nothing that happens is pervasive”.
Here’s the link to the full article: https://pages.tonyrobbins.com/index.php/email/emailWebview
And a powerful message from Eleanor Roosevelt:
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.”
Important postscript: My prayers for Megan were, of course, answered. She’s found creative solutions to working at home with the two kids.
