I’m having lots of conversations with clients, friends and family about how they’re feeling these days as we complete a full year of pandemic-quarantine-life-altering-change.
I’m hearing a lot of:
I feel like every day is Groundhog Day. I’m just managing.
I don’t feel inspired.
I don’t know how to connect with people in meaningful ways –I’m tired of Zoom!
I love being at home and am nervous about life speeding up again.
I don’t want to go back to “normal”.
I want life to go back to “normal”.
I’m thriving and sometimes even feel guilty about how well I’m doing.
Where are you falling on the continuum of “well-being”? How about vitality? Your answer may change on a daily basis.
No matter where you fall on the spectrum, there is a deconstruction that has happened on a scale so large we haven’t even wrapped our minds around it yet. From how education is delivered, to rebuilding lives that have been crushed, grieving on a global scale for the loss of lives, freedoms and normalcy, to the short and long-term effects of how lack of social connection impacts us as mammals that need it to survive (anyone struggling to read facial expressions and tone behind a mask?).
Pre-pandemic depression and anxiety rates have gone from 1 in 10 people to 4 in 10 – a 400% increase in a year.
What was so shocking and different when we locked down last spring – masks, quarantine, scarcity in toilet paper, physical distancing, food lines, almost everything going virtual, no “off” time from work or people you live with, or no “on” time for people that live alone . . . all of it is fading into the background as the new normal. YIKES!!
Do you want this to be your new normal?
We’re entering into the very important phase that comes after deconstruction and before reconstruction – assessment and evaluation.
3 important questions to ask yourself:
What matters to you now & how will you prioritize it?
What are you no longer willing to tolerate?
What do you want more of moving forward based on what you’ve learned about yourself?
If we don’t take time in the assessment and evaluation phase, we’ll build from what we know, which is more of the same (pre and current pandemic life). I don’t know about you, but I want to milk this experience for all its worth. It’s been an enormous pattern interrupter on a global scale and what I know about interruptions is that they contain wisdom.
What wisdom is wanting to emerge from the interruption for you individually, and for the collective? What are you sensing that maybe doesn’t even have words yet?
If you aren’t sure how to use the interruption to design a life that lights you up and you’d like more clarity for yourself, reach out. It’s what I love helping people do. When you’re lit up, it lights others up and illuminates the path that humanity is being asked to step into.