Re-Discovering Ourselves In The Midst Of Change

We’ve been dealing with a lot the past few months. We’ve dealt with the shutting down of daily life as we knew it, and all the transitions that it entailed - working from home, home schooling, layoffs and furloughs, closing our businesses for an unknown period of time, anxiety over getting sick, dealing with illness or the illness or loss of a loved one, being an essential worker and having to help keep society running through all this, help those struggling and suffering. We’ve had to redesign our lives to adjust. We’ve to deal with all the emotions and feelings, the ups and downs that have come along with that, not knowing what changes would come next, and when. 

Slowly, businesses are starting to re-open, at least on some scale. We’re starting to emerge from our quarantine cocoons. We may be headed back to our work site part or full time. We may still be working at home or not back to work yet, but we’ll still experience other change.  We may be out and about a little more. We may be able to see friends outside at a safe distance. As the school year ends, there are further shifts in the daily routine. And with all of this, we find ourselves transitioning once again. 

The thing is, no matter how much we tell ourselves, or others tell us, that we aren’t defined by the external pieces or people of our life - our job/career/school experience for students, our home or relationship life, our families and friends, our hobbies and activities, etc - when suddenly you have to readjust almost all of this, virtually overnight, it can be tricky to not feel a bit lost. People who worked at the same company or job for years or decades suddenly aren’t. Students’ classroom is now the living room and teacher is now the parent or a zoom class on the computer. Family and friends that were part of our daily or weekly routines we suddenly can’t see. There are the hobbies and activities we can’t partake in, organizations and volunteer opportunities we may now not be able be involved in or have to be involved in differently. When nearly every piece that fit together to form our our day to day lives suddenly is upended, even if you know that it doesn’t redefine you, doesn’t change who you are, it can feel like it does. And that can be difficult, especially when you don’t know how long this it’s going to last. And now, almost three months later (yep, it’s been almost 3 months, at least where I am!), perhaps when we’re finally settling into a different routine, it’s all changing again. But it’s not going back to the way it was. Not exactly. It’s going back to a different version. And once again, we don’t know which pieces will keep transitioning, and how long those transitions will last. And we ourselves transition once again. 

All the changing, the transitioning can be disorienting. We may notice some routines or habits or patterns, some pieces of life from pre-COVID times that, now that we’ve taken a step back, no longer feel like they fit. We may notice some pieces of life or of ourselves that we discovered during quarantine that we’d like to keep even as we transition out. Things that we thought we didn’t have time for before but that have helped us through this time might find their way into our schedules, even as we move back to work and activities. Aspects that we thought were so important before, or that we were so accustomed to, things that we thought all those weeks ago we couldn't wait to get back to, now may not make such a prominent appearance in our lives, even when they’re finally allowed to. You might notice these things right away either, or it might be something you look back on weeks or months later and realize. 

And so we may re-discover ourselves a bit. We may begin to reshape the pieces of ourselves and our lives, but not exactly as they were before. Some of it may be guided by things outside of our control (regulations, company rules, etc), but some of it may be guided by our conscious decisions and realizations that have come about over the past few months. And if not, that’s ok too - we’re all unique and we all experience situations in our own way, and that’s the beauty of human life. But I’m feeling it strongly, this sense of being in transition, of being on the edge of rediscovery. And so that’s going to be my focus this next month. I plan to focus on ways in which we can both ground in the present and step into our re-discovery, our own personal power. (By power I mean embodiment and ownership of who we are, not “power hungry” type of power). I’ll be focusing on ways in which we can rediscover and realign and re-develop ourselves - both in what we’re offering ourselves, and what we’re putting out into the world. I’ll be doing this through my blog, my virtual classes, my video library (if you’re interested in the video library, message me for details), my social media, and some additional offerings I’m working on. I’d love for you to join me!