It’s been five years, this month, since Covid. I remember where I was when we started to hear about this virus that seemed to be spreading quickly. I was working in the humanitarian sector at the time, and my body tensed over lunch with our team in Indonesia as they told me the hospital across the road had its first five cases.
We were used to responding to disasters, but when we thought about how we may need to network with our partners around the world if this SARS variant spread in the ways people were predicting, it was overwhelming. I was anxious, things were moving at high speed. About a week later I was home and the borders had closed.
I was cut off from my daughter who was interstate. Like you, I’m sure, we were stressed, overwhelmed, shaken, uncertain and scared. We lost people, we got sick ourselves, we learnt more about how viruses work than we ever thought we would. We saw how vulnerable we are. It changed us.
Hybrid working and online spaces became the norm, we ‘pivoted’ hard. We came together and were ripped apart in destructive ways as fear caused us to go at each other ideologically and through hot takes.
That’s the part that feels like now. We’re clinging to the news and the latest sh*t storm and unprecedented event. It’s overstimulating and unsustainable.
Like during Covid, our nervous systems are going into survival mode and we find ourselves trying to control our way to safety or we check out and go numb. Many of us are ‘meh’ in our exhausted efforts to just get through the day.
Which is how I found myself invested in watching No Taste Like Home on Nat Geo over the weekend. Notable mention also to the time spent watching Meghan Markle make flower ice cubes and bath tea bags.
I’m tired of the hot takes and outrage. I want a slow, connected life. I want to affect change where it’s within my power to do so and go deep into ease and peace.
This isn’t to put my head in the sand and pretend everything is ok, but to face everything that really is not, with my feet on the ground, able to access my creativity and curiosity, the opposites of hot takes.
This means:
Time letting my imagination go to far away places and daydreaming.
It means play and tactile pasta making (I was very proud of my Saturday night fettuccine).
It means staying in bed longer
Having days off
Doing less
Knowing myself and what unsettles me
And putting down the damn phone. Can you do this? Remove apps, wrench the habit out of your hands, practise presence? It’s really, really hard.
I’m not anti apps or social media or phones – but for the love of our peace, we must limit this time and energy suck and find other ways to regulate ourselves.
I love this weekly email connection the most, but with everything else, I’ll engage when I can and pull back when it’s starting to feel like overstimulation. Try it.
We were not built for this agitated, frenetic pace. Rest is resistance as Trisha Hersey says. We push against divisiveness by making eye contact with people, slowing down, finding the courage to connect IRL as well as online, by soothing our fear and breathing deeply, playing and moving our bodies.
But we must do this with intention, peace will not be handed to us, we must make room for it and believe it’s our birthright. We seem to resist this at every turn, culture makes it hard to accept.
Are you safe right now? Is the room you’re in safe? Remind your animal body you’re actually ok. Breathe deeply, sit still for a moment.
If you need permission to rest, to choose less, to simplify your life and make flower ice cubes, you have it. It will ironically, make you more effective at your day job too.
Also, I was on The Spiritual Misfits podcast recently – have a listen if you like. You can also look here for others I’ve been on over the last little while, I love a good chat.
If you’d like to chat with me in counselling, you can get in touch here.
Warmly,
Jane
