While we navigate through this situation, here are three things to contemplate:
1.) Give this time an “intention” – what is the context you devote the next 3 weeks to?
Remember, if you have not deliberately created how you want to see this situation, it most likely will be your default way of seeing things, which could be from fear or anxiety. When you consciously choose to give this time a purpose, it can help empower you to feel you have a sense of control again, and shift the experience you have in the now.
This might simply be to hold an intention for the world as a whole, or your family and loved ones. On a higher level, you may have seen all the magnificent memes and quotes going around pointing to the profound positive impact this is having on our planet as a side effect of how we are needing to manage this. There has already been a real impact to our environment. My deep desire is that we do not simply return to business as usual but rather that we use this as a stepping stone to creating a new earth.
It can also be a time to set yourself an inspiring objective you commit to achieve, while you have this time at home. I think most people can relate to being run by the “urgents” on a daily basis, and these are necessary as they keep things moving forward. Things that are urgent do need to be done as soon as possible, but they are often reactive and unplanned. When we have days where all we attended to, were the “urgents”, we are left feeling flat, drained and not able to clarify exactly what we achieved that day, other than to acknowledge that we were exceptionally busy.
If this is all we attend to, it can mean we keep procrastinating on what is important. The “importants” are those things that are not urgent, and for that reason we do not need to do them now, yet they are the things that take your life, your business or yourself as a person to the next level. Ask yourself what might be some of the important things you have been wanting to take on for a very long time, and just never seem to get to? Rekindling the relationships you have in your life with your family or friends. Writing that book you have had in your head for years. Creating order on your computer, in your home, or getting back into a healthy exercise routine.
2.) See this time as a powerful opportunity to practice “acceptance and surrender”
Acceptance is seen as the antidote to resistance. I have noticed for myself, a strong resistance to the idea that I can’t simply run out and do the things I normally could do.
Resistance can be seen as oppositional behaviour that shows up when you are feeling threatened or unsafe. At its core, it is a defence mechanism of the ego. The current situation we are facing can definitely elicit anxiety and resistance as we all sit with a lot of uncertainty and even fear about what will happen and how it can affect us. Resistance often results in tiredness and frustration.
Acceptance is being able to recognize, acknowledge and be with the facts of what is true in your life, without excuses, resistance, blame, drama or storyline. What helps us lay the foundation for acceptance is to separate the facts from the story. We do have the freedom to view the events of our lives, separately from the drama we are living in. It is vitally important to distinguish what is real from what is unreal; to separate fact from fiction or story, since it is our “story” that is most often causing us the most pain.
Surrender, at its core, is the willingness to meet life as it is, to stop fighting with or trying to change what is so, right now. It is very different to resignation which links to the feeling of giving up. Surrender is a willingness to let go of needing to know, and instead trusting it will go the way it does. Eckart Tolle speaks about the doorway to peace and harmony being to live in the now. The “now” is all we have. When you get out of your head and the thinking that projects what could happen, and you simply stay with how things are in this moment, it can bring calm.
3.) Creative destruction
“Creative destruction” first coined by Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942, can be described as the dismantling of long-standing practices in order to make way for innovation. To create a new order, we first need to break the old order.
As a human race, we have been stuck in a system known as the “Growth economy”. This system is all about “more” and only values growth. Targets must be more, shareholder dividends must be more, production must be more and so on. But what we have seen is this is having a really negative impact on people, performance and planet. Many industries have reached saturation, it’s not realistic to expect more, and yet companies still demand it from their people or else! This creates excessive stress, which is now showing up in the health and insurance industry, as more and more people suffer from depression and anxiety disorders.
There is a quote usually credited to Albert Einstein who said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”. We keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect things to change, but they won’t unless we change. Up to this point we have been beholden to the “Growth economy”.
Could this be the turning point where the seed to the “Wellbeing economy” can finally start to bloom? Where we realise more is not always better, and we rather focus on sufficiency and a conscious collaboration to move forward with well-being as the primary driver. Well-being of people and the planet. The most powerful book I have read about this concept is here, I highly recommend you read it:
https://www.amazon.com/Wellbeing-Economy-Success-Without-Growth-ebook/dp/B071NVRLQJ
With love, Savannah
