I know you’re feeling it. Everyone is, in some configuration or other. For me, it’s taken a while to sink in—not just the idea but the realization that everything is on hold, indefinitely. We’re in this Covid limbo for the long haul. There is no planning for the foreseeable future because we just don’t know what that future will look like. Everything is on wait-and-see status. An apt title for this time is TBA:  To Be Announced.

By the time we come out the other end, the past will be unrecognizable. So many things that used to be ‘normal’ will no longer exist. Our families and our social and emotional lives are being transformed. Economic and governmental structures are being rattled. The environment is continuing to recalibrate. Everything is shifting.

What if this is exactly what needed to happen for The Shift? There is an old saying, “In order for something to change, something’s gotta change.” We couldn’t just keep going along as we had been and still make any noticeable to adjustment to our systems, personal or cultural. It had to be big. And it couldn’t just be over a weekend. It had to last. Here we are.

It’s a lot to manage all at once. Most days I’m able to greet this with calm acceptance. Other days I’m sad and teary, or grouchy and irritable. Often it’s a mixed bag. The most important coping skill seems to be maintaining my attention on the present. This is an opportunity to reorganize my priorities. Not with obstacle-smashing goals, but with relaxed mindful intention. According to The Teachers, it’s helpful to create a space of freedom and ease, then see what comes into it. 

Let go, be present, allow it.