Tell me if you’ve experienced this in the last couple months; long arduous days peppered with moments of joy and equal moments of grief — rage, sadness, confusion and an overarching feeling of betrayal. How could this be happening to me? Haven’t I done all the work to become the greatest version of myself? Haven’t I continued to seek the truest path for me? When the universe/source/god has said stretch further, didn’t I meet that request? So why now is all of this happening to me? It feels like it’s unending and that’s the fear, we don’t just make huge restrictions and guidelines and then retract them, once they’re in place, it’s done.
These are just some of the questions I ponder as I feel stuck inside my bubble. Home is safe, I don’t have to see the rapid changes being made to the outside world, I am cocooned here. And yet I want to be of the outside world, to commune, to co-habitate, to share in others joy, pain and sorrow. But when I leave my safety net I am infused with panic and worry; I woke up into my worst nightmare, the clash between who I have always been and what the outside wants me to be is now a knife sharp edge that I bump up against. No longer can I carry on in my soft, light way, there is no more space for “you do you, boo”. Or is there and all I need is some serious resolve and the courage to continue on this path?
Right now millions (billions?) of people are facing tremendous loss in myriad ways — loss of life, loss of income, loss of stability, loss of their homes, their friends, their families, their safety, their security. Yet our ability to hear of the grief that is being experienced is being silenced, we aren’t allowing any space for people to be both concerned about the health and welfare of all humans and be devastated and scared by what they are facing. This is predicated on a lie that our physical health is what matters most and is currently threatened beyond our ability to manage it. And so when further to the experience of the madness that has ensued in the world – and even for people who are feeling very much aligned with the new world order coming into play I think they can still feel unsettled by the rapidity of change – we are told we can’t talk about it, the madness becomes crippling. Some might consider Stockholm Syndrome here, we are all agreeing to not talk about the abuse for fear that the abuser may turn on us. There is some deep psychological shit going on now…but don’t talk about it ok?
What counteracts that? What is the opposite of fear?
There is hope, as we all balance entirely too much on our plates we also acknowledge the hope that is here. My hope likely looks different than yours, but hope is powerful all the same. There is love, bright and powerful, love bubbling over in so many ways. And there’s also a recognition that the time to hold space, to paint over this with sunshine and rainbows has passed. There is a splintering amongst humanity which we’ve never felt quite so deeply and only time will tell how that will evolve but there is a trust in something greater.
Not that someone is going to save me, the time for faith in politicians, public health, scientists, doctors and experts in their field has long gone. I know that this is about my own power, and my own personal responsibility. I am the only one who saves myself and the war inside is about letting go of the illusion that it was ever any different.
Just over four years ago I was introduced to a business opportunity that spoke to all of my core desires — to continue the conversation of true health, to promote sovereignty over body and finances, to work for myself with hours I determine, to connect with a community of likeminded souls all ready to rise together. It was the greatest gift as it helped me learn further who I authentically am and it gave me the permission to find success on my own terms. Starting my wellness business catapulted me into the sphere of serious self development and gave me a keener sense of my own capability. It also put me in resonance on a friendship plane with my people which right now has become a pulsing web of wise, woke, aligned sisters who are in firm support of each other. We remind each other of the wisdom of now.
Sharing wisdom between generations
I have felt huge anger at this time, at the universe for duping me into thinking I had any control at what was to come, at myself for not being better prepared for catastrophe. But I also have the ability to look at how better suited I am now for this upheaval than ever before. My resilience has always been strong but I also have the years of lessons under my belt. Inconsistent income has been my norm for over a decade. Having grown up with little I’ve always been grateful for what I have, no matter how small it seems. I can make something wonderful from nothing. I have moved so many times and travelled so frequently that transition is familiar. My 15 years working within the health field has given me deep insight and understanding on accessing true and sustained wellness. And my business is not guaranteed but it has an abundant residual income that for now is incredibly helpful. There is no accident to any of this, that is the wisdom of this time. When I say to the universe why is this happening, how dare you come in here and capsize my boat. The universe says back because you were made for this time, you’ve climbed many mountains, you faced many fears, you have a well inside so deep it will never empty, you know and trust your intuitive voice and also, because you asked for it.
I’m staring to see something in the great shift that has been felt, I’m starting to see the small rumblings of a return to normal that we haven’t experienced for generations. As people stay home together they get to know one another in a new way, there is no distraction anymore. We are revelling in time, something that felt elusive though we were the only ones responsible for trading it away to begin with. People are baking and gardening and learning a new language or a new instrument. Not all people, many are just surviving right now, and we could talk about how small our margins were to begin with and the personal responsibility around that but this isn’t the time to develop blame or fault. It’s the time to recognize that we were wrong for a very long time, we were all born into a wrongness that for many felt right and for others felt mostly okay and for some felt debilitating. We are now being offered what we have asked for — more time, deeper connections, the ability to know oneself, and a return to the earth.
Doesn’t feel good to get what you want! There is a toddler-like tantrum storming inside me often as I kick back against what has become my level of comfort being taken away. But there is a wiser part that I can sometimes hear that reminds me that I came here for this.
What will I do with it? I’m just starting to find out. I’ve asked for years to be given a sign of where I could live, what life I could build, how I could be brave enough to further opt out of the prescribed North American lifestyle. I had hoped that it would come in the form of some yet unknown benevolent person who had a large parcel of land that needed someone like me to take it over. Of course it would be replete with soaring green mountains, a wide crescent white sand beach, acres of farmland and meadows plus a dreamy farmhouse where loved ones could and would stay often. So this is not exactly what I had in mind, this is more like I’m being shoved off the edge of a cliff with the hope that I have the wings I’ll need to fly. It doesn’t feel like I do yet I have to keep trusting they’re there.
I wrote this over a few days, sitting for moments here and there in the sunshine on my back deck. There is a Manitoba maple in my neighbours’ yard that stretches up over a good portion of ours, providing shade over the girls play house. Throughout the beginning of May I would peek through our upstairs bathroom window and check on the tree, it didn’t seem to be budding in the way the other trees were, I wondered if it perhaps had been damaged in all of the winter storms, if the long cold season had stunted its growth. But lo and behold, one morning as I brushed my teeth I was taken aback to see out my window that not only was the maple healthy, its limbs had burst forth with verdant leaves, seemingly overnight.
I’m looking to the trees, to nature altogether, to remind me of the wisdom of right now. Like those tight little buds, I’m waiting, protected, until the time is right to stretch forth into the next phase of life. I’ve never been more prepared than I am right now for what happens next. The journey of my wellness business and everything I’ve learned, the life I had as a child growing up, the circumstances I’ve navigated through have all brought me here to now. I have to trust that the wisdom of now is teaching me everything I need to know. For there is a deep wisdom, if we’re open to hearing it, about our health, about our choices and about the strength we each possess — for this is exactly where we’re meant to be in this moment, where else could we be?