A longing for a return to normal!
A guest blog written by Emma Hobson.
When my parents died back in 1998, I was a mother of 3 at the tender age of 23 and it rocked my world. The event plucked me out of my life and trajectory and placed me in a strange new world without a map. I spent months and maybe even years dazed, wandering the new terrain. There was no way back to my old life-I had no idea where I was going. I had a deep longing to return to normal but what do you do when your normal has gone?
Things will never be the same-we aren’t in Kanas anymore
There are many similarities to the death of my parents and this strange time of “The Pandemic.” I’m definitely not as traumatised. However, I do have a niggling feeling of being in a strange land and the realisation that nothing will be the same again.
When we find ourselves in new places, with new terrains, rules, social norms, laws, restrictions etc, it can bring up issues from within that we never knew were there. It can bring out the best and/or worse in us.
People before profit
At the beginning of the ‘Pandemic’ I remember an energy of people scrabbling to hold onto the old. Primarily to hold onto their basic needs such as income. Thus they can still eat and provide warmth for themselves and their loved ones.
Businesses scrabbled to adjust and diversify to survive. There were some that put people before profits and closed their businesses without delay. Others didn’t do so well on that front and it was clear to see that sadly their priority was their profit margin.
In times of stress we get to see the substance of a person or collective. It’s like they open up to reveal themselves fully with truths shining out of them. Their weaknesses, vulnerabilities, strengths and beliefs.
For me, when I landed in my ‘new life’ (after the death of my parents) I was desperate to understand what had happened-I needed to make sense of it all. I needed answers to the many questions. Not just the small questions of how they died, what led to that moment etc but big questions like where have they gone, why did this happen, what is the meaning of life and death? Existential questions.
So many questions about Covid-19
When we find ourselves in new situations it’s like a cog has clicked around and altered all the settings. We gain new perspectives, have different ideas, thoughts and feelings, we gain insights into what we already knew and what we don’t know. We learn about our new edges, peaks and troughs. There are so many questions about the Covid-19 pandemic. Questions we may never know the answers to or that take many years to unravel. What makes things more difficult in situations where there are lots of questions, is whether you feel you can trust those whom you ask to give you the truth.
We need authentic leadership more than ever
For me, the truth is a mixture of a series of facts or opinions based on many perspectives which is then filtered through my gut, intuition and a deep inner sense of what feels true to me. This way, I am the leader in my life. Meaning that I don’t blindly follow or believe another without passing the information through the filter of my own intuition.
What I observe happening during the pandemic is that many people have forgotten the fact that they are sovereign. Instead, they believe that others are the authority. I’m not saying that I am an expert in all things. Of course, there are people that know much more than me about many things, but I am the expert on me, my feelings, my experiences and what my needs are. I know whether what I hear feels and resonates truth to me. I know if I need more information. Or whether I feel I can trust what is being shared.
When trust is lost
I feel sad right now that it is a struggle for me to trust and believe what I am being told by our leaders. I’m angry that because I don’t trust them I have to work hard at doing my own research and find trust worthy sources to discern from. I feel tired with processing the thoughts and feeling that perhaps those in so call power may not have our best interests at heart. Instead they may be self-serving, manipulative and dominating.
Having to have your wits about you takes its toll especially if it is for a prolonged period. When we don’t feel safe a stress response is activated within the body. This means that high levels of adrenaline is produced and sustained which and can have negative effects to health.
As Bruce Lipton says:
When you’re living in fear, you shut down the growth and maintenance of the body as you prepare for fight-or-flight”. It is no secret that living in constant stress and fear lowers ones immune system. If we bathe in a society of fear, because we feel we can’t trust our leaders (be that out bosses, politicians, parents or whomever else we hold in that position) it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that our immune systems will be compromised and we will be in survival mode.
What happens when you realise no-one is coming to save you?
On the other side of it, I realised that that same fairy tale had kept me small and disempowered. Always waiting, hoping, praying that someone was going to come and save me. Perhaps a person or maybe even an angel or if I was really well behaved perhaps even God would show up for me!
You are the one you’ve been waiting for
I feel we need to be there for ourselves at this time-especially because we may have no choice if we are self isolating. Taking control of our feelings and needs and not relying on others to keep us safe and informed is self governance and leadership.
How do we gain sovereignty?
Self love and compassion
Each person has to self-govern what feels like the most self loving thing to do in each situation. What is important is realising that we have choices. We don’t have to listen or agree to anything or anyone other than ourselves, just because ‘they’ say we do.
I believe that creating harmony within is the key and when we heal the friction inside us I truly believe that the friction outside of us will heal too.
Many of us have been longing for change for a long time. We have hoped and prayed for more time, freedom and peace. We have hoped that ours leaders would take notice of how we are feel and how the planet is doing.
Living in the space in between
And here we are……in the space in-between worlds. The old world a little behind us now and the new one not quite in focus.
For the years that followed the death of my parents, the shock took time to wear off. I become comfortable with roaming the underworld, as some would call it. I because safe in the arms of grief. When it was time to emerge and come out to rejoin life on the surface, there was some resistance. Was I ready, would I be OK? Will the world understand what I’ve been through and how I feel? What if I don’t like it ‘out there’?
Emerging from lockdown
Again I feel a similarity with this time. When we are told that we can come out of lockdown will we be ready? Do we want to return to what we had? Will it still be there? What will we have learnt and will others understand how it was for us personally? And for me, I wonder if actually this has shook the world enough for us all to wake up a little more and realise that it can be much better than this?
We have to heal from within -to soothe the inner dictator and absent authentic leader.
Awaken the magical child and the creator within us and the possibility that we are powerful and sovereign if we are to create a new world.
We’d love to hear from you
This blog was written by Emma Hobson after a conversation with Tracy about business and life. Tracy asked Emma if she would write something that expressed the things they were talking about and as Emma sat down to write, these words flowed out.
If this has resonated with you and you feel you would like to share your feelings about how this time has affected you we welcome your comments below.
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