Has Covid become a justifiable excuse for us to put our lives on hold?

Here’s an absolutely hypothetical example, this is not about a real person and she does not sometimes have straight, and sometimes wavy, red hair. We’ll call her J.  When Covid hit in March and it sunk in that it was here to stay, J. decided it was the perfect time to try online dating.  That’s what I like about J., she’s such a deep thinker with lofty goals.  Her friends had been after her to get “back out there” and since the thought of dating made her want to throw up, she thought online dating with the wall of Covid around it would be safe and less scary.  A way to move forward while standing still. Poor deluded J., thankfully an actual person would not think this way. 😏

To say the beast that is online dating is cruel with the ability to disembowel its’ victims might be overstating it, but it’s not!  Sometimes, that is how it feels, or at least that’s how J. describes it.  And now, after more than a few bad outcomes, J. has met someone she would like to get to know but she finds herself halted with the fear of Covid. Just when she was finally willing to go outside of her deeply entrenched comfort zone there is a pandemic!  Can’t a girl catch a break?  Even hypothetically? Apparently not in 2020.

Even though logically J. knew she had weighed the risks of getting to know Bachelor #17 and they were minimal, still the fear of Covid put the kibosh on all plans to meet.  Or did it? Overthinker J. searched and searched her brain for the answer.  The more she searched for reasons not to meet up, the more her brain gave her because that’s what search engines do.  So, just like we do when we can’t remember a specific name or place, she let it go so the real answer could reveal itself. “Life doesn’t cause how we feel, it reveals how we feel.” Carol Howe   

Is Covid causing how J. feels, or revealing how she feels?  Is J. using Covid as an excuse to not meet Bachelor #17?  Is the fear something other than what she is convincing herself it is?  Through meditation, letting go and allowing the answer to come to her, J. realizes she is really using Covid as an excuse to not feel vulnerable by opening herself up for rejection and loss.  Her original intention of using Covid as a wall of safety has now become a barrier to living.  J. knows she does not want to put her life on hold until Covid is over. She also knows life is not going to knock on her door without her first extending an invitation.  Yes, during a pandemic the invitation to life looks a lot different but it can still be extended. Of course, J.’s story is just a hypothetical example of how one could allow fear to cripple them, but it could happen. 😏

The pandemic has forced us all to live differently but it’s still our job to always try and live our best life.  How might you be putting your life on hold?  Are you always saying, and thinking, “when the pandemic is over and things are back to normal I’ll…...”?  What feelings are coming up for you now?  Is Covid causing how you feel, or revealing how you feel?   

 

“Happiness is an inside job.”

Really?  Then I've been going about it the wrong way!  Think about what makes you happy.  I’m going to hazard a guess that for most of us the list would go something like this: partner, family, friends, pets, job, travel, sports, reading, spa days, gym days, eating in a restaurant…and the list could go on and on.  But not one of these things comes from inside us, yet all of these things can affect how we feel which affects our happiness.  But what if you had none of these things at this very moment? Could you be happy?  What if you had many, or all, of these things, is happiness guaranteed? 

At different points in my life I’ve had all of the things I listed.  Was I happy all the time? No.  Was I happy most of the time? No.  When the external things in my life were going well I was happy.  But when the external things in my life went away, or changed, I found my happiness went with them.  My happiness was dependent on what I could do, be, or have.  I thought I had been cultivating inner peace for years but turns out not nearly enough; when I was happy I stopped cultivating.  Covid has forced me to change.  Or rather, Covid has given me the opportunity to change; the decision to change, or not, is still in my hands.

Every morning I have a decision to make: I can think about the day ahead of me and find the joy in it or I can relegate it to just another day of not getting to do all the things that make me happy.  But most importantly, since most of my day will be spent inside my head, I need to distract my monkey-mind from the ever-present catastrophic “what-if” scenarios of the future without having my long list happy, happy, joy, joys to lean on.  I’m really starting to see how much I lived in the future, always lining up the next external source of happiness.

I’m sitting by the water in my car, it’s a dreary day, and I’m struggling.  Struggling to write, struggling to not eat out of boredom and depression, struggling to lift myself out of feelings of loneliness and emptiness and struggling with the thought of having to put my life on hold so soon after getting it going again….that’s the hardest one to accept…putting certain parts of my life on hold.  And for how long? How long will I have to stand still?  That scares me; I tend not to do well standing still.  

Eckhart Tolle “Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.  This will miraculously transform your whole life.”  The present moment.  Dr. Joe Dispenza says, “Only in the present moment do you have access to other possibilities.”  Doesn’t it always come back to how we think?  If we focus on the things we can no longer do, that puts us out of the present moment and in the state of living in the past.  If we feel sad about our future being put one hold, that puts us in the state of feeling the loss of something that has yet to happen, again taking us out of the present moment.  We need to be present to “have access to other possibilities.”  So, what personality traits will need to emerge for me to be present going through this time?  I continually work on acceptance, gratitude, and optimism but I need more right now.  What about curiosity?  What possibility might present itself if I get curious about what is still available to me right now?  Following my curiosity has always held the possibility of opening a new door, something that has always made me happy, but this I time I need to get curious about something that comes from within and is not dependent on the external: people, places or things. Maybe it’s time to write that screenplay that won’t leave my head?  Or actually sign up for that screen-writing course I keep googling?  Why not? I certainly have the time!

What personality trait would have to emerge in you right now for you to be happy during this time?  What possibility might be available to you if you were to stay present?  What are you curious about?  Take a moment to think about it, you certainly have the time.