What if we learn something through this experience?
What if we don’t go back to normal because normal isn’t sustainable or filled with joy?
I have been fortunate to experience this time with the privilege of a comfy home, resources and food, good health and much time to ponder.
The pondering meandered through different phases—
These included sadness, fear and confusion—
And they included the phase in which I sit today which feels like clarity with a deep sense of freedom.
Here is some clarity I’ve come to:
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I love being home with my kids and my husband. The simple act of being together is medicine for me.
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I have good friends and an incredibly thoughtful and creative community that I love and need.
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I no longer want everything fast and immediate. I’m willing to wait for things.
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I want a more intentional life, where I look at what I purchase and what I engage with and ask that it serves with integrity to all who are a part of it.
I shop at my local co-op because the values it serves align with mine. This is important to me.
I support businesses that care about their employees and source with ethics.
I want to invest in these companies, and buying from them makes me an investor.
I don’t need to be right.
I don’t need to always be the teacher.
The other day as I sat at the feet of my teacher Guru Singh (via Zoom of course), I was reminded how much there is to learn still.
Find your teachers.
But don’t put them on a pedestal.
If they send you towards your own knowing, they are a true teacher.
I have long held dearly to the idea that I can create the life I want.
The reality, though, is that with how busy I have always been, I wasn’t even close to living the truth of that idea.
This massive slow-down has shown me that.
Now I see how close we really are to that, if we can envision it.
Now these are my priorities:
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Micro shifts
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Community building
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Supporting community business
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When I can’t support local community business, I want to outsource in a way where I am still supporting companies with values and ethics that I feel aligned with.
I’m ready to move through this world in my own way.
For me freedom is about building the world I want to live in.
Not fighting for it,
But walking toward it.
What I want:
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Connection.
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Health.
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Wealth that is fair and shared and supports the community.
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Activism and medicine through storytelling and art.
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Being a compassionate person to all the ways people are living.
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Understanding that we each are on our unique path based on many things that are not necessarily tangible or measurable, but unique to each of us.
We have been lining up on our sides.
What I see from quarantine is that taking sides is the opposite of what we need.
We need respect and curiosity and deep connection to our souls.
This does not come from watching the news.
It’s not on the internet.
It is within us.
At first knowing this feels lonely.
And then, right on the other side of that loneliness, is a wild possibility.
