When I first started writing these reflections in March, I expected the worst of the pandemic to be over in several months — a few weeks or months of challenging uncertainty and isolation, and then resumption of more-or-less normal life. I thought: “We just have to do this for a few months. Surely by summer things will be more normal.”
And here we are, August. Things are far from normal. And not even settled on a “new normal” as we continue to be a nation divided in its response to the crisis, and as new dilemmas present themselves to us daily forcing us to weigh safety vs risk: economic needs vs safety needs, physical health needs vs emotional health needs, individual needs vs family/community needs. And no one can tell us how long it will last.
Although part of me knew right away that this global pandemic was a life-changing event with effects profound and long-lasting, I could at first only imagine a few months of living in such a radically altered world. In the chaos of sudden change and busy with the immediate challenges of survival, I could not fully grasp that my radically altered world was in fact my new world.
As a grief counselor, I knew what was happening to me. I knew that in the wake of a profound loss it is impossible for the brain and the heart to comprehend the myriad ways that life is forever changed. We learn the reality by living the reality, hour after excruciating hour, day after endless day, night after sleepless night.
So now, five months into living the reality of the pandemic, the profound societal change has taken on a very personal shape for each of us: from lost loved ones to inability to gather together for comfort or celebration to cancelled social calendars to dwindling activities we normally turn to for self-care in times of stress. Our losses are large and small, individual and societal. The effect of these accumulating losses is that reality is sinking in. As Phillip Picardi says, we are “grieving the lives we once led, and perhaps the loss of hope that we may be able to return to them soon.”
And that can be exhausting. Daunting. Overwhelming. We may feel depleted, like we’ve used up all of our resources — just as we are realizing that what we thought was a 5K is actually a marathon, with many long miles still ahead of us.
Yet the acknowledgement of the new reality is a necessary and crucial step in coping with any profound loss. It is in itself another loss — we have to give up what we have been holding onto to survive — but it is ironically the magic key that frees us to adjust to our changed world, to find new meaning and new ways of being that will nurture and sustain us for the long haul. It is the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle, that, once found and put into place, becomes the focal point for fitting the scattered (some would say shattered) pieces back together.
We shift our focus from what was (or what should be) to what is; we divest our energy from the impossible so that we can invest it in the possible. We move from being powerless to being powerful. All by accepting what is. Just as it is.
Until that happens the brain works overtime, trying endlessly and fruitlessly to solve an unsolvable puzzle, mentally moving the pieces of life around to try to make it work. Once we acknowledge it is not working, we can set the worn pieces down and turn our attention to the rest of the puzzle, discovering the picture that emerges bit by bit as we fit first one, and then another piece together.
By accepting what is out of our control, we regain control. By accepting the change, we become agents of change, able to see more clearly, empowered to find our way forward. Step by step. Piece by piece.
This is a difficult process. You may feel anxious, depressed and tired as you grapple with acceptance. But I trust this process for you because I have been privileged to witness it over and over in my many years as a grief counselor as I have seen shattered lives rebuilt from this very place. And now I am having to trust this process for me — and for us all.
Phillip Picardi quote from his article “What to Do With the Sadness You're Feeling Right Now” https://www.gq.com/story/david-kessler-on-grief-and-sadness
Photo Credit: Ross Sneddon on Unsplash