Three lessons we've learned from the pandemic
Adversity experienced from the pandemic gave us each one of us the opportunity to learn lessons about ourselves and how we interact with the world. But what happens when we return to “normal”? How do we ensure that everything we’ve learned and become, we can take with us into our new chapter?
We can reflect on what we learned and gained from the pandemic and by defining and naming what we changed within us we declare that they have value. Moving forward we can consciously shift our life to keep those things protected and sacred, thereby taking them with us.
Here are the top things that were ingrained in us as the pandemic continued and how we are bringing those things with us as we move forward.
Letting go of external expectations
During the lockdown, your neighbor baked artisan bread from scratch and your coworker saved the world in a single leap. Ok, maybe that’s just how it felt. But it can feel like our lives are somehow filled with shortcomings. How do we give up the feeling that seems relentless?
When the pandemic started what we expected from ourselves and our lives drastically changed. Maybe before we lived the most efficient, productive, goal-oriented life possible. Now, we give ourselves grace as we are realizing how little control we have and what is most important and learning to be content. *
Living from that space alleviates rush and discontent, opening us to simplicity, depth, and breadth in our lives. When we come out of alignment, we can recognize it by our thoughts feelings, and actions. We can say, “I am coming out of alignment with what is important to me and release that. My life is enough.”
But how do we fall out of alignment to begin with? The conflict appears when we let in external expectations or comparisons thereby allowing us to deviate from what we hold as valuable. Expectations and comparisons can be anything like; what we thought our situation would look like, what we think it looks like for others, what we can realistically ask of ourselves. Even when we are pushing to excellence, where we are today is worthy and enough and cannot be compared.
Renegotiating when things are no longer working
As the world continues to change, what we want from the world changes. Change from our partnerships, our jobs, and our community. There is typically discomfort as change is an ending of the way things were. Renegotiating is about acknowledging what needs or wants have changed and how to go forward in new ways.
What is the single biggest emotion we feel when we want something different? Usually guilt. Any king of guilt: guilt needing or wanting anything different, guilt for expressing ourselves, or guilt for any discomfort we may be “causing” someone else. Have we covered it all, probably not. It’s complex and layered. Instead of solving all of, right now, perfectly (hi expectations) start the renegotiation process by first acknowledging what’s not working. Then listen to how you react to that. What do you feel when you say, this isn’t working something has to change?
Listening to what your emotional response when you renegotiate can be a guide to understanding the situation on a deeper level so you can have a strategy and a clear vision of what needs to change. If you are feeling afraid, you could have trust issues. If you are feeling unsure, you could be limiting yourself. What are you telling yourself?
The pandemic was a great opportunity to examine how we feel as we renegotiated our lives. Here is an example. Let’s say you do more of the housework than your partner and you want to negotiate the workload. Done. Now how do you feel asking for that? Guilt? Like you have defend why you want balance? Examine it. Are you feeling defensive because you don’t trust your partner to listen to you? Are you feeling resentful? This example examines the dynamics of your relationship effectively making it stronger if both sides want each person to feel valued.
A good tip as you go through this; don’t judge yourself Reflection requires you to be compassionate towards yourself as you have an honest look. Once you acknowledge how you feel, you can decide what to do next.
Creating solutions
A lot of the choices we had during the pandemic ceased: where we are allowed to go, or who we could see, or what we could do. Making the best out of those restrictions came from an ability to see potential everywhere: rethink and create. That’s the core of empowerment.
Empowerment is the process of seeing setbacks as opportunities to get creative. Are there difficult points in the empowerment process? Yes, typically it’s around grief or changing expectations. But after this, there is the incredible limitlessness of the human spirit and what each one of us is capable of doing. And it’s typically through conflict and setbacks that innovation occurs!
As the lockdown eases empowerment lesson might be the easiest lesson to take with us. Where we see setbacks, now we see a new approach. Where we see not enough, now we see we have ours. When faced with situations that limit us, now we can see them as limitless.
*Note: That doesn’t mean we don’t try to improve or grow. It does mean we offer ourselves compassion and acceptance as we do.
Image by Tim Copper found on Unsplash