It’s funny to witness so many people at a loss as to “what to do with themselves” these days because it’s like, welcome to my life. Yes, there is a pandemic, but this is pretty much life as usual for me. Brian and I both work from home, unless he is abroad, in which case I spend two weeks at a time truly being a hermit with two cats for company. People wonder what I do with myself out here in a country town where until recently I could count the number of people I knew on one hand. Well, every day is different, and maybe most of what I do won’t excite anyone else, but I wouldn’t trade this life for the world.
What I am feeling around me is not so much people going stir crazy from cabin fever, but rather inexperience in being with the Self, especially during a time of great external change and uncertainty. There is so much resistance to being quiet and still. Instead, there is a push to stay current with the news or an impulse to distract from said news either through entertainment or frantic action. How much inner wisdom is waiting to surface if only we seized the opportunity to listen.
And what better time to come home to the Self? This is the great invitation being issued right here, right now—a strange gift, if you choose to open to it, instead of wishing the world would go back to the way things were. Slow down, be at home, reconnect, don’t rush to action unless you truly are on the front lines or feeling called to respond from your deep center.
Use your breath to find your point of balance. From that strong, stable center, attend to whatever is rising up to be healed within you. Be with whatever feels fearful, separate, angry, bored, judgmental, confused, etc. And then really open to what becomes possible in this moment Now. What old ways no longer make sense to hold onto? What new ways of being is your Brilliant System calling forth? The Void is only scary at first encounter. Approach it as the space of infinite possibility, and you will be filled with excitement. How do you want to move through this experience? How do you want to Be on the other side of it? Ask earnest questions and pay attention to the responses.
This is what I myself am doing now, in spite of the habitual thought I “should” be working more. I usually regard invitations from clients as a sign I need to emerge from my hermitage, and I could so easily offer up a community call right now. Yet the timing just doesn’t feel right.
When I don’t fully like what my internal guidance is telling me I sometimes turn to cards, partly because I’m stubborn and also because I practice for kicks. Currently my tarot and oracle decks are consistently reinforcing the message to hold off, be patient. It frustrates my mind, which thinks it’s ready to be of service, but the deeper part of me knows I am gathering energy and coming into fuller alignment. I don’t know what that will look like or when it will be, yet I keep thinking of the woodpecker I saw the other day, who brings the gift of keeping its own rhythm.
So here I am, daily letting go of any urgency to be of “more service.” I recognize that the dopamine rush I crave from feeling helpful is just as out of balance as the impulse to hoard. The world will not end without my external contribution, and I will not disappear into inconsequence if I continue my quiet way of being for now. I know when I offer whatever it is I will offer next, it won’t be from the energy of “I have to do my part,” but simply “I am being truest to who I am to the best of my ability.” If I were to act now, it would be a betrayal of that spirit.
In the meantime, I continually come home to the Self, letting the breath of life guide and expand me in ways I can only half understand for now. It is a beautiful way of being, and every day I wish for more people on Earth to experience even just a bit of this paradise in this sacred time.
You have an entire universe in you waiting to be explored. You carry within a deep wellspring of well-being and your unique connection to the wisdom of the ages. How this pandemic is here to open you to life, maybe even to a more sustainable way of living, is all waiting to unfold. Breathe this perspective in and see what happens!
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