It has been tender times, and now tender is the new normal. Here is how we survive it...
And here is where we begin...
Pre Covid times, the world was shrinking in the sense that we could travel easily to some of the farthest reaches on earth.
During Covid, the world shrunk differently in that our daily life became confined to our houses. We came back out slowly, edging further, bit by bit, out into our streets again, our neighbourhoods and the wider city. Now we stretch back out over the globe.
And now, after all of this, are we in a third wave of our world shrinking, a shrinking within that brings us face to face with self? I feel like it has, and that isn’t a bad thing.
All this change has spun us around until we are dizzy. Purposely, it has finished the spin positioning us right where we resisted, facing deeply inward. After so long looking outward, worrying about the world, it is time to turn our focus in. We survive this next tender time by embracing a coming home to ourselves.
But where do we begin?
This past year has brought about some significant losses for many I hold dear. Going forward is tender when the world you knew, the world you knew yourself in, now has missing parts. The change of loss requires the brain to rewire itself, forging new neural pathways in response to the change. It has to understand itself without parts that were part of our life, which leaves us feeling unsure.
Whilst there are no words I am gifted with that ever feel enough in the face of painful change and loss. During such times my internal process goes along these lines:
Firstly, I feel all the feels. I wallow and wail and look to the sky, searching, wondering, pondering, questioning it all.
I space out, and whilst out there, after some time, I eventually come across a part of myself I had lost.
This gives me something to come back with, giving me a glimmer of hope.
It is the first footing I find into a softening forward after an unexpected change.
When it is too hard to ask, but you need to be held, gravity is always waiting. I lay down. I feel my weight embraced by the surest, steady physical pull on this earth, the earth.
Whilst lying down, I listen for water. I listen for the sure flow of life that tells me in some small way everything is moving along on, change embraced, which reminds me I can let go of trying and simply be carried forward with it.
I breathe.
I watch.
And, with new parts of me found and old ones slowing coming back to life, I put myself back together, changes threaded in.
It is all tender and fleeting. Somewhere right now, it is dawning, somewhere the day is setting, and somehow this brings me comfort, enough to soften into here and now.
That is enough for this moment.
And, enough for this moment is enough.
It is all we ever need.
This moment is where we begin.