This week marks one year since COVID changed everything. Lockdown. Masks. Social distancing. Hand sanitizer everywhere.
It has been a year of overwhelm and disappointment and strangeness. It has been a year of resilience and possibilities and being with not knowing. It’s been unbearable and yet somehow we’ve borne it. It’s been heartbreaking and yet what matters, what is essential has never been clearer. It’s been both / and.
The day lockdown began, I knew I wanted to teach classes online. With the help of my IT department (the wonder husband!), I recorded classes most every day, figuring I’d do it for a month or 6 weeks until we rode out the pandemic.
And we all know how that went.
Here’s what I wrote in May of 2020, about two months into COVID:
These days, I feel like my little boat is sitting low in the water. With its gunnels tight to the water’s surface, it doesn’t take too much of a wave (or a headline) to swamp my little boat.
This feeling of overwhelm isn’t new to me but it feel like I can slide into it more quickly these days. Too much is happening, too much is not happening, too much confusion, misinformation and untrustworthy motives. For me, it’s a recipe for feeling flooded and frozen, unable to think or act skillfully.
My invitation is to navigate overwhelm with the practice of breath then keep going.
Two quotes to support the practice:
Anxiety happens when you think you have to figure out everything all at once. Breathe. ~ Karen Salmansohn
When you’re going through hell, keep going. ~ Unknown (NOT Winston Churchill)
Notice the sensations of overwhelm, breathe and see it for what it is, then just take the next step. We don’t have to figure out everything right now. Just feel, breathe and keep going.