Exactly where you are.

As I write this post, each one of our lives has been completely disrupted within the last two months. Daily rhythms have been disturbed; maybe there has been a job loss or school cancelled for a child, perhaps an event postponed, travel suspended, or displacement from one’s home. It seems as though, within the blink of an eye, everything was different and yet, everything was simultaneously simplified. We find ourselves looking for answers without even knowing the questions to ask. We find ourselves unsure of what we are feeling or experiencing in real time as a response to what is happening around us. There seems to be constant uncertainty and an ever-changing landscape that contributes to this inability to conceptualize, or even grasp, our emotions.  

Hypervigilance is the stance that comes to mind as an adaptive response that I believe many (if not all) of us are living from as we work to navigate the current climate of our world. This is a survival skill that our lovely limbic system lends us in order to protect ourselves. It is what happens in response to threat (who hasn’t been inundated with fear messages the last two months??) in an effort to stay alive. When we are experiencing the world and our lives from this place of survival, we are unable to connect with our emotion in the same way because our limbic system says, “don’t slow down to feel, it isn’t safe!!” So, perhaps we feel numb, going through a new rhythm of motions that was foreign to us at the beginning of the year. Masks, hand sanitizer, washing for 20 seconds, six feet distance, Zoom, working from home, confinement. And, actually, think about how resilient we have already become in our adaptation to the upheaval of our norms. It is remarkable when you think about the stark change we have all faced and that somehow, life has continued in a strange new way.

 If you find yourself struggling to understand what your “new normal” is at this time, and how you are doing, really doing, within this space, I offer the science of the brain to give yourself permission to recognize your survival response. Because messages are changing daily, we are constantly adapting to new threats, and thus, our brains are telling us there is no time to feel, no time to slow down, no time to breathe. Your survival response may feel familiar, like an old friend that has kept you safe before, maybe causing you reach for a behavior that you have been working to kick. I encourage you to find grace for the place that helps to keep you afloat. While this response is an attempt to keep us alive, it is also critical to be honest with yourself instead of shaming. Of course you are trying to find a way to get through this chaos. Of course you are unable to process in real time the gravity of what you are handling. It is a lot. And when you

I will also offer the space to consciously grieve the losses that this world shift has created in your life. There is no loss that is too big or too small. There is no feeling that is too big or too small. There is simply the truth of where you are, right now. And, ironically, this simplification of life has created space for you to just be, mostly because there is no other option. Allowing for mere presence, which our otherwise overcrowded world and brains do not seem to have any capacity. This presence can show up in many different ways as a gift to yourself to slow down. Maybe the gift of this presence could be the antidote to our hypervigilance, where we are actively choosing to face the fear by recognizing and observing the very moment. This place can be occupied through breath, one moment at a time, one day at a time.  There is no right or wrong way to be right now. We are all doing our best, and your best is enough.